Cash, Women, and the Nation

Abstract

Banknotes constitute a productive lens for exploring some of the frictions and shifts in moralities brought about by rapid change characterizing the post-socialist condition in Southeast Asia. This chapter discusses how cash-related moralities emerge from the loose relation between national currencies and national territory, through the moral tales of the banknotes’ iconography, and its contested role in the politico-economic project of post-socialism. Drawing on articles and commentaries published in the English language and government censored newspaper, Vientiane Times, the chapter explores two moral tales surrounding the Lao currency kip. These cases shed light on the importance of morality in the infrastructure of intimacy that money constitutes and its contested, gendered, nature in times of rapid change.