The Unending Death of an Immortal: The State Commemoration of Hồ Chí Minh in Contemporary Việt Nam

Focusing on contemporary Việt Nam, this article examines the monumentalizing project concerning the life, revolutionary career and political legacy of Hồ Chí Minh. After Hồ's death and especially after the introduction of dồi mồi, or renovation policies, the revolutionary state instigated a process of making memorials out of the places where he lived and struggled for the nation, projecting his biography onto the country's landscape. The article explores a series of ambiguities and uncertainties that, in a Derridian manner, haunt the state commemoration of Hồ Chí Minh, and that are primarily manifested in his incomplete kinship status and imperfect death.