ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a theoretical framework derived from classic Bourdieusian sociology, modified with feminist, cultural, and globalization theories. The discussion draws on ethnographic fieldwork, comprising participant observation among urban middle-class women in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam from 2000 to 2015. The chapter considers the women's stories as the interconnected stories of sisters whose futures are entangled with their natal families as well as their (future) husband's families. Their stories illustrate the massive impact of globalization on women of Vietnam, and how this plays out differentially in processes of development and social change in urban middle-class women's lives. This occurs particularly in the context of choices about professional work and marriage in achieving desires for normative social status, as well as in meeting desires for upward social mobility and a secure future in post-reform Vietnam. The chapter draws on the interpretation in analyzing choice-making in urban middle-class Vietnamese women's lives.
