Stuck in motion: Co-riding, interaction, and social distancing in public space in Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

Public space in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam, appears to be malleable and unsettled. Located in a developing mega-urban region, the city is undergoing rapid economic growth and development. Its public spaces are emerging, disappearing, and transforming. The Saigon Bus network is a subsidised but flailing mass transit system. Taken as a public space, it highlights some of the particular features of public spaces in East Asian socialist contexts. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among highly mobile residents of HCMC this paper aims to explore issues observed in shared non-private spaces in order to shed light on how public spaces in Vietnam’s largest city are made and used. Leaning on concepts of Lyn Lofland and Erving Goffman, I explore interactions of co-riders on Saigon Bus services and co-riders’ responses to experiencing an offensive odour. The paper concludes that, firstly, public spaces are made through practices that transform while-in-use and they can be self-regulating while under rules and regulations. Secondly, public spaces are place-dependent and in HCMC typically include anonymous, private and commercial activities. Thirdly, public spaces are socio-historically situated in the contemporary post-reform socialist context of pre-pandemic and post-pandemic times.