Morality and the Making of a Community

Morality, intimately tied to the political (Fassin 2012), is explored from three perspectives in this chapter: One is to examine what traders in Ninh Hiệp perceive as moral by analysing moral discourses and looking at how these moral rules are confirmed or contested by financial practices. The moral rules following from these discourses and practices inform the actions of villagers and contribute to the formation of a village identity. The second perspective looks at morality as an important element of governance and how it legitimises efforts of the state to advance the marketisation process under the mantle of modernisation and civilisation. The third perspective focuses on traders’ performances of a particular moral identity so as to counter the state’s ambiguous actions. (121 words)