Ethnic minorities historically comprised a solid majority of Bangkok's population. They played a dominant role in the city's exuberant economic and social development. In the shadow of Siam's ...prideful, flamboyant Thai ruling class, the city's diverse minorities flourished quietly. The Thai-Portuguese; the Mon; the Lao; the Cham, Persian, Indian, Malay, and Indonesian Muslims; and the Taechiu, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainanese, and Cantonese Chinese speech groups were particularly important. Others, such as the Khmer, Vietnamese, Thai Yuan, Sikhs, and Westerners, were smaller in numbers but no less significant in their influence on the city's growth and prosperity. In tracing the social, political, and spatial dynamics of Bangkok's ethnic pluralism through the two-and-a-half centuries of the city's history, this book calls attention to a long-neglected mainspring of Thai urban development. While the book's primary focus is on the first five reigns of the Chakri dynasty (1782-1910), the account extends backward and forward to reveal the continuing impact of Bangkok's ethnic minorities on Thai culture change, within the broader context of Thai development studies. It provides an exciting perspective and unique resource for anyone interested in exploring Bangkok's evolving cultural milieu or Thailand's modern history.
Bangkok has been at the frontier of capitalism's drive into the global south for three decades. Rapid development has profoundly altered public and private life in Thailand. In her provocative study ...of contemporary commerce in Bangkok, Ara Wilson captures the intimate effects of the global economy in this vibrant city.The Intimate Economies of Bangkokis a multifaceted portrait of the intertwining of identities, relationships, and economics during Bangkok's boom years. Using innovative case studies of women's and men's participation in a range of modern markets-department stores, go-go bars, a popular downtown mall, a telecommunications company, and the direct sales corporations Amway and Avon-Wilson chronicles the powerful expansion of capitalist exchange into further reaches of Thai society. She shows how global economies have interacted with local systems to create new kinds of lifestyles, ranging from "tomboys" to corporate tycoons to sex workers. Combining feminist theory with classic anthropological understandings of exchange, this historically grounded ethnography maps the reverberations of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity at the hub of Bangkok's modern economy.
Life in Bangkok for young people is marked by profound, interlocking changes and transitions. This book offers an ethnographic account of growing up in the city’s slums, struggling to get by in a ...rapidly developing and globalizing economy and trying to fulfil one’s dreams. At the same time, it reflects on the issue of agency, exploring its negative potential when exercised by young people living under severe structural constraint. It offers an antidote to neoliberal ideas around personal responsibility, and the assumed potential for individuals to break through structures of constraint in any sustained way.
The Thai capital Bangkok is the unrivalled centre of the country’s gay, lesbian, and transgender communities. These communities are among the largest in Southeast Asia, and indeed in the world, and ...have a diversity, social presence, and historical depth that set them apart from the queer cultures of many neighbouring societies. The first years of the twenty-first century have marked a significant transition moment for all of Thailand’s LGBT cultures, with a multidimensional expansion in the geographical extent, media presence, economic importance, political impact, social standing, and cultural relevance of Thai queer communities. This book analyses the roles of the market and media—especially cinema and the Internet—in these transformations, and considers the ambiguous consequences that the growing commodification and mediatization of queer lives have had for LGBT rights in Thailand. A key finding is that in the early twenty-first century processes of global queering are leading to a growing Asianization of Bangkok’s queer cultures. This book traces Bangkok’s emergence as a central focus of an expanding regional network linking gay, lesbian, and transgender communities in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines and other rapidly developing East and Southeast Asian societies.
In the twilight years of Thailand's ailing King Bhumibol, battles between royalists and their red shirt opponents are increasing, and the tectonic shifts that lie beneath Thailand's decade-old ...political crisis have become increasingly apparent. Serhat Ünaldi's Working towards the Monarchy sheds new light on recent developments with its bold analysis of urban space in downtown Bangkok: buildings, the author finds, are abstractions of the complexities that shape Thailand's transformation.
Most criticism of the political role of the Thai monarchy-its deep involvement in Thailand's uneven capitalist development, Bhumibol's endorsement of military coups and his silent acquiescence to political violence-has focused on the role of individuals: the king, the royal family, or privy councilors. Ünaldi departs from such limited intentionalist approaches to show instead just how deeply enmeshed the monarchy is in Thai society as a whole. He demonstrates how and why Thais from all walks of life drew on royal charisma to advance their individual aims, in effect "working towards the monarchy." Ünaldi's sociological analysis of urban space reveals how buildings and spaces have been constructed for political and economic ends, particularly to shore up the monarchy. For several decades the architecture in central Bangkok has helped protect the charisma of the monarchy, which dominates landholdings and investments in the area. Because the sacred aura of the royal family legitimized capitalist expansion and consumerism, it was defended and enhanced by those Bangkokians who profited from it. Yet politically and geographically marginalized Thais failed to benefit from this royalist-led capitalist development and eventually found a new leader, business tycoon-cum-politician Thaksin Shinawatra. When Thaksin's followers turned against royal charisma and attacked the architecture that represented and supported it, movement away from royal charismatic authority became a real possibility for the first time.
By combining sociology, political science, architecture, and anthropology, Working towards the Monarchy offers a unique interdisciplinary approach. It will interest scholars and generalists alike, particularly those involved in the comparative study of monarchies.
The physical and engineering properties of remolded clays are intrinsic and can be used as a frame of reference for the behavior of clay. Compressibility and permeability of remolded Bangkok clay at ...different ion concentrations and valences were compared with kaolin and bentonite as representatives of non- and high swelling clays. Bangkok clay, a low-swelling clay, exhibited physical and engineering properties similar to those of kaolin. The texture of coagulated Bangkok clay became a more flocculated structure with increasing ion concentration and valence, resulting in higher water holding capacity and liquid limit. Even though the physical properties of all tested clays varied significantly with pore water chemistry, the (
PI,
LL) points lied above the A-line in the plasticity chart (where
PI is the plasticity index and
LL is the liquid limit) and could be represented by a unique relationship. The change of the intrinsic compressibility and permeability with the concentration and valence of the ions was interpreted by a generalized stress state
e/
e
L
. The lower
e/
e
L
value was associated with higher shear strength (resistance to vertical consolidation pressure in K
0-consolidation) and lower permeability. As the ion concentration and valence were increased for both kaolin and Bangkok clay, the resistance to consolidation pressure increased and permeability decreased for the same void ratio due to the decrease in
e/
e
L
. The liquid limit for bentonite decreased with increasing ion concentration and valence due to the compression of the diffuse double layer. Hence, for the same void ratio, the resistance to consolidation pressure decreased and permeability increased due to the increase of
e/
e
L
. Finally, relationships of the modified void index,
I′
v
and consolidation pressure,
σ′
v
, and generalized stress state
e/
e
L
and permeability
k were proposed. These relationships are useful and practical tools for assessing the intrinsic compressibility and permeability of non- to high-swelling clays in terms of liquid limit, which is easily obtained from conventional laboratory tests.
The objective of this study was to determine the effect of resveratrol supplementation in KA-EN 3B®-egg yolk dilution on sperm quality of Bangkok chickens. The semen was collected from 2 adult male ...Bangkok chickens with an age of ± 12 months and a body weight of ± 2.5 kg. The collected semen was divided into 5 treatments with 5 replicates each. The treatments used were KA-EN 3B®-egg yolk (KEY), KEY + 0.02% resveratrol, KEY + 0.04% resveratrol, KEY + 0.06% resveratrol, and KEY + 0.08% resveratrol. The parameters observed were sperm motility, viability, and abnormalities during 24 hours, 48 hours, and 72 hours of storage in the refrigerator. The results showed that resveratrol supplementation in the diluent had no effect (P0.05) on sperm motility, viability, and abnormalities during storage. This study concluded that supplementation of resveratrol in KA-EN 3B®-egg yolk diluent did not affect the quality of Bangkok chicken sperm during storage.
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