Hmong Christianisation, the will to improve and the question of neoliberalism in Vietnam’s highlands

This article focuses on the convergence of mass Christianisation and economic transformations among the Hmong of Vietnam’s northern highlands over the past thirty years. A history of impoverishment and ethnic discrimination has led hundreds of thousands of Hmong to follow Christianity as a perceived alternative path to progress instead of the state-led development agenda, despite sharing the same ‘will to improve’. By exploring local understandings about the means to development as well as new religious teaching on prosperity, entrepreneurialism and calculativity in a rapidly developing Hmong village, this paper queries the ‘elective affinity’ between new Christian movements and neoliberalism posited by other scholars. The case study highlights the awkward combination of ‘cooperative competitiveness’ accompanying a community-benefit tourism development model. Hmong Christian activity can both overlap and sit at odds with government agendas and market expansion, resulting in complex transformations and subjectivities which cannot simply be reduced to neoliberal logic.