Focusing on contemporary Việt Nam, this article examines the monumentalizing project concerning the life, revolutionary career and political legacy of Hồ Chí Minh. After Hồ's death and especially after the introduction of dồi mồi, or renovation policies, the revolutionary state instigated a process of making memorials out of the places where he lived and struggled for the nation, projecting his biography onto the country's landscape. The article explores a series of ambiguities and uncertainties that, in a Derridian manner, haunt the state commemoration of Hồ Chí Minh, and that are primarily manifested in his incomplete kinship status and imperfect death.
Bá Ngọc (2005), Kể Chuyện: Lăng, Nhà Sàn, Bảo Tàng Hồ Chí Minh [A Few Notes on the Mausoleum, House on Stilts and the Museum of Ho Chi Minh], Nhà Xuất Bạn Lao Đông, Hà Nội.
2.
Bảo Tàng Hồ Chí Minh, Hà Nội [HCM Museum, Hanoi] (1997), Bảo Tàng và Di tích Lủu Niệm ở Việt Nam [Museums and Vestiges in Việt Nam], Nhà Xuất Bạn Thành Niện, Hà Nội.
3.
Bảo Tàng Hồ Chí Minh, Thừa Thiên Huế [HCM Museum, Hue] (2001), Di Tích- Địa Điểm Di Tích Lủu Niệm:Bác Hồ và Gia Đình Ngủởi ở Thừa Thiên-Huế [Vestiges and Memorial Sites of Uncle Ho and his Family in the Province], Nhà Xuất Bạn Thuận Hóa, Huế.
4.
BarméGeremie (1996), Shades of Mao: the Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader, East Gate Books, New York.
5.
BrocheuxPierre (2007), Hồ Chí Minh: from Revolutionary to Icon, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
6.
Central Committee of the Communist Party (2002), President Hồ Chí Minh's Testament, Thế Giới Publishers, Hà Nội.
7.
Chambert-LoirHenriReidAnthony, eds (2002), The Potent Dead: Ancestors, Saints and Heroes in Contemporary Indonesia, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW.
8.
ChauAdam (2010), ‘Mao's travelling mangoes’: Food as relic in revolutionary China’, Past and Present, Vol 5, pp 256–274.
9.
DerridaJacques (1992), ‘“Force of law”: The mystical foundation of authority’, in CornellDrucillaRosenfeldMichel, eds, Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, Routledge, New York, pp 3–67.
10.
DerridaJacques (1993), Specters of Marx. The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, Routledge, New York.
11.
DuikerWilliam (2000), Hồ Chí Minh, a Life, Library of Congress, New York.
12.
EndresKirsten (2001), ‘Local dynamics of renegotiating ritual space in North Vietnam: The case of theDinh’, Sojourn, Vol 16, pp 71–103.
13.
Fel'ShtinskiiIuriiG. (2004), ‘The mystery of Lenin's death’, Russian Studies in History, Vol 42, No 3, pp 26–76.
14.
GiebelChristopher (2004), Imagined Ancestries of Vietnamese Communism. Ton Duc Tang and the Politics of History and Memory, University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA.
15.
Ho Van Tao (1954), Le Mystérieux Ho-Chi-Minh, Association d'Études et d'Informations Politiques Internationales, Paris.
16.
HubbertJennifer (2006), ‘(Re)collecting Mao: Memory and fetish in contemporary China’, American Ethnologist, Vol 33, No 2, pp 145–161.
17.
KwonHoenik (2006), After the Massacre. Commemoration and Consolation in Ha My and My Lai, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
18.
LacoutureJean (1968), Hồ Chí Minh (trans Peter Wiles), Allen Lane, Penguin, London.
19.
Mai LuậnĐắc XuânTrần Dân Tiên (2005), Hồ Chí Minh: From Childhood to President of Việt Nam, Thê Giới Publishers, Hà Nội.
20.
MalarneyShawn Kingsley (2001), ‘The Fatherland remembers your sacrifice: Commemorating war dead in north Vietnam’, in TaiHuế-Tam Ho, ed, The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, pp 46–74.
21.
MalarneyShawn Kingsley (2002), Culture, Ritual and Revolution in Vietnam, RoutledgeCurzon, New York.
22.
MaroudaMarina (2009), ‘Lives intimately connected: The living and the dead in contemporary central Việt Nam’, PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.
23.
MurckAlfreda (2007), ‘Golden mangoes: The life cycle of a Cultural Revolution symbol’, Archives of Asian Art, Vol 5, pp 1–21.
24.
Navaro-YashinYael (2009), ‘Affective spaces, melancholic objects: Ruination and the production of anthropological knowledge’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (NS), Vol 15, pp 1–18.
25.
Phạm Văn Đồng (1999), Hồ Chí Minh: a Man, a Nation, an Age and a Cause, Thê Giới Publishers, Hà Nội.
26.
Quinn-JudgeSophie (2002), Hồ Chí Minh: the Missing Years, C. Hurst, London.
27.
SchreinerKlausH. (2002), ‘National ancestors: The ritual construction of nationhood’, in Chambert-LoirHenriReidAnthony, eds, The Potent Dead: Ancestors, Saints and Heroes in Contemporary Indonesia, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, pp 183–203.
28.
SchriftMelissa (2001), Biography of a Chairman Mao Badge: the Creation and Mass Consumption of a Personality Cult, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.
29.
SchwenkelChristina (2009), The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational Remembrance and Representation, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
30.
SiegelJamesT. (1998), A New Criminal Type in Jakarta. Counter-Revolution Today, Duke University Press, Durham, NC.
31.
SmithTrevorJ. (1998), ‘The collapse of Lenin's personality cult in Soviet Russia, 1985–1995’, Historian, Vol 60, No 2, pp 325–338.
32.
Ssorin-ChaikovNikolai (2006), ‘On heterochrony: Birthday gifts to Stalin, 1949’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (NS), Vol 12, pp 355–375.
33.
StolerAnn Laura (2008), ‘Imperial debris: Reflections on ruins and ruination’, Cultural Anthropology, Vol 23, No 2, pp 191–219.
34.
TaiHuế-Tam Ho (1995), ‘Monumental ambiguity: The state commemoration of Hồ Chí Minh’, in TaylorKeithW.WhitmoreJohnK., eds, Essays into Vietnamese Pasts, Studies on Southeast Asia, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, pp 272–288.
35.
TaiHuế-Tam Ho, ed (2001), The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
36.
TaussigMichael (1997), The Magic of the State, Routledge, New York.
37.
TrìnhQuang Phú (2002), From Sen Village to Nha Rong Quay, Thê Giới Publishers, Hà Nội.
38.
TumarkinNina (1983), ‘Political ritual and the cult of Lenin’, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol 5, No 2, pp 203–206.
39.
VerderyKatherine (1999), The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change, Columbia University Press, New York.
