Capitalism Magic Thailand: Modernity with Enchantment
Peter A Jackson, author
Date of publication:
2022
Publisher:
ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute
Number of pages:
381
Code:
BM602
Soft Cover
ISBN: 9789814951098
Reviews
Professor Bernard Formoso, journal L’Homme. Revue française d’anthropologie (n°247-248) ,April 2024
"Theoretically rich but also engagingly written, this is a book that should be read by all scholars of religion and politics in Southeast Asia. Its theoretical breadth and dazzling depth of insight also make it a book that should be read by anyone interested in the comparative study of religions in modern times."
Chris Baker, The Age of Magical Capitalism, Bangkok Post, 7 Jan 2022
"In this new book Capitalism Magic Thailand, Jackson explains how these practices are integral to Thailand's transition to an urbanised, globalised, capitalist society. This is the age of 'magical capitalism'."
"Peter Jackson has given us a fascinating guide to Thailand's distinctive embrace of the modern world."
"Peter Jackson has given us a fascinating guide to Thailand's distinctive embrace of the modern world."
Edoardo Siani, Vol. 11, No.2 of Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS), 25 August 2022
"Theoretically rich but also engagingly written, this is a book that should be read by all scholars of religion and politics in Southeast Asia. Its theoretical breadth and dazzling depth of insight also make it a book that should be read by anyone interested in the comparative study of religions in modern times"
About the publication
By studying intersections among new cults of wealth, ritually empowered amulets and professional spirit mediumship—which have emerged together in Thailand’s dynamic religious field in recent decades—Capitalism Magic Thailand explores the conditions under which global modernity produces new varieties of enchantment. Bruno Latour’s account of modernity as a condition fractured between rationalizing ideology and hybridizing practice is expanded to explain the apparent paradox of new forms of magical ritual emerging alongside religious fundamentalism across a wide range of Asian societies. In Thailand, novel and increasingly popular varieties of ritual now form a symbolic complex in which originally distinct cults centred on Indian deities, Chinese gods and Thai religious and royal figures have merged in commercial spaces and media sites to sacralize the market and wealth production. Emerging within popular culture, this complex of cults of wealth, amulets and spirit mediumship is supported by all levels of Thai society, including those at the acme of economic and political power. New theoretical frameworks are presented in analyses that challenge the view that magic is a residue of premodernity, placing the dramatic transformations of cultic ritual centre stage in modern Thai history. It is concluded that modern enchantment arises at the confluence of three processes: neoliberal capitalism’s production of occult economies, the auraticizing effects of technologies of mass mediatization, and the performative force of ritual in religious fields where practice takes precedence over doctrine.
“A magisterial overview of the ebullient religious imagination in contemporary Thailand, Capitalism Magic Thailand gives compelling evidence of the ways in which market-based modernity breeds novel, enchanted means of pursuing auspiciousness and profit. In Southeast Asia and elsewhere, Peter Jackson shows, magic and ritual have always been integral to the productivity of capitalism—which in its recently deregulated, multiply-mediated forms has abetted the rise of ever more vibrant cults of prosperity. Yet capitalism’s rationalist self-image often charms those who study it into disavowing its fetishes, or seeing them as relics of earlier, more primitive modes of life. Jackson’s study, both timely and erudite, will add a great deal to enduring debate about occult economies and the limits of reason.”
—Jean Comaroff, Alfred North Whitehead Professor of African and African American Studies and of Anthropology, Oppenheimer Research Fellow, Harvard University
“Peter Jackson offers the most comprehensive and theoretically sophisticated analysis of modern Thai ritual and magic available. He not only summarizes the work of the top scholars in the field, but also contributes his own provocative insights into the myriad ways money, politics, power, aesthetics, entertainment, and individual religious aspiration influence the vast diversity of Thai Buddhist, Hindu, Animist, Taoist, and other practices. His clearly written and accessible book will be a welcome addition to the fields of anthropology, religious studies, history, and political science and generate new and contentious debates among scholars for years to come.”
—Justin Thomas McDaniel, Kahn Endowed Chair of the Humanities and Professor of Buddhist Studies, University of Pennsylvania
“As ever, Peter Jackson offers us a rigorously argued and richly detailed work that challenges mainstream representations of Thailand head-on. He inverts the traditional characterization of Siam/Thailand as a predominantly Buddhist kingdom, steeped in prudent self-sufficiency, and instead foregrounds the capitalistic driving forces of a vibrant religious culture of magic and enchantment. His research poses vital questions not only for the way in which we understand Thailand and Southeast Asia within the academic framework of Area Studies, but also in the wider fields of Cultural Studies, Religious Studies, Anthropology, Politics and Economics. Central to this scholarly intervention, and drawing inspiration from Bruno Latour, is Jackson’s contribution to our understanding of the complex, and often seemingly “irrational” ways in which modernity is actually practiced and performed in both local and global contexts.”
—Rachel Harrison, Professor of Thai Cultural Studies, SOAS University of London
Contents
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Capitalism Magic Thailand: Modernity with Enchantment
[Whole Publication, ISBN: 9789814951975], by Peter A Jackson, author -
Preliminary pages and Introduction
- I. WHY RELIGIOUS MODERNITY TRENDS IN TWO OPPOSING DIRECTIONS
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1. Fundamentalism against Magic: The Contradictions of Religious Modernity
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2. Buddhist in Public, Animist in Private: Semicolonial Modernity and Transformations of the Thai Religious Field
- II. THAILAND’S CULTS OF WEALTH
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3. Context, Hierarchy and Ritual: Theorizing the Total Thai Religious Field
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4. Thailand’s Cults of Wealth: Royal Spirits, Magic Monks, Chinese and Indian Deities
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5. Empowered Amulets and Spirit Possession: Material and Ritual Dimensions of the Thai Cults of Wealth
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6. The Symbolic Complex of Thai Cults of Wealth
- III. HOW MODERNITY MAKES MAGIC
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7. Capitalism, Media and Ritual in the Enchantment of Thai Modernity
- CONCLUSION
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The Thai Cults of Wealth into the Twenty-first Century
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Glossary of Thai and Buddhist Terms
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Bibliography
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Index
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About the Author
