ABSTRACT
Ethical citizenship is an idea central to the economic restructuring process that works in tandem with the sovereign rule, in which citizenship components are reimagined and rearticulated in ways corresponding to the neoliberal logic and morality of self-reliance and self-care. In Vietnam, the socialist state also uses morality to shape the malleable subject not only of the market rule but also of the state’s rule. This paper presents a form of citizenship associated with moral and gender norms practised by women working in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Vietnam. Women’s choices regarding philanthropy, consumption of goods, and acts of remoralising wealth indicate that morality, while accentuating women’s prestige, also engenders their inferiority in Vietnam’s market society.
