Field School

“Sites and Spaces of Mobilization”

January 8-14, 2024

Chiang Mai, Thailand

SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asian Consortium (SEAC)

Instructors:

Benjamin Tausig (Associate Professor, Department of Music, SUNY Stony Brook)

Nerve V. Macaspac (Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, Queens College; Earth and Environmental Sciences Doctoral Program, The Graduate Center, CUNY)

Faculty mentors:

Midori Yamamura (Associate Professor, Art History, Kingsborough Community College)

Chiang Mai University (CMU) Faculty (TBD)

Program Description:

The field school will introduce students to spatial ethnographies as methods of investigation of a variety of sites and spaces of mobilization. Our time together will be organized into lecture/seminar sessions, methods workshops, lab/studio sessions, on-site fieldwork in Chiang-mai, and reviews where work produced will be presented and given critical feedback by instructors and faculty mentors.

Projects and Evaluation (tentative & subject to change):

Project # 1: Filmic Sensing | Site # 1: Student-led 

Project # 2: Soundscapes | Site # 2: LGBTQ+ spaces

Project # 3: Thick Mapping | Site # 3: Book Re:public

Each of the three projects will be realized collaboratively and requires students to work in interdisciplinary teams. While exact project roles will vary and not everyone will be approaching the projects with the same expertise and disciplinary knowledge, all students are expected to make analogous contributions in terms of time commitment, effort, research, and execution. Teams will be assigned to balance discipline and experience, and students are expected to work in the same teams for the duration of the field school.

The field school projects are designed to build on one another and generate and launch a collection of work dedicated to the theme of “Sites and Spaces of Mobilization,” which will be further explored in the Spring semester.

Recommended readings and materials (subject to change):

Days 1-2 (January 8-9):

A. On working together

Downie, M. et al. Creative Collaboration: Rules of thumb.

B. Chiang Mai: People and place

Chiang Mai, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Mai

Easum, T. M. (2013) A thorn in Bangkok’s side: Khruba Sriwichai, sacred space and the last stand of the pre-modern Chiang Mai state. South East Asia Research, 21(2), 211–236. 

C. Filmic Sensing 

Bordelau, E. 2017. “Percolating The Elusive: Into Apichatpong’s Dreamscape,”  in Szymanski, A. et al. (2017) Nocturnal Fabulations : Ecology, Vitality and Opacity in The Cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. [Online]. Open Humanities Press.

Visit the following websites for examples:

D. Southeast Asia Urbanisms

Cabannes, Y., Douglass, M., & Padawangi, R. (2018). Cities by and for the People. In Y. Cabannes, M. Douglass, & R. Padawangi (Eds.), Cities in Asia by and for the People (pp. 13–40). Amsterdam University Press.

McGrath, B. et al. (2023) ‘Urban designs as social-natural resolutions’, in Nature-Based Solutions for Cities. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 295–315.

Sengers, F. (2017). Cycling the city, re-imagining the city: Envisioning urban sustainability transitions in Thailand. Urban Studies, 54(12), 2763–2779.

E. Spatial Ethnographies

Hou, J. & Chalana, M. 2016. “Untangling the “Messy” Asian City,” in  Chalana, M. & Hou, J. (eds.) Messy urbanism : understanding the ‘other’ cities of Asia. Hong Kong: HKU Press, pp. 1-22.

Visit the following websites for examples:

Days 3-4 (January 10-11):

A. LGBTQ+ Studies

Buranajaroenkij, D. 2023. Civil Society and Gender Advancement in Thailand, in Hansson, E., & Weiss, M.L. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia, Routledge, pp. 205-222.

B. Soundscapes

Ferzacca, S. (2018). Making the Music Scene, Making Singapore: Jumping Spatio-Sonic Scales in a Southeast Asian City-State. In Y. Cabannes, M. Douglass, & R. Padawangi (Eds.), Cities in Asia by and for the People (pp. 151–176). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv7xbs0b.9

Tausig, B. 2019. “Introduction,” Bangkok Is Ringing: Sound, Protest, & Constraint. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Day 5-6 (January 12-13)

A. Activism and Civil Society in Southeast Asia

Meredith L. Weiss and Eva Hansson. (2023) “Civil Society in Politics and Southeast Asia in Civil Society,” in Hansson, E., & Weiss, M.L. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia, Routledge, pp. 1-22.

Padawangi, R. (2023) “Spatial Perspectives,” in Hansson, E., & Weiss, M.L. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia, Routledge, pp.65-80.

B. Thick Mapping

Presner, T. Samuel., Shepard, D., & Kawano, Yoh. (2014). “Thick Mapping.” in Presner, T. Samuel., Shepard, D., & Kawano, Yoh. (2014). HyperCities : thick mapping in the digital humanities. Harvard University Press, pp. 12-21.

Kim, A. M. (2015) Critical cartography 2.0: From “participatory mapping” to authored visualizations of power and people. Landscape and urban planning, pp. 215–225.

Deliverables:

A. Digital research products

Each of the three projects will yield a digital product:

Project # 1: Filmic Sensing (Video/s)

Project # 2: Sounscapes (Audio)

Project # 3: Thick Mapping (Digital maps/collage)

Each digital product will be submitted to the instructors as a URL (submission schedules TBD).

B. Field notes

In addition, each student will be required to generate field notes. Each student (both individually and in teams) will contribute to an ongoing collaborative Google Doc called “Field Notes” throughout the field school. (There will be time dedicated for free writing and reflection in our sessions.) The Field Notes will serve as a record of our discussions and research, with contributions by everyone involved in the field school.

Important Links:

 To follow

Recommended further readings:

 To follow