Film Projection and the Sacred Geography of Site-Specific Cinema in Contemporary Thailand

This chapter is about outdoor projectionists in Thailand and draws on in-depth interviews with four individuals running outdoor projection businesses and fieldwork observations of their work and that of others at different locations around the country: in the northeastern provinces of Khon Kaen and Udonthani, the central province of Samut Prakhan, and the suburbs of Bangkok. The chapter examines a widespread form of projection practice that is not embedded within institutions of commercial entertainment, but which thrives within a ritual economy of transactions between humans and a complex cosmology of supernatural personages. The chapter contributes to an expanded historiography of film projection and presentation that would include a wider range of locations and a more complex understanding of the diversity of projection and display technologies and practice. In particular it takes up Brian Larkin’s invitation to ‘take the religious field seriously as a determinant of the evolution of what cinema does’.

Ritual Economy and the Organization of Scioto Hopewell Craft Production: Insights from the Outskirts of the Mound City Group

This article offers insights into the organization of Scioto Hopewell craft production and examines the implications of this organization through the lens of ritual economy. We present a novel analysis of investigations at the North 40 site, concluding that it is a craft production site located on the outskirts of the renowned Mound City Group. High-resolution landscape-scale magnetic survey revealed a cluster of three large structures and two rows of associated pits; one of the buildings and three of the pits were sampled in excavations. Evidence from the North 40 site marks this as the best-documented Scioto Hopewell craft production site. Mica, chert, and copper were crafted here in contexts organized outside the realm of domestic household production and consumption. Other material remains from the site suggest that crafting was specialized and embedded in ceremonial contexts. This analysis of the complex organization of Scioto Hopewell craft production provides grounds for further understanding the elaborate ceremonialism practiced by Middle Woodland (AD 1–400) societies and adds to the known complexity of craft production in small-scale societies. Furthermore, this article contributes to a growing body of literature demonstrating the utility of ritual economy as a framework for approaching the sociality of small-scale societies.

The Moral Registers of Banqueting in Contemporary China

Chinese feasting encompasses everything from life-cycle celebrations to the indulgences of corrupt officials. Although woven into the commodity economy, banqueting also creates and solidifies social relationships, providing a space where different moral economies converge. This article explores the moral economies that intersect in Chinese banqueting as well as the differing moral registers people use to understand it. Proper form in banqueting is essential to being a cultured person and all banqueting gathers meaning through analogy to the commensal sharing at the heart of the family and ritual economy. Lavish official banqueting may be condemned in popular and state discourse as corrupt; yet officials may claim banqueting is necessary work that creates social connections which help their localities. Banquet inflation among ordinary people is also subject to contradictory moral evaluations. While the recent crackdown on official corruption stigmatises banquet indulgence, it may reinforce ordinary people’s desire to utilise banquets as one of their only tools to influence those with relatively more power.