In the Place of Origins: Modernity and Its Mediums in Northern Thailand - Ingram Academic
✍️ Morris, Rosalind CCurrently unavailable
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Rosalind C. Morris explores Northern Thailand, where modernity profoundly intersects with traditional spirit mediumship. Far from a relic, mediumship here becomes a dynamic stage for understanding how new representations, subjectivities, and political power are forged. Morris meticulously traces how mass media reshaped these ancient practices, revealing a complex interplay between history and future anticipations. The study delves into surprising areas like romantic love, poetry, and photography, showcasing how these mediums embody both everyday life and ambitious claims to authority within a rapidly changing cultural landscape.
Praise for this book
“With this astutely conceived and exquisitely written account of the complexities of mediumship in Thai modernity, Rosalind Morris has taken ethnographic practice to a whole new level of theoretical as well as descriptive sophistication. It is a dazzling accomplishment.”
📝 Description: In the Place of Origins: Modernity and Its Mediums in Northern Thailand - Ingram Academic
📑 What's inside
- Acknowledgments vii
- Note on Transcription x
- Introduction 1
- 1 Writing, Exchange, Translation: A Poetics of the Modern 13
- 2 Ruin, or, What the New City Remembers 55
- 3 First, Forgetting 80
- 4 The Appearance of Order 107
- 5 The Secret of the Dish 150
- 6 Transmissions, or, the Appearance of Culture 181
- 7 Representations: Locality and the Spirit of Democracy 240
- 8 Outside, Eyeless, and on Fire: The Apotheosis of Representation 287
- 9 After All Else: The End of Mediumship? 332
- Bibliography 351
- Index 371
💎 Expert review
📖 Why choose it
Why this book is worth reading
Scholars and enthusiasts of Southeast Asian cultural studies will find profound value in this text, which dismantles the binary between tradition and modernity. Readers interested in how spiritual authority adapts to political power will appreciate Morris’s nuanced analysis of Northern Thai spirit mediumship as a dynamic, rather than static, phenomenon. It offers essential insights for those studying the impact of mass media on indigenous belief systems, revealing how photography, poetry, and romantic love become sites of cultural negotiation. This book is vital for understanding how subjectivity is forged in rapidly changing landscapes, making it indispensable for anthropologists, historians, and anyone curious about the complex interplay between history and future anticipations in contemporary Asian societies.
⭐ Reader reviews
Reader rating
Rosalind C. Morris delivers a rigorous intellectual examination that demands patience and theoretical engagement from its audience. While it succeeds brilliantly in mapping the intricate connections between spirit mediumship, mass media, and political authority, it may alienate readers seeking accessible narratives or practical guides to Thai spirituality. It is not suited for those looking for simple explanations of occult practices or casual reading material; instead, it requires a scholarly appetite for dense analysis of representation and power. Those expecting a straightforward ethnographic account might find the focus on abstract concepts like 'modernity's hidden currents' overly academic. However, for those prepared to engage with its complex arguments about how ancient practices are reshaped by modern forces, it offers a rewarding, if demanding, perspective.
❓ Frequently asked questions
📖 Who should read this
For those captivated by the intricate dance between ancient spiritual traditions and the forces of contemporary society. If you seek to understand how cultural practices adapt, resist, and redefine themselves amidst globalization and evolving media, this insightful exploration of Northern Thai spirit mediumship awaits your discerning eye.
🎯 Key themes and symbolism
Modernity's Mediumistic Lens
This work demonstrates how modern developments in Northern Thailand are deeply intertwined with traditional spirit mediumship. It positions mediumship as a crucial site where new forms of representation, evolving subjectivities, and shifts in power are observed, challenging simple narratives of tradition versus progress.
Media's Shifting Spirit
Morris meticulously details how the advent of mass media has profoundly reshaped the ancient practice of spirit mediumship. This transformation extends beyond mere performance, influencing the very nature of spiritual expression, cultural identity, and public representation in Northern Thailand. It reveals media as a powerful agent of cultural evolution.
Expanding Anthropological Horizons
Beyond mediumship itself, this book broadens anthropological inquiry. It unexpectedly connects traditional practices to themes like romantic love, epistolary poetry, and photography's impact on gendered and national identity, demonstrating how seemingly disparate elements converge within Northern Thailand's evolving cultural fabric.
📜 Historical context
📚 Glossary
- Spirit Mediumship
- Modernity
- Atavistic
📔 Questions to reflect on
- How might local spiritual or cultural practices in your own community be subtly (or overtly) shaped by mass media today?
- Consider a 'traditional' practice you know. In what ways could it be seen not as fading, but as actively engaging with or even defining 'modernity' in its own context?
- If spirit mediums are 'reading the relationships between new forms of representation and subjectivity,' what new forms of representation are currently shaping your own sense of self or community?
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📖 From the series “Body, Commodity, Text”
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