Working Paper 128
Title
Context and Value: anti-contextualist rationality and resistance. The case of burial customs in late socialist Vietnam
Author
Markus Schlecker Department
Department
‘Resilience and Transformation in Eurasia’
Year of publication
2010
Number of pages
17
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Working Paper 128
Abstract
The paper draws attention to Georg Simmel’s early scepticism toward socialism and his criticism of Marx’s labour theory of value. It demonstrates the interpretive utility of Simmel’s own model of valuation for a study of state-driven rationality projects that aim at decontextualising knowledge and popular resistance to such projects. The Vietnamese case serves here as an extreme example of a more widespread rationality hubris. The argument is illustrated by way of a few case-studies on burial practices from rural Vietnam. The aim of this paper is to approach the problem of context, specifically people’s frames of reference for action, to study the way context has become an object of reflection and literally a problem through state-driven rationality projects.