Motsättningen mellan statlig intervention och tradition: En kvalitativ fallstudie av barnäktenskap i Nam Dich Vietnam

Abstract

Using interviews conducted within the municipality of Nam Dich, Vietnam, this qualitative study explores how ethnic minority parents and children navigate around the state's supervision in order to preserve their traditional practices of child marriages. Moreover, the research explores the roles and expectations between individuals within an ethnic minority family as a collective unit. Using governmentality supported by the concept of state evasion, culture bearers and empowerment, I argue that understanding child marriage as a phenomenon requires analysis of cultural context. The paper starts with an introduction of the ongoing relation between the Vietnamese state and ethnic minority traditions related to child marriage. While the Vietnamese state ́s modernization projects aim to empower individuals by creating more freedom within the process of marriage and increasing the opportunity for education and work, certain ethnic minority groups want to uphold their cultural ways of marriage when parental arrangement occurs from an early age. After introducing the theoretical framework, I will present my data collecting methods for this study. The results show that ethnic minorities in Nam Dich tend to preserve the tradition of child marriage through different state evasion techniques such as deceiving, hiding and adapting to challenges. Furthermore, the results show that state promotion of modern values, such as freedom of choice before marriage and educational opportunities, has reduced the number of child marriages in Vietnam. However for some children the modernization project increases the likelihood of child marriage due to pressure to preserve cultural traditions.