Southeast Asian Studies
Volume 1, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 213-246
A posthumous return from exile: The legacy of an anticolonial religious leader in today’s Vietnam (Article)
Hoskins J.*
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a
Anthropology Department, University of Southern California, Grace Ford Salvatori, Los Angeles, CA 90089, United States
Abstract
The 2006 return of the body Phạm Công Tắc, one of the founding spirit mediums of Caodaism and its most famous 20th century leader, re-awakened controversies about his life and legacy among Caodaists both in Vietnam and in the diaspora. This paper argues that his most important contribution lay in formulating a utopian project to support the struggle for independence by providing a religiously based repertoire of concepts to imagine national autonomy, and a separate apparatus of power to achieve it. Rather than stressing Tắc’s political actions, which have been well documented in earlier studies (Blagov 2001; Bernard Fall 1955; Werner 1976), I focus instead on a reading of his sermons, his séance transcripts and commentaries, histories published both in Vietnam and in the diaspora, and conversations with Caodaists in several countries when the appropriateness of returning his body was being debated. © Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.
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Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84976324405&partnerID=40&md5=c7c51c62739576b1320829bc0f591f44
ISSN: 21867275
Cited by: 5
Original Language: English