A Seminar: Understanding Body Image and Gender Identity in Vietnam

 

On March 21, 2012, the Gender and Society Research Center (GAS) at Hoa Sen University held a seminar presented by Dr. Judith Ehlert entitled “Food & Eating Cultures: Looking through a lens to fully understand Body Image and Gender Identity in Vietnam“. Dr. Ehlert is a sociologist by training who works as a senior researcher at the Center for Developmental Research (Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung, ZEF) at the University of Bonn,Germany where she received her PhD in Developmental Research in 2011. Her PhD dissertation focused on flooding, local and environmental knowledge, and agrarian change in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Her current research focuses on socio-cultural food dynamics and eating habits in Vietnam. She has worked in Vietnam since 2007 and has ample field research experience in applying qualitative social science research methods and ethnography. Prior to her present position, she worked on her MA thesis in Cambodia on the topic of participation and civil society in development. In addition to her regional and methodological focus, her thematic interests lie in food culture, the sociology and anthropology of food and body as well as civil society and knowledge. 

 

Although Dr. Ehlert did not work systematically on food, she was rather overwhelmed by the many instances in which she observed food to be extremely relevant in the everyday life of people. For example, she lived and shared meals with host farming families and got quite some insight on the production side of food, specifically on rice and fish culture. Those families explained to her in detail what good and tasty rice is, what regional specialities are, why they prefer wild fish from lakes and ponds over those from fish farms or free roaming chicken over Western chicken raised in captivity. She also had numerous opportunities to participate in rural weddings and religious festivals in which food played a very important role and she observed food on every family altar. Whenever she is back in Germany, after field research, she spends a large amount of time with her Vietnamese PhD collegueas.  Oftentimes she found they cooked Vietnamese food together at home and when they went to a restarurant they also selected a Vietnamese restaurant. All of these examples made it very clear to her that the Vietnamese seem to have a very strong culinary identity and that they are very proud of the diversity of their meals. These impressions developed in her mind for a long time and helped her to come up with what she wanted to present to the audience at the seminar.

Dr. Ehlert said that food can also easily go unrecognized. Everybody has to eat to sustain themselves; everybody eats and often times eating is a process that is very routine; we eat habitually, we do not think much about it, we just do it. In a quote from Avieli (2012), one of the few food ethnographers working in Vietnam, you can see that this is also the reason why, for decades in the social sciences, not much attention has been paid to food. In the sociology of the family or religion, food was mentioned, however, only used to explain broader structures in society – like family or religion. The same holds true for the field of anthropology. Food research was very much in the hands of nutritionists and medical doctors. It was looked at from a biological and physiological point of view and less from a socio-cultural perspective.

In addition, when discussing food, we find that it is about food security. Food security is certainly a very important subject when we consider that by the year 2050, we expect to have about 9 billion people living on this globe. People in some parts of the world have been combating the world’s hunger, especially in Africa, while in other regions people experience an abundance of food. Therefore, several of the interesting questions for research, especially for societies that currently experience rapid economic growth and integration, are:

• What strategies do people apply in order to maneuver in a growing world of plenty?
• How do we make choices when we buy food in the context of variety and food abundance?
• In the context of diverse discourse around what is good, healthy food‚ what is modern food and eating lifestyle in this context, how do we reformulate needs, review our food-related knowledge and the values and meanings we assign to it?

Dr. Ehlert stressed that economic growth and globalization often opens access to new varieties of foreign products. When an economic situation becomes more relaxed, people spend time and money not only on the quantity of food but on the quality of food. They care more about food and beauty than at times when everything is focused on making a sheer living. In the context of diversifying livestyles and ways of living, the food and beauty industry plays a dominant role in attracting consumers to buy their products and enjoy their services. Thus, Caldwell says in this regard that global economic integration is coupled with a growing commercial and consumeristic interest in the body – that is in the body that eats or is being fed.

Vietnam is an exemplary example of a society experiencing rapid socio-economic growth. Following Vietnam’s intimate experiences with food scarcity as a consequence of three Indochina wars, food nowadays is no longer an issue of survival and quantity. The economic boom turns people’s experience with severe food shortages into one of having increased access to and diversification of foreign foodstuffs. This is especially the case for the emerging urban middle-class. The annual average growth rate of Vietnam’s GDP from 2000 to 2011 accounted for more than 7% which increased the people’s purchasing power; the bulk of  people’s average consumption was spent on foodstuffs and eating out (German Trade & Investment 2012). Economic reforms (Dổi mới) had an impact on the modernization of the food distribution sector. Supermarkets increasingly attract local consumers who have attained a different purchasing power and compete with traditional markets and retailers (Cadhilon et al. 2006; Fugié & Bricas 2010). Between 1995 and 2005 modern retail sales increased at an annual rate of 15%. Nowadays, Vietnam’s retail sector is ranked among the top-three countries  receiving direct foreign investment (Mergenthaler 2008: 6f.). As the Vietnamese market offered an increasingly large affluent population thirsty for modern brands, the fast food industry also started to invest in Vietnam and accounted for a 13% growth in 2010 (Brown 2012).

The growing consumerist interest in its ‘eating’ body puts consumers in an ambivalent situation as can be read from Counihan’s quote: “on the one hand there is an abundance of food available and on the other hand you as a consumer have to be concerned with being modest in food consumption. The consumer has to find a balance of pleasure without falling into the trap of self-indulgence.”

Based on the above information, Dr. Ehlert developed the following research proposal:

 

Research objectives:

• Transformation of eating cultures in the context of globalization by casting light on the interlinking of body images, beauty ideals and the development of dietary patterns, self-control and indulgence
• Gender as a decisive analytical category: bodily attractiveness and  the notion of ‘virtuous” Vietnamese  women (Leshkowitch 2012).

Conceptual framework ─ Body & Food:

• The concept of the conscious shaping of bodies will be used to develop an identity project to determine the sense of a person’s self image (Giddens 1991; Beck 1992), and expression of a certain lifestyle (Bourdieu)
• People can turn to food as a means of self-transformation (Avieli 2012; Lupton 1996)
• Exerting discipline over eating habits as a form of control over one’s own body
• Bodies become recognized as the main center of social control and power (Foucault 1984):
• socio-cultural norms on beauty
• gender roles
• commercial advertising by the food industry
• state
• scientific knowledge of body and health
• Determination by people’s body shapes and respective eating practices by outside forces
• People who have the privilege of using their own experience concerning food and health over other sources of information such as medical and scientific advice and diet promotions of the food industry.

Research questions:

 

• What typologies of eating practices and beauty ideals emerge as an historical perspective?
• Which factors shape eating practices and women’s and men’s relationships and meanings toward food and attitudes about their bodies?

 

Methodology

• Eleven months of field research in HCMC
• Qualitative research methods/ethnographic approach
• Entry point: culinary spheres including households, supermarkets, the gastronomic sector, public food provisioning such as school cafiterias and nutrition counselling.

The seminar attracted the participation of more than 50 people and their attention was focused on discussion of the following points:

• How women’s growing concern with gaining weight and ideals of body shape and beauty impact on the way they control their eating behavior and develop certain dietary patterns.
• What role does the slimming industry, fashion magazines or the advertising industry play in that process?
• What roles do men play in defining what is beautiful when it comes to bodily attractiveness of women?
• Notwithstanding scientifically defined standards such as Body Mass Index (BMI), Dr. Ehlert is all the more interested in peoples’ perception – meaning the female and male perceptions of when a person can be considered being fat, skinny or ‘just right’. 
• How these perceptions play into the actual behavior of eating and dieting of women and men. It would be interesting to discuss with the students which social groups in society would be interesting to compare in this research study and the reasons for them.

Reported by Doan Thi Ngoc