The Center for Contemporary Social and Cultural Studies (CCSCS)

Contemporary society and culture are complex and, at times, underwritten by ambiguity. While the progress of telecommunications technology brought the world closer together through greater connectivity, at the same time, it served as a driving force generating diversity in local consciousness and action. Global trends and local identities have become intertwined across the world, as evidenced in clothing, food, habitat, arts, and performance. Meanwhile, the increasingly rapid mobilization of people, information, news, currencies, goods, services, values, beliefs, and ways of life act to blur boundaries between nationalities and challenge sovereignty. Consequently, states respond and readjust in terms of expanding modes of governance to control their citizenry more effectively. This, in turn, gives rise to special zones where state power acts in a more flexible, albeit fragmented, way. As the state and private organizations control more natural resources, social movements arise to demand better natural resource management that does not solely prioritize the security of the state or the economic growth of the country but rather advocates the value of the sustainability of the entire eco-system, social justice, history, identity and local wisdom. However, the government and private organizations covertly attempt to integrate the aforementioned issues into both the national and each company’s development plans, therefore, the efficacy of social movements cannot be evaluated easily. All the while, the boundaries between the state and society are ever more indistinct and porous.

The complexity, ambiguity and fluidity of contemporary social and cultural phenomena challenge theoretical perspectives in the School of Sociology and Anthropology because their former epistemology considered social conditions and cultural phenomenon to be fixed and static. Moreover, these sectors were often positioned into binary oppositions such as “state” versus “society” and “urban” as opposed to “rural”. As a result, Sociology and Anthropology could no longer explain the fluidity and dynamism of recent changes so a fresh approach was necessary to understand concepts, theories, methodologies and the subjects of study. The mobilization of people between states, private enterprises and society does not only demand that Sociology and Anthropology reconsider the relationships between them but it also asks for the knowledge to reposition itself to coordinate with “society” or “civil society” that demands for the “states” and “capital” to catch up with the current condition and phenomenon.

The Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology at Thammasat University has a mission to study social and cultural phenomenon. This endeavor has been put into practice not only through teaching in undergraduate and graduate programs but also the faculty has encouraged students in graduate programs to undertake dissertations in relevant topics. However, as contemporary social and cultural phenomena have become increasingly complex, development in theory and phenomenology is also necessary. Hence, the faculty established the Center for Contemporary Social and Cultural Studies for researching, distributing, and supporting social and cultural activities by lecturers, general personnel, and students as well as outside individuals and sectors.

objectives

1. To study contemporary local, national, and international society and culture.
2. To encourage and support the study of contemporary society and culture by lecturers, personnel and students in the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology.
3. To distribute the results of studies of society and culture in various formats.
4. To encourage and support the operation of groups, organizations and networks as well as cooperate with government sectors to find solutions for issues related to society and culture.

CCSCS has conducted and facilitated research projects on many contemporary social and cultural topics:

research projects

• 2016 - present
  research cluster | Digital Media and Culture in Southeast Asia
• 2016
  research | City and Flood: Water Management in Thonburi, Bangkok. researcher: Rapeephan Charoenwong
• 2014 - 2015
  advocacy campaign | The Andaman Coast Community Network Learning Promotion | program leader: Anusorn Unno
• 2013
  research | The Social and Political Connotation of the 2011 Great Flood | lead researcher: Anusorn Unno

academic collaboration

• CCSCS honorary fellow 2016 – 2017: Professor Michael Herzfeld (Department of Anthropology, Harvard University)
• 2016: Newton Mobility Grant Scheme | Mobile Media Practices in Everyday Life: Negotiating Commercial Infrastructures and State Control in Mainland Southeast Asia
  CCSCS and Media Ethnography Research Group, Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, and the University of London