Postcolonial Vietnam is characterized by the interplay between necropolitics and necrosociality, as practiced respectively by the militarized state and a society that traditionally maintains relations with the dead. This interplay is key to understanding conflicts in Vietnam over the bones of unidentified war dead. On the one hand, such bones can challenge the state's sovereignty when it assumes the responsibility of taking care of them. On the other hand, they exert strong power over the living, prompting quests to place them in the right kinship and sociopolitical orders—or to erase their memory. This was made dramatically evident in 2011 by one set of human remains, allegedly belonging to a fallen soldier of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese border war—a conflict that both sides’ governments prefer to forget. These remains illuminated the contention in the governing of war dead in postwar Vietnam. Moreover, they made evident the tension in anthropological inquiry about the ontology of human remains. [human bones, unidentified war dead, Sino-Vietnamese border war, necropolitics, necrosociality, Vietnam]

中文翻译：

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争论的焦点

后殖民越南的特点是死灵政治和死灵社会之间的相互作用，分别由军事化国家和传统上与死者保持关系的社会实践。这种相互作用是理解越南因身份不明的战争死难者遗骸而发生的冲突的关键。一方面，这样的骨头在承担起照顾它们的责任时可以挑战国家的主权。另一方面，他们对生者施加强大的力量，促使他们寻求将他们置于正确的亲属关系和社会政治秩序中——或者抹去他们的记忆。2011 年，一组人类遗骸明显地证明了这一点，据称是 1979 年中越边境战争中一名阵亡士兵的遗骸——双方政府都宁愿忘记这场冲突。这些遗骸阐明了战后越南战争死者治理的争论。此外，他们使人类学研究中关于人类遗骸本体论的紧张关系变得明显。[人体骨骼，不明身份的战死者，中越边境战争，necropolitics，necrosociality，越南]