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Performing happiness in neoliberal Thailand: performances of happiness in everyday life in Bangkok
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Thammaboosadee, Rubkwan (2019) Performing happiness in neoliberal Thailand: performances of happiness in everyday life in Bangkok. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3494577~S15
Abstract
This thesis explores performances of happiness in Thailand amid advanced neoliberalism, using Bangkok as a case study. The primary focus is on how happiness is organised, performed and displayed in order to enable neoliberal subjects to deal with their precarious socio-economic reality.
This thesis introduces a new discussion of happiness as a mode of cultural performance and establishes it as a way to comprehend, reveal and criticise neoliberal governance. The focal period of the study is during the military regime from May 2014 to March 2019, but the analysis is not isolated from previous socio-cultural contexts. This thesis is interdisciplinary and employs mixed research methods. Insights on neoliberalism and happiness are derived from disciplines such as political economy, psychology, and cultural studies. Published materials on such issues as national policies and the media also inform the analysis. To uncover the performance of everyday practices, ethnographic fieldwork was undertaken for a month in Bangkok employing methods such as auto-ethnography, participant observation and semi-structured interviews.
This thesis focuses on cultural and everyday performances of happiness organised and delivered by Thai administrations and citizens in multiple dimensions of space and time. Chapters One to Three set the scenes of the Thai neoliberal context and investigate performances of happiness organised by Thai administrations through history, culture, and political agendas during different national conflicts. Chapters Four and Five explore performances manifest by the market and people in everyday urban settings focusing specifically on the morning commute and lunch break on working days, and leisure time at shopping malls. Chapter Six investigates happiness performed on social media, linking it to neoliberal consumption and ritual performances. In summary, this thesis argues that performances of happiness – in these interrelating spaces and times – represent cultural practices that insidiously yield to the neoliberal rationale to survive and progress in Thai society.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology J Political Science > JC Political theory |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Happiness -- Political aspects -- Thailand, Happiness -- Social aspects -- Thailand, Performative (Philosophy), Neoliberalism -- Thailand | ||||
Official Date: | August 2019 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Holdsworth, Nadine | ||||
Format of File: | |||||
Extent: | 274 leaves : illustrations | ||||
Language: | eng |
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