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Anthropology > Thailand > Flashcards

Thailand Flashcards

1
Q

Ethnography details

A

Contesting the margins of modernity
Mary Beth Mills
1987 - 1993
Bangkok and rural areas in Thailand

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2
Q

up-to-date / modern woman

How is this shown in discourses of modernity?

A

than samay

Televisions/magazines/Instagram frames the modern woman as fashionably dressed, educated and middle class

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3
Q

good daughter

A

good daughter

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4
Q

merit-making ceremony (ritual)

Literally?

A

thoht phaa paa

Literally this is “offering of robes”

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5
Q

outings in Bangkok

A

pay thiaw

Normally trips to the market/ shopping mall/ park but can also be to amusement parks/ beach

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6
Q

progress

A

khwaam charoen

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7
Q

Quote on woman scolding another woman

A

When they are getting ready to visit some young men who share a one-room flat

Noi: “don’t you want to wear something more up-to-date (than samay)?”
Ut: changes into blue jeans even though they are still damp from washing

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8
Q

Quote on Bangkok

A

“Bangkok is a city of heaven and a city of hell” -migrant who had been living there for 20 years

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9
Q

Khem’s quote of desire

A

“I dreamed that I would go, work really hard, and save money to help my family”

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10
Q

Story of family pressure

A

Mare decided at age 19 to reduce her consumption as well as her remittances home in order to pay for a high school education. Her mother once came to Bangkok to demand money from her.

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11
Q

Quote of family pressure

A

Lan: “Mother will just have to wait to get a new TV”

She is already saving for the cost of building her a new house!!!

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12
Q

Hellish nature of bangkok

A

Woman suffer from loneliness, bad working conditions and general mistrust (pay thiaw are therefore fun)

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13
Q

What are some examples of discourses of modernity in Thailand?

A

Television, advertisements, Instagram

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14
Q

How has Anthropological discourse approached consumption thus far?

A

• Anthropologists do not believe in the ‘homo economicus’ (the rationally maximising human) - this assigns TOO much agency

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15
Q

What is a commodity?

A

An item which has exchange value

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16
Q

What is commodification?

A

The process of turning something that does not have exchange value into something that has exchange value

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17
Q

What is modern consumption?

A

The processes associated with globalisation through buying patterns within the context of modernity

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18
Q

What is subject position?

A

A position from which to perceive the world in terms of aspects of identity

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19
Q

What is a rite of passage?

How is migrating to Bangkok a rite of passage?

A

A ritual in which your status changes

Urban employment gives migrants ‘autonomy as economic actors and decision makers’

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20
Q

What symbols of modernity are portrayed in Thai media?

A

Beautiful, pale, stylishly dressed women.

For example, in an advert about deodorant Mills describes how two modern women are portrayed as stylishly dressed, navigating the streets of Bankok with ease

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21
Q

Who decides for women to leave?

A

Young women like Khem take credit for the decision to leave the village and find urban work

22
Q

What did Henrietta Moore mean by her theory of the ‘internally differentiated subject’

How is this true of young Thai female migrants?

A

The individual is in an ongoing process of negotiation and contestant job between available ‘subject positions’

They are between “good daughter” and “modern woman”

23
Q

Is it common for women to migrate to Bangkok? How do?

A

Yes. “There is no one left [in the villages] but the old people and the children”

It is more meaningful to ask any rural household, not whether adolescent children will go to Bangkok, but when.

24
Q

What is the New International Division of Labour

A

The process that shifted the world economy so that LEDCs grew their manufacturing industries

25
Q

Why are young female workers favoured in industry?

A

They are considered obedient and hardworking with patience and dexterity for some sting chores such as weaving and sewing

26
Q

What is proletarianisation? How is it relevant in relevant Anthropology?

A

In Marxist theory, the process of forming a working class.

In the last two decades scholars have begun to document women’s new experiences of proletarianisation.

27
Q

In literature, what kind of emphasis is put on urban worker’s consumption habits?

A

Portrays them as complicit in consuming the products of their own labour for the profit of capital.

Fuelling the capitalist hegemony.

Neglects consumption as a social practice.

28
Q

How does Mills want to approach consumption?

A

As a form of social practice. Follows Daniel Miller in taking a middle ground between Marcist assumptions that commodities are a symbol of capitalism and ‘fetishistic vehicles of false consciousness’ and the overly romanticised view that consumption is a form of ‘everyday resistance’

29
Q

What did Moore mean by “fantasies of identity”

A

The ideas about the kind of person one would like to be and the sort of person one would like to be seen to be by others

30
Q

How are women considered in a family in comparison to their brothers, and how does migration to Bangkok help this image?

A

Unlike their brothers, women cannot serve as Buddhist monks to earn religious merit for their parents.

Women are considered responsible, they have to look after the family.

Urban wages help women to do these things.

31
Q

How do discourse of modernity permeate everyday life in Thailand?

A

The spread of technology throughout the country (especially the television and radio) has made images of modernity a presence even in rural communities

32
Q

New times?

A

Samay may

33
Q

Progress?

A

Khwaam charoen

34
Q

What are symbols of Thai progress and modernity?

A

Technology
Feminine beauty
Fashion

35
Q

What is a benefit for migrants in terms of their skin?

How to older villages often describe women moving to Bankok?

A

Urban employment allows them to work indoors, away from the skin-darkening affects of the sun. Returning migrants are frequently complimented on their pale skin.

“Going to get skin” - pay aw phiw

36
Q

What are the dangers of being TOO modern?

A

Become too highly sexualised strays from traditional Thai values of modesty. The prostitute stands as an example of the consequences of being too modern.

37
Q

When did Thip leave home? Why did she want to work in Bangkok?

A

Thip left her village at the age of 19, and wanted to go because “at home there was no money and nothing to do”

38
Q

How are images of urban factories than samay?

A

In comparison to outdoor farm work, factory work is considered lighter, using new and impressive technologies, away from the sun and rain.

39
Q

How much to they earn?

A

They generally earn the minimum wage (just under $4 per day) but in the late 1980s it was common to receive just $2-2.50 per day and often wages could be cut by fines for lateness/failure to meet production quotas

40
Q

What dangers/hardships happen in urban factory work?

A
  • shifts rotate once a week, forcing workers into new cycle of sleep and eating, and resulting in health problems such as Disrupted menstruation and insomnia
  • exposure to toxic chemicals and gases in poorly ventilated work sites
  • crowded, hot and dirty rented rooms
41
Q

What do the two sisters save up for to be more than samay?

A

• After 3 years Ut and Tiw saved $300 for a small colour television

42
Q

How do migrants cope with the poor standard of living? How does Daeng affirm her rural identity?

A

They maintain ties with rural kin and community - this is a passive form of resistance to capitalism?

Daeng is a 20-year old textile worker who says that she can trust rural friends and family whereas in Bankok she still doesn’t know her neighbours

43
Q

Why would Thai migrants want to marry rural men?

A
  • more trustworthy

* difficult to find work in Bangkok as a married women with children

44
Q

How to the expectations of female migrants differ from that of their brothers?

A
  • Parents and kin expect young men to spend more on entertainment (Cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, women)
  • Migrant brothers send home remittances much less frequently
45
Q

Do migrants always want to organise these thoht phaa paa?

A

No. Ut and her friends were approached by a community leader in 1990 and asked to organise one to pay for the construction of a new temple.

They were reluctant: ‘we just did one last year’

46
Q

What are the two main advantages of organising a thoht phaa paa?

A
  1. To affirm solidarity with the rural community and its moral focus, the temple
  2. To display success and show off urban friends and commodities
47
Q

What can they do in rural communities that they are denied in Bangkok?

A

In Bangkok, they are Proletariat wage-earners that cannot afford to be truly than samay.

Back at home, they are symbols of modern progress.

(This shows Moore’s discussion of the internally differentiated subject - people select between available subject positions)

48
Q

What does Mills argue at the end for consumption? How does she borrow from Orlove and Rutz?

A

It’s not just a reflection of material interests or economic news but is also a cultural process.

More focus should be put on consumption by academics to understand complex forms of social practice, such as the construction of identity and local experiences of change within the rapidly expanding capitalist system (The New International Division of Labor)

49
Q

How is Marxist anthropology developing at the time of writing?

A

Women’s entry into proletarian labour is increasing at a dramatic rate - danger of forming a reductionist view of cultural transformation .

50
Q

What changes when Thai women move between rural and urban setting?

A

Not just space. They also change identities and social relations.

Anthropology (6 decks)

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