Beyond the Urban-Rural Divide: Complexities of Class, Status and Hierarchy in Bankok

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 674-701 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophorntavy Vorng
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
Situational Characteristic ◽  
Status Differentiation ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Class And Status

Abstract The Thai political conflict is often described in terms of an urban-rural class divide. Using an emic, ethnographic approach, I problematise this analysis by examining Bangkokian notions of class and status differentiation. These have their bases in the feudal sakdina era as well as notions of Buddhist hierarchy, and privilege cosmopolitanism, foreignness and wealth, as encapsulated by such hybrid concepts as ‘inter’ and ‘hi-so’ — both of which are adopted from the English language phrases ‘international’ and ‘high society’, respectively. Such notions cannot adequately be explained in terms of Western-centric concepts of class, yet are nevertheless shaped by Thailand’s historical engagement with Western powers as well as subsequent processes of globalization. Furthermore, status appraisal in Bangkok includes nuanced distinctions of consumption, education, ethnicity, and occupation, amongst other things, while simultaneously having a situational characteristic. This compels us to examine a variety of factors beyond the urban-rural divide in the discussion of the ongoing crisis.

scholarly journals The Ambiguous Legacy of Ngô Đình Diệm in South Vietnam’s Second Republic (1967–1975)

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Fear
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
English Language ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Social Fragmentation ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Ngo Dinh Diem

Although recent English-language Vietnam War scholarship has devoted considerable attention to reassessing the Ngô Đình Diệm era, contemporaneous South Vietnamese interpretations of the president’s tenure have been largely overlooked. Contrary to prevailing assumptions that his influence ended abruptly with his 1963 murder, Ngô Đình Diệm was a hotly debated figure long after his death. Moreover, his contested legacy came to symbolize South Vietnam’s enduring political, regional and religious schisms, contributing to and reinforcing his country’s profound social fragmentation. The fluid and ambiguous memory that Vietnamese had of his time in office had a substantial impact on subsequent political developments, establishing patterned dynamics of political conflict that endured throughout the Second Republic and providing conceptual yardsticks against which subsequent politicians and political developments were measured. Ngô Đình Diệm’s fraught symbolic resonance and significant posthumous political impact are therefore crucial dimensions to consider in evaluating his legacy.

Soccer Fields of Cultural [Re]Production: Creating “Good Boys” in Suburban America

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Youth Sport ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Dominant Class ◽  
Youth Soccer ◽  
Specific Field ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
Soccer Fields

Zwick and Andrews (1999) argued that suburban American soccer fields merit critical academic attention because they highlight the practices of a dominant class. To gain an understanding of this specific field of power and privilege, I employed a multifaceted ethnographic approach to studying a group of upper-middle-class mothers whose children played youth soccer. I used Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984, 1993) sociological theories regarding the interplay between habitus and capital to analyze how the mothers shaped their sons’ youth sport experience to reproduce class status and social advantage in the next generation.

Beyond the Atrium to Ariadne: Erotic Painting and Visual Pleasure in the Roman House

1995 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Fredrick
Keyword(s):  
Male Body ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Visual Pleasure ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Spatial Hierarchy ◽  
Narrative Film ◽  
Class And Status ◽  
Pattern Books

Wallace-Hadrill's reading of spatial hierarchy does not address the representation of gender in mythological paintings. However, a rough survey indicates that the majority are erotic and/or violent. Erotic depictions common on household items (mirrors, lamps, Arretine ware) suggest that the Romans were sensitive to this content; the likely use of pattern books in selecting programs for domestic decoration suggests a synoptic awareness of it. This points to the applicability of contemporary theories of representation and power, and Mulvey's model of visual pleasure in narrative film is adapted for this paper. According to Mulvey, film offers two pleasures: (1) scopophilia, which presents the woman as aesthetic-erotic fragments, suggesting but concealing her difference (culturally read as castration); (2) sadistic voyeurism, which assumes difference and then investigates, punishes, or forgives it. Both are illustrated in paintings of Ariadne abandoned and rediscovered, and in other paintings which portray either the gaze (Polyphemus at Galatea, Actaeon at Diana) or erotic violence (rapes of Cassandra, Daphne, Auge). While these paintings seem to confirm in relation to gender what the rest of the house says about class and status, some paintings confuse the issue. The male body is often fetishized (Narcissus, Endymion, Cyparissus), and attacked (Hylas, Actaeon, Pentheus); gender and role are sometimes deliberately ambiguous (Hermaphroditus). Such transgressions of the boundaries of the male body are not a part of Mulvey's theory, and they suggest the use of gender to complicate as well as confirm the class/status message of the house; two different negotiations of this use are found in the House of the Vettii and the House of the Ara Maxima. One can compare reversals and reassertions of gender, class and status in other evidence, in literature, pantomime and the games.

scholarly journals Hierarchy salience and social action: disentangling class, status, and authority in world politics

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten-Andreas Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Social Closure ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Class And Status

Hierarchy is a persistent feature of international politics. Existing accounts recognize that there are many ways in which actors can stand in relation to one another. Yet they struggle to make sense of this complexity. This study considers Max Weber’s contribution to understanding international hierarchy. It discusses three ideal types of stratification based on the distribution of capabilities (class), estimations of honor and prestige (status), and command relationships (authority). Following the neo-Weberian approach, these dimensions matter because they make social action intelligible. Furthermore, Weber clarifies how class and status are connected and how these two dimensions relate to authority through the process of ‘social closure’. The study concludes that scholars who focus exclusively on authority structures miss the fact that authority typically derives from other forms of stratification: although based on different logics of social stratification, class and status hierarchies often coalesce into (legitimate) authority.

Reading Shopfront Signs: A Multimodal (Social) Semiotic Approach to Text Analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arif Chowdhury ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Text Analysis ◽  
English Language ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Multimodal Texts ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
Semiotic Resources ◽  
City Of London

Shopfront signs in the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic city of London seem to serve as a vehicle for maintaining unity in an era of linguistic diversity. Various ethno-linguistic diasporas represent themselves through a unique multi lingual display of multimodal shopfronts signs culminating in the English language. This paper focuses on language as a social semiotic (Haliday 1978), as a multimodal semiotic resource (Jewitt 2005) and as a manipulative-representative text within multilingual society. The study assumes an ethnographic approach to the Bengali dominated streets of Whitechapel and Brick Lane in London, on shop signs. The study aims to determine how multilingual and multimodal ‘texts,’ embedded in shop signs, could assist in processing meanings (Kress 2004). The study draws on a corpus of images and texts on shop signs which were randomly selected and categorised in various ways. Taking a multimodal (social) semiotic approach to text analysis of shop signs, this paper attempts to analyze the Bangla and English shop signs and ideologies directed at these signs and their semiotic resources.

Piercing the Structure of Tradition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariko Anno
Keyword(s):  
Performance Practice ◽  
English Language ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
Noh Drama ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

What does freedom sound like in the context of traditional Japanese theater? Where is the space for innovation, and where can this kind of innovation be located in the rigid instrumentation of the Noh drama? This book investigates flute performance as a space to explore the relationship between tradition and innovation. This first English-language monograph traces the characteristics of the Noh flute (nohkan), its music, and transmission methods and considers the instrument's potential for development in the modern world. The book examines the musical structure and nohkan melodic patterns of five traditional Noh plays and assesses the degree to which Issō School nohkan players maintain to this day the continuity of their musical traditions in three contemporary Noh plays influenced by William Butler Yeats. The book's ethnographic approach draws on interviews with performers and case studies, as well as the author's personal reflection as a nohkan performer and disciple under the tutelage of Noh masters. The book argues that traditions of musical style and usage remain influential in shaping contemporary Noh composition and performance practice, and the existing freedom within fixed patterns can be understood through a firm foundation in Noh tradition.

Local Citizenship: Welfare Reform Urban/Rural Status, and Exclusion in China

10.1068/a3454 ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
pp. 1853-1869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Smart ◽  
Josephine Smart
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Status Differentiation ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Local Citizenship ◽  
Laws And Policies

After 1949 China's welfare system developed on the basis of a status division between urban and rural residents. Urban and rural societies were profoundly influenced by the respective organization of their welfare systems, which shared the feature of being fixed to specific places (rural) or enterprises (urban). Reform of core institutions is constrained by path dependency. Knowledge of those constraints, however, can aid efforts to shape new paths. In this paper we examine how institutional legacies of urban – rural status differentiation continue to structure economic and welfare reform. China's reform process has been characterized by an unusual degree of decentralization and local experimentation. As a result, the nature of change is not easily seen by examining only laws and policies related to welfare. Instead, broader changes in the economy and the loosening of controls on mobility have interacted with the locality/enterprise welfare systems to generate diverse local outcomes. After an overview of the welfare institutions and the reform process, we draw on field research in industrializing rural areas in Guangdong to describe a pattern we label ‘local citizenship’ where welfare benefits are elaborated for the locally born while excluding migrants.

scholarly journals The English Language Arts hundred years’ war: Subverting the stigma of film in America’s English classroom

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
Private School ◽  
English Language Arts ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Teachers ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
High School English ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
English Classroom

Against the backdrop of the century-long stigma associated with film in America’s English classroom, which persists despite its codification in the English Language Arts (ELA) standards, this study investigated the question: How do American high-school English teachers make sense of and instruct with film? Employing semi-structured interviews with 12 high-school English teachers who instruct with film, from suburban, urban, rural and private school settings, the findings suggest that the stigma staining film in America’s English classroom is systemic. Participants shared their view that film is not an inherently passive medium, and when purposefully and actively facilitated, it possesses unique and efficacious pedagogic promise. Employing strategies typically associated with teaching printed texts, maintaining high classroom expectations, and integrating twenty-first-century pedagogic technologies when teaching with film may allow instructors to fulfil film’s remarkable learning potential, and consequently subvert misperceptions of, malpractices with, and the stigma surrounding film in America’s English classroom.

scholarly journals Teachers’ Informal Learning via Social Networking Technology

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Radzuwan Ab Rashid ◽  
Mohd Firdaus Yahaya ◽  
Mohd Fazry A Rahman ◽  
Kamariah Yunus
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Social Networking Site ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
Social Networking Technology ◽  
Networking Technology

Discussion on teacher learning is often limited to a focus on formal professional development programmes. What and how teachers learn informally through their daily experiences is rarely explored. This research attempts to investigate how teachers engage in informal learning for their professional development when using Social Networking Site (SNS) technology. Data were generated using ethnographic approach whereby Facebook Timelines belonged to 22 English language teachers were observed for a period of six months. The analysis shows that the teachers frequently exchanged teaching related knowledge in their Timeline conversations and they received rich responses from both teaching and non-teaching Friends. This paper thus argues that social networking site, such as Facebook is a potential platform to engage teachers in informal learning for their professional development.

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