The relationship between cultural capital and social capital in the transition of Vietnam at the end of the 20th century and early 21st century

Tóm tắt

In Vietnam in the last 10 years, there have been some issues of social life prominently discussed on the media, such as “the degradation of morality, personality and life style”, “exotic culture”, “emotionless disease”,... The cause of this condition is attributed to cultural changes in the negative direction. Cultural and social studies over the past two decades are almost consistent with the argument that cultural change is the root cause of social unrest, creating barriers to development. However, to say “social degradation”, what does it refer to as the comparative original status? And to say “cultural change”, which transition context does it fit in (before and after 1975, before and after 1986, or before and after 2000)? There is not yet sufficient answers for these questions. The question of context needs to be answered first in order to find out the causes. Besides, the impact of culture on society has been said as a default, but in fact, what is the working mechanism of this impact has not been fully explained. To contribute to the explanation of these issues, the paper explores culture as a form of capitals in a transformed society, from the perspective of the impact between cultural capital and social capital; it aims to search for the root causes and solutions.