Enacting nationalism through youthful mobilities? Youth, mobile phones and digital capitalism in a Lao-Vietnamese borderland

• Published in: Nations and nationalism Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 209 - 229
• Main Authors: Huijsmans, Roy, Lan, Trần Thị Hà
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.04.2015
• Subjects: Anderson, Benedict; Appropriation; borderlands; Borders; Capitalism; Cellular telephones; Defence industry; digital capitalism; Ethnic minorities; Ethnic Relations; Ethnicity; Minority Groups; Mobile phones; Mobility; Nationalism; Services; Sociocultural Factors; Telephone Communications; Vietnam; Youth
• ISSN: 1354-5078; 1469-8129
• DOI: 10.1111/nana.12095

Mobile phone use has become a defining feature of what it means to be young, and the relatively remote Lao‐Vietnamese borderland area that is the focus of this study is no exception. Drawing on Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, this article investigates the interplay between the everyday styles of being young, the forces of digital capitalism and the enactment of nationalism. We do this with a focus on ethnic minority youth's appropriation of the mobile services offered by Viettel, the most popular mobile services provider in the study area and owned by the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence. We suggest that the everyday performances of being young, revolving around the mobile phone, are affected by the forces of digital capitalism. We further suggest that the cultural context of Viettel's digital capitalism is embedded in a fabric of Vietnamese nationalism, leading ethnic minority youth, consciously and unconsciously, to enact nationalism through their everyday styles of being young.