Transactions with God

Market, Moralities and Agency in the Worship of the Goddess of the Treasury in Northern Vietnam

Bibliographic Data

ID2174979
AuthorsMinh Chau Lam (corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume20
Issue2
Pages111-128
Publication date2019-03-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanberra Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0314-9099 • E-ISSN: 1740-9314
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14442213.2018.1559876
OpenAlexW2910952698
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited17

This article explores the complex moral choices of those who have negotiated the encounter between marketisation and distinctive religious traditions within and beyond Asia. I focus on the dramatic rise in the worship of the Goddess of the Treasury in northern Vietnam since the onset of marketisation. She is believed to possess a special power: to grant those who borrow a sum from her symbolic treasury the same amount as real profit and actual wealth through earthly business activities. I show that the Goddess's rise does not reflect the universalising effects of marketisation, but instead how Vietnamese religious ideas of faithfulness and sincerity continue to inform worshippers’ choices as active moral agents. Rather than robotic doers of market principles or passive followers of ‘superstitious’ beliefs in rejection of market changes, worshippers are creative actors who innovatively employ traditional moralities in novel ways to meet their present-day quest for economic prosperity

Agency (philosophy) · Moral economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Prosperity · Sincerity · Social science · Sociology · Treasury · Vietnamese · Worship · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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