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eBook details

• Title: Sampheng: From Ethnic Isolation to National Integration (Sampheng Settlement in Bangkok, Thailand) (Essay)
• Author : SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia
• Release Date : January 01, 2008
• Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 258 KB

Description

"Ethnicity depends on self-identification or self-categorization" (Spira 2004, p. 251). It arises ultimately from a social group's struggle to distinguish itself from its neighbours in cultural terms for its collective self-preservation and well-being. Its operative agents are myriad, as far-reaching as the human imagination, ranging across language, place of origin, mythology, kinship, religion, occupation, technology, ornamentation, cuisine, etc. Yet, efforts to infuse the concept of ethnicity with broad theoretical content invariably encounter perplexing analytical problems, simply because no amount of intellectual gymnastics can overcome the logical conundrum implicit in imposing "objectivity" (culturally neutral constructs) envisaged by the outside observer upon the "subjectivity" (culture-specific perceptions) of the inside participant. Compounding the difficulties of this logical contradiction are the complications attendant upon the constantly evolving self-identification of ethnic groups, particularly in the presence of emerging nationalism (Connor 1994). For example, Wang (1991), in seeking to apply an interdisciplinary methodology to the issue of Chinese identity in Southeast Asia under the impact of the nation-state, finds the derivation of a general approach "elusive". In considering the dialectics of objectivity-subjectivity and ethnicity-nationalism with respect to Thailand's Taechiu (Chaozhou) population, a uniquely tangible, territorial indicator of ethnic identity is Sampheng, the quintessentially Taechiu settlement established downstream from the Thai capital of Ratanakosin in 1782 by royal fiat and known today as "Bangkok's Chinatown" (Van Roy 2007a). The history of Sampheng exemplifies the link between Taechiu ethnicity and its evolving adaptation to the Thai nation-state. It demonstrates the accommodation of the primordial sentiments (emotive, subconscious, socially-derived) of ethnicity to the political exhortations (rational, conscious, policy-directed) of the nation-state.

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