A01=Penny Van Esterik
Author_Penny Van Esterik
Bangkok Post
Buddhist material culture
Category=JBCC1
Category=JBSF11
Category=JHM
Category=JHMC
Category=QRF
Commercial Sex Workers
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
feminist ethnography
fixed binary gender
gender construction in contemporary Thailand
gender performativity
Lao PDR
Mae Chii
Massage Parlours
Miss Thailand
Miss Universe
Miss Universe Contest
National Beauty Contests
Prime Minister Phibun
Santi Asoke
Sex Tourism
sexuality and modernity
Southeast Asian anthropology
sumptuous temples
textiles
Thai Culture
Thai Feminists
Thai Gender
Thai Male
Thai Men
Thai National Identity
Thai Prostitutes
Thai Prostitution
Thai public culture
Thai Society
Thai Studies
Thai Women
Thailand
Theravada Buddhist Country
visual culture studies
Young Men
Product details
- ISBN 9781859733110
- Weight: 380g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 01 Mar 2000
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Thailand has become well known throughout the world for wonderful cuisine, great package holidays, sumptuous temples and textiles. Noticeably absent from glossy tourist brochures but equally well known throughout the Western world is Thailand's seedier side - the world of child exploitation, rampant prostitution and AIDS. Thailand maintains its appeal by slipping the ugly and painful out of sight and by promoting women as exotic visual icons through beauty contests, state rituals and the sex trade. This book explores the construction of gender in Thailand and in particular the role Bangkok plays in establishing gender relations for the whole of the country. It examines the historical and cultural processes underlying Thai public culture, including historical theme parks. The author demonstrates how the materiality of the Thai world shapes gender relations and how Buddhism discourages essentialisms, including fixed binary gender identities. Throughout the book, appearances are shown to be critically important, and the essentialism of gender is maintained through display, public presentations, and everyday material practices. Anyone wishing to understand the complexity of Thailand will find this book provides a highly readable and insightful analysis.
Penny Van Esterik York University
