Break Time Exchanges

Abstract

This thesis provides a snapshot of the social lives of Vietnamese-Czech immigrants, primarily the first generation who engage in small-scale merchant business at the SAPA market and cultural centre in Prague. Adding to the existing research on the Vietnamese immigrant community in the Czech Republic, the research shifts from studying the immigrant community’s identity as business owners to their identities as cultural participants by observing the community’s interactions during break-times. The shift allows an intersectional look at the lives of the Vietnamese and avoids the stereotypical understanding of Vietnamese immigrants as clothing and grocery store owners. Through qualitative research and visual sociological methodologies, the researcher explores how the first generation of Vietnamese-Czech immigrants in SAPA engage in community building and upholding a general sense of ethnic identity through the preservation and reconstruction of Vietnamese customs. This ethnographic study combines the use of participant observation, insider ethnography, visual mapping and visual and digital ethnography. The fieldwork reveals that the physical and digital rest areas of SAPA help facilitate ethnic identity construction and preservation among the community members.