Nguyen Thi Thu Huong

After receiving her Bachelor’s degree (with honours) from National University of Hanoi in 2000, Nguyen Thu Huong was retained as a teaching and research assistant at the Department of Ethnology (now Anthropology). In 2002, she received a Nuffic scholarship to study at the International School for Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Amsterdam where she received her MA (cum laude) in 2004. Her thesis entitled A great loss of one’s own worth: case study of rape in present-day Vietnam through the victim’s eyes was based on an extensive three-month field research carried out in Hanoi, Vietnam. As a part of her Master’s research, she set up a counseling office for sexually abused women and children in 2003 which is currently run by a local NGO, the Research Center on Family Health and Community Development (CEFACOM).

From 2004-2006, besides her teaching duties at the university, she followed up on the same subject with financial support from the Toyota Foundation (Japan). In 2006, she received a  Nuffic fellowship to conduct her Ph.D. studies at the University of Amsterdam, and has joined the Amsterdam School for Social Research since then.

Her current dissertation project, Rape and gender in the transitional context of Vietnam, focuses on how female survivors of rape in Vietnam cope with their traumatic experiences and how this is affected by social discourses on gender and sexuality. Theoretically the research is based on contemporary theories about agency as well as on the anthropological vision of embodied experience.

Publications (selected):

Journal articles

• Anthropology at ‘home’ through the lens of intersubjectivity: countertransference while interviewing a ‘vulnerable’ Vietnamese woman. Medische Antropologie, Vol. 19, issue 1 (2007), 23-38.
• Rape in Vietnam seen from socio-cultural and historical perspectives. Journal of Asian History, Vol. 40, issue 2 (2006), 185-206.

Book review

Anne Raffin, Youth Mobilization in Vichy Indochina and its Legacies, 1940-1970. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2005. Review by Nguyen Thu Huong and Frances Gouda. H-France Review Vol. 7 (May 2007), No. 54.

Monograph series

2008. Quan diem van hoa-xa hoi va lich su ve hiep dam o Viet Nam (Rape in Vietnam seen from socio-cultural and historical perspectives) of the CIHP Encourages project supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. Hanoi: The gioi Publishers.

Conference papers published or reprinted in book form

2008. “Tackling taboos: methodological approaches in researching rape in Vietnam,” in the proceedings of the International Conference on Anthropology in Vietnam (Binh Chau, December 15-18, 2007). Hochiminh City: Vietnam National University of Hochiminh City Press.

2006. “Vuot qua ranh gioi mau da: nghien cuu mot truong hop nhan con nuoi Viet-My” (Adopting across the color-line: a case study of Vietnamese-American transracial adoption), in Mot chang duong nghien cuu lich su, 2001-2006 (A passage of historical studies, 2001-2006), Faculty of History, National University of Hanoi, 251-272. Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers.

Book manuscript

Rape in the @ era: from an anthropological perspective (forthcoming), The Gioi publishers, Hanoi (with financial support from the Toyota Foundation, Tokyo,  Japan).

Conference papers

2009. “A double-edged weapon: Representations of rape in print media in modern Vietnam.” Paper accepted for presentation at IASSCS VII Conference: Contested Innocence - Sexual Agency in Public and Private Space, to be held in Hanoi, Vietnam on April 15th to 18th, 2009. Abstract will appear in the special supplement Culture, Health and Sexuality.

2007. “Tackling taboos: methodological approaches in researching rape in Vietnam,” paper presented at the International Conference on Anthropology in Vietnam, co-organized by University of Toronto and University of Social Sciences and Humanities of Hochiminh City. Binh Chau, Binh Duong: December 15-18, 2007.

2006. “Negotiating cultural diversity: the case of Muslim radicalization in the Netherlands,” paper presented at the Asia - Pacific Youth Forum, co-organized by the Japan Foundation and the Okinawa Prefectural Government. Okinawa, Japan: 15-24/01.

2005. “Adopting across the color-line: a case study of Vietnamese-American transracial adoption,” paper presented at the 67th Annual Conference of National Council on Family Relations, Phoenix, AZ. (USA): 16 -19/11.

2005. “Traumatic experiences of female rape survivors in Vietnam,” paper presented at the 5th IASSCS Biennial Conference, San Francisco, CA. (USA):21-24/6. Abstract appeared in the special supplement Culture, Heath and Sexuality, 6/ 2005.