reflexivity

The project provides me with a reflexive space in two primary areas: my positionality in ethnography with an all-female group as a queer researcher who passes through the world in a male body and the 'Vietnamese digital neighborhood' title.

Firstly, although I build a good rapport with the group, my male perspective poses limitations to encapsulate and write about female experiences thoroughly. For instance, I learned about structural oppression, gender-based violence, or women's health topics. Yet, I could not fully understand the weight of the students' sharing of their worrisome on night walks or praxis of care tailored to a female body because I did not experience nor have to think about those issues on a regular basis. Additionally, I was raised with Vietnamese male social conventions and expectations. I wanted to make this a feminist project by writing about women's lives. Nevertheless, even though I attempted to involve my participants' autonomy in conceptual formation, in the end, the project was a module assignment to my Master's program, so I was responsible for putting the pieces together, deciding what to include and exclude. Thus, my caveat to readers is that this project is about understanding a 'Vietnamese digital neighborhood' from a male perspective.

Secondly, to me, the idea of a 'Vietnamese digital neighborhood' is always fluid, moving away from any attempt of conceptual reification. Viet Nam is a diverse Southeast Asian country with 54 ethnicities. My interlocutors are Kinh - the majority population in Viet Nam. Titling this as a Vietnamese project poses the risk of oversimplification and essentialism. Thus, my invitation to readers is to treat 'Vietnamese digital neighborhood' as a construction of a partial Vietnamese imaginary and view the project as a mediated experience from a group of Vietnamese students in London.