I am a sociologist, and I have a passion for ethnographic research. I just love good stories and good storytelling. I’ve published articles on migrant workers, civil society, and labor rights in Southeast Asia. My research interests have expanded to include metaverse technology in education, authentic learning, and the flipped classroom. I have worked as a freelance copywriter, writer, biographer, and editor for a variety of private and non-profit agencies and organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund and Michelin Guide. I also trained and competed in Latin dance, the foundations of which have been applied to my writing and teaching.
I love this book because this book is a remarkable and compelling study of the politics of death in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Siam. The death of a worker in September 1890 marks the first time an unnatural death is entered into the archives of the state.
Trais Pearson explores how the dead were investigated back then, bringing to life an engaging narrative of the ensuing tensions between the Siamese elite and the foreign powers. I was so immersed in Trais’ captivating storytelling and narrative of the conflicts and negotiations that played out in the legal arena of civil law and forensic medicine that I felt as if I was there back in time. A seminal piece of work, this book is a must for anyone interested in Thailand and Thai history!
I love this book because it is a bold and incredibly insightful ethnography of Thai migrant workers in Israel and their integration into the Israeli farming sector. This migrant population from the Isaan region in northeastern Thailand skillfully navigated relations with the settlers and adapted to their exclusion from Israeli society while maintaining ties to their families back home.
Matan Kaminer provides a brilliant, eloquent, and piercing analysis of labor and capitalist relations in this insightful ethnography.
For decades, the agricultural settlements of Israel's arid Central Arabah prided themselves on their labor-Zionist commitment to abstaining from hiring outside labor. But beginning in the late 1980s, the region's agrarian economy was rapidly transformed by the removal of state protections, a shift to export-oriented monoculture, and an influx of disenfranchised, ill-paid migrants from northeast Thailand (Isaan). Capitalist Colonial, Matan Kaminer's ethnography of the region and its people, argues that the paid and unpaid labor of Thai migrants has been essential to resolving the clashing demands of the bottom line and Zionist ideology here as elsewhere in Israel's farm sector.…
I love this book because it is a refreshing look at the trade in artifacts through the experiences of the artisans who produce them. Frederick Wherry tells us how handicraft artisans are able to utilize their special skills and creative talents, their personal and social connections, and their resourcefulness to their advantage while protecting their livelihood and their craft.
I love Wherry’s acute observations that are colorfully captured in his book, which allows us to see how authenticity gets generated in different situations and how it has protected some artisans from competition.
Today it is not uncommon to find items in department stores that are hand-crafted in countries like Thailand and Costa Rica. These "traditional" crafts now make up an important part of a global market. They support local and sometimes national economies and help create and solidify cultural identity. But these crafts are not necessarily indigenous. Whereas Thailand markets crafts with a long history and cultural legacy, Costa Rica has created a local handicraft tradition where none was known to exist previously. In Global Markets and Local Crafts, Frederick F. Wherry compares the handicraft industries of Thailand and Costa Rica to…
I love this book because it is a moving, powerful, and remarkable account of the life stories of sixteen women who fought and lived in the dense tropical jungles bordering Malaysia and Thailand during the forty-year guerilla war against the British and Japanese occupation of Malaya.
Through these accounts, we learn who these women are, why they joined the CPM army, and why they stayed so loyal to the movement and its ideals even to this day. Agnes Khoo’s retelling of their stories is accompanied by illuminating excerpts and photographs of women in both civilian dress and combat gear.
We get to learn about the harsh conditions of living in the humid, mosquito-infested jungle, sleeping with giant caterpillars and leeches crawling on their bodies, the constant pangs of hunger, the strange illnesses and diseases that killed many of their comrades, and how the women learned to cope with these hardships.
During the years spanning from 1949 to 1961, communist insurgents fought some 100,000 British troops in the hopes of ending the British presence in Malaya. "What was it like living during that time? What role did the community of women play in the situation? What compromises did they have to make to survive?" Answers lie in this enlightening collection of 16 real-life stories--Malayan women reveal their innermost thoughts on their hopes for a new society, their changing lives, their evolving role in society, and their relationships with their male counterparts.
I love this book because it features ten original ethnographies by ten graduate students at UC Berkeley that examine a diverse array of groups, schools, and communities in America. The book is an excellent source for ethnographic researchers who uncover a surprising, unexpected twist or turn in their research and want to know what to do next.
I love how each author shares their experiences in the field as a participant and as an observer and the intellectual journey of thinking about how to make sense of their findings by offering a refreshing explanation.
In this powerful volume, ten original ethnographies explore two important issues: the ways in which people confront the threats and disruptions of contemporary life, and the ways in which researchers can most effectively study the modern metropolis. With its twofold agenda, the volume emerges as a multi-layered dialogue between researcher and researched, participant and observer, educator and educated. These essays, produced in a refreshing collaborative effort by a senior scholar and ten graduate students, examine many facets of American urban life, among them new social movements that mobilize and work on behalf of people with AIDS and that fight against…
My book is about the experiences of Thai women employed at textile factories when Thailand was one of the world’s top exporters of ready-made apparel.
Working conditions were harsh, sometimes unbearable. Some women were more tolerant than others, but some women were not, and this book offers a rich and engaging account of their remarkable stories of accommodation and resilience on and off the factory floor.
