Near Light We Shine

Buddhists in Vietnam are meeting humanitarian needs by popularizing charity. Vietnam's rapid urbanization has intensified social service demands while straining public infrastructure. In response, charity volunteers are building roads, subsidizing medicine, and giving away food. Near Light We Shine draws on two years of ethnographic research conducted in Ho Chi Minh City to analyse why and how people join these grassroots movements. Volunteers adapt practices from Vietnam's dominant religion--Buddhism--to attract donors and advocate for different programming styles. However, there can also be clashes over the ultimate purpose of philanthropy. Volunteers approach both Buddhism and altruism in different ways depending on their personal values and demographic communities. These communities include low-income day laborers, elderly women, Buddhist nuns, urban migrants, college students, and queer men. Volunteers promote altruism by citing the proverb, "What is near ink, darkens; what is near light, shines." They use this axiom to distinguish themselves as good people "with heart" [co tam], whose charities are more caring and ethical than other organizations. Disputes over who practices true charity are rooted in different phenomenological and ontological experiences of how altruism influences the world. Volunteers promote distinct Buddhist cosmologies that are traditional, pro-socialist, sceptical, queer, modern, scientific, magical, and often at odds with one another. Altogether, people draw on Buddhism as an adaptable resource to build moral communities and transform the world. Near Light We Shine provides unprecedented insights into how Buddhism functions as a highly adaptable tool for people to build moral communities in Southeast Asia.

Sara Ann Swenson is an Assistant Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College. She researches contemporary Buddhism in Vietnam. She holds a PhD and MPhil in Religion from Syracuse University, an MA in Comparative Religion from Iliff School of Theology, and a BA in English from the University of Minnesota Duluth.