Truong Thi Thu Hang

Dr. Hang Thi Thu Truong is a lecturer at the Faculty of Anthropology, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University in Hochiminh City). She received her doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. Her research focuses on tourism, new religion, arts and symbols, and development. She has been conducting her research in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, the Central Highlands of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Japan on the issues of negotiation and performativity of identity, embodied agency, and the invention of tradition within the context of the intertwinement of local culture and tourism in particular and development projects in general. During her stay at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, she will be working on her ethnographic papers focusing on local tourism involvement among agricultural communities in the Mekong Delta and doing library research on contemporary anthropological theories and methods.