Fuel Trade: People, Places, and Transformations along the Coal Briquetting Chain

Abstract

This chapter focuses on those who produce, distribute and use an everyday, but increasingly shunned cooking fuel, the beehive coal briquette. It looks in particular at the inter-linkages between people, things and places along the briquetting chain. By tracing the journey of the coal briquette backwards, from the stove to the trolley in which it is transported and to the production site in which it is made, the chapter illustrates how the changing uses and meanings of place and space impact dynamics and networks of small-scale commercial activities in urban Vietnam.