“Cuộc Sống ở Châu Phi [Life in Africa]”: Vietnamese - Angolese Encounters Through the Lens of Quang Linh Vlogs

Paper Abstract: Global relations between Africa and Asia are enacted and sustained in a myriad of ways in the twenty-first century on macro, meso, and micro levels, which are not mutually exclusive. This paper examines Vietnamese and Angolese connections through the lens of Quang Linh Vlogs. Created by a young Vietnamese labor contractor who has been working and living in Luanda, Angola since 2016 to document his experiences, this popular YouTube channel has more than 4 million subscribers and posted over 1,600 videos viewed and commented on by hundreds of millions of people. The Quang Linh Vlogs YouTube channel yields a fascinating archive and case study of how historical, political, social, cultural, technological, and economic forces of the twenty-first century converge to foster new connections and relationships between contemporary Vietnamese and Angolans. These videos and the commentaries accompanying them provide new insights into questions of cross-cultural decolonization, globalization, migration, human relations, and diasporic formations. They also reveal the uneven power dynamics that also exist in these encounters.