The Rise of the Hung Temple: Shifting Constructions of Place, Religion and Nation in Contemporary Vietnam
Date
2016
Authors
Ngo, Thi Diem Hang
Editors
Advisors
Drew, Georgina
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Thesis
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Abstract
This thesis provides an ethnographic exploration of the Hung Temple in Phu Tho province, Vietnam. As a temple dedicated to the Hung Kings at a location that is promoted as a national heritage site, the Hung Temple provides the setting for different debates about ongoing cultural, political and religious transformations in contemporary Vietnam. I focus on the state-led construction of place and the associated efforts to foster nationalism, popular religiosity and a sense of shared identity amongst the Vietnamese. I especially emphasise the meanings that people produce about the Hung Temple as a historically significant location, an important work place and as a sacred site of national veneration to the ancestors that are now revered as deities. My framing of these issues is sensitive to the state’s shifting relationship to religion and to ancestor worship in a period of economic and political transition. I employ practice theory in particular to illuminate the understandings and connections that different facets of society have with the Hung Temple. The use of practice theory is important because it helps me identify how the state has constructed the Hung Temple as well as the potentially unanticipated ways that different people relate to the Hung Kings and the Temple. My approach includes attention to the ambitions of national rulers who construct an official narrative of the nation through their depiction of the Hung Temple’s significance. It also includes the relationship that temple priests, administrators, and bureaucrats have with the temple complex and its surrounding landscape. My practice theory approach additionally gives attention to the people who develop their own individual practices of worship to the Hung Kings and who come to see the Hung Kings as potent deities from whom they can receive the blessings and benefits that will help improve their lives. Finally, by focusing on moments of national celebration on the Hung Kings’ anniversary, I show how these different facets of society come together under the same purpose, but sometimes to different ends. In particular, I use the anniversary celebrations to underline how dynamic the relationships are that people develop with the Hung Kings and how these relationships are not entirely determined by the state’s framing of the Hung Kings. I also show how the people in attendance are not necessarily in harmony despite the state’s efforts to foster a codified, communal practice at the Temple. Through these explorations, the thesis highlights the discourses and actions of a number of social actors who participate in place-based practices at the Hung Temple. The text offers a strongly ethnographic and anthropological engagement with a prominent heritage site that adds to our understandings of the relationship between politics and religion, as well as to our understandings of how these domains impact upon the practices and identities of citizens. Ultimately, the thesis uses the case of the Hung Temple, and of the growing embrace of their ritual worship, as a way to add nuance to discussions of what it means to be Vietnamese in contemporary times.
School/Discipline
School of Social Sciences : Anthropology and Development Studies
Dissertation Note
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 2016
Provenance
This electronic version is made publicly available by the University of Adelaide in accordance with its open access policy for student theses. Copyright in this thesis remains with the author. This thesis may incorporate third party material which has been used by the author pursuant to Fair Dealing exceptions. If you are the owner of any included third party copyright material you wish to be removed from this electronic version, please complete the take down form located at: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/legals