Marché des croyances et socialisme de marché au Viêtnam

The author deciphers the various axis of a return of « beliefs » in a post communist Vietnam, which has however not abandoned an almost fifty years-old official discourse. One may thus witness a cult dedicated to Lieuh Hanh, a mythical figure that is restructuring historic and cultural identity. The second axis turns around personages whose practices embody geomancy, magnetism, meditation and astrology ; they are the new actors of individual and collective salvation. Finally the « mediators of the dead », a category that derives from the previous one ? have to render to their families the bodies of those dead or disappeared during the last wars of liberation of the country, through some sort of exorcism. The analysis brings to light the way in which the State uses the new rituals for political aims.