Sonic Socialism - Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi

"A well-written, keenly observed, theoretically rich, and historically unique account of life in Hanoi during the first year of the pandemic. It provides a significant expansion of our knowledge of the local-level workings of state power during the pandemic and a theoretically robust exploration of the acoustics of disaster governance."--Tine Mette Gammeltoft, author of Haunting Images: A Cultural Account of Selective Reproduction in Vietnam

"This is a fascinating and ambitious text that brings together the experiences of COVID, still ongoing and not quite over, across multiple temporalities and localities. Sonic Socialism does tremendous work in being one of the first ethnographic accounts coming out of the COVID era."--Jennifer Hsieh, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan

"Christina Schwenkel's turn toward 'sensory attunement' and sonic relations is breathtaking. She fled the US for lockdown in Hanoi and placed her trust in Vietnamese care campaigns. Her autoethnographic soundwalks through her neighborhood and into the nation opened my ears. And how she listens! Schwenkel is already the go-to scholar on postsocialist aesthetics, humanitarian practices, and infrastructural theory. Her deep knowledge of Vietnam comes together powerfully in this book as she takes a giant step into sound studies, offering new insights into Vietnam, the pandemic, and a noisy public sphere."--Deborah Wong, Professor Emerita of Music, University of California, Riverside

About the author

Christina Schwenkel is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, and author of Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam.

Product details

• Authors: Christina Schwenkel, Schwenkel Christina
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 25.11.2025
• EAN: 9780520423275
• ISBN: 978-0-520-42327-5
• No. of pages: 268
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Pre and early history; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > General; Social sciences, law, business > Ethnology > Ethnology; Vietnam, Hanoi, Ethnic Studies, MEDICAL / Public Health, SCIENCE / Acoustics & Sound, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, South East Asia, Infectious & contagious diseases, Public health & preventive medicine, Social and cultural anthropology, Wave mechanics (vibration & acoustics), Public health and preventive medicine, Infectious and contagious diseases, Wave mechanics (vibration and acoustics), SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / Asian Studies