Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

This talk offers a peek into an aspirational but still shadowy larger project on the anthropology of shadows and shade. Building from recent research in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), as well as retrospective reimagining of two decades of ethnographic work in the city, this talk will draw attention to the ways in which daytime shadows play a role in demarcating the “figural voids” within which much of the city’s social life takes place. From dusk until dawn, as the figural shapes cast by shadows move across and shapeshift through the voids of Saigon’s built environment, they both trace the fixed outlines of social space and set them in motion. In doing so, the edges of shadows create dynamic but clearly demarcated exterior interiors within which it is possible to enter “inside” defined social spaces despite being “outside” on the streets. Scholars of urban space have much to gain by paying closer attention to shadows. In addition to offering comfortable places to sit in a hot city, urban shadows both gain their meaning from and transform the social qualities of urban spaces.