published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

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This thesis employs interpretive research via ethnographic fieldwork to explore the complex relationship between the postmodern self and consumption symbolism. In postmodernity, where society becomes more global but simultaneously decentred, pastiche-like and hyperreal, the self is encountering a number of dilemmas propelled by the looming threat of personal meaninglessness. In order to attain a sense of existence, the self appears to seek the meaningfulness of life from and through symbolic consumption. Indeed, postmodernity is primarily a consumer culture where consumption is central to the meaningful practice of our everyday life. The postmodern self makes consumption choices not only from the products' utilities but also from their symbolic meanings, the function of which operates in two directions: outward in constructing the social world, social-symbolism; and inward in constructing our self-identity, self-symbolism. To understand these phenomena, ethnographic fieldwork of four distinctive groups - a group of male femaling transgenders, a group of young nouveaux riches, a group of young extremist Buddhists and a group of young provincial women - are conducted in Bangkok, Thailand. Principally, the research explores how the informants employ everyday consumption symbolically in their self-creation processes. It also examines how the informants appropriate symbolic meanings through and from their lived and mediated experiences, and incorporate these meanings into their symbolic self-projects by means of everyday consumption. Moreover, it observes how the informants negotiate their self-social symbolism through the process of self-others identification within their friendship groups. The interpretations unfold a number of surprising outcomes which provide insight into the informants' self-projects and their consumption experiences. To conceptualise the interpretations, a model - Consumption Symbolism and the Harmonising Self - is proposed.

Chapter one of this thesis examines how tying social insurance to marriage influences matching and marital decisions in the context of Sweden, and draws implications for when it is optimal to separate social insurance from marriage in modern societies. Chapter two analyzes firms' communication strategies in a market where consumers face attention constraints, and discusses regulation that can protect consumers from exploitation. Chapter three studies communication and coercion in the presence of an altruistic relationship, and offers a benevolent rationale for constraining liberty to protect individuals from self-harm, for example through safety mandates.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

This dissertation studies the oil-mediated relationship between the Indian state and citizens. Focusing on both oil production and consumption, through 24 months of ethnography of oil refineries, ports, research institutes, state offices, a peri-urban working-class-neighborhood near Delhi (called Nathupur), and ‘black markets’, as well as archival research, this project examines oil as an infrastructure for the state and for society. I argue that the Indian state distributes itself into citizens’ lives via petroleum products, which obtain their socio-political agencies while being produced in certain ways, and play out those agencies while being consumed in certain ways. This ethnography of refineries details out the microprocesses of oil refining and the complex relationship that human and nonhuman actors share. It elaborates on how politics get programmed into petroleum products, designed to discipline consumer-citizens into particular lifestyles, and how varying actors encumber this. Research on oil consumption in Nathupur, with ‘black-marketeers’ and ordinary consumers of petroleum products, probes what I call “distorted discipline”, where governmental plans get mangled by the informal practices of state actors as well as citizens. How does the politics programmed into petroleum products in refineries actually play out once other actors intervene, and snatch control over oil away from the state? Investigating this tussle between legalized and illegalized groups, I describe how it structures citizens’ lives, and the constellations of power and forms of sociality it gives rise to. This dissertation highlights the constant churning between the state and citizens through ever-evolving devices of government, as well as through escape from them. Specific modes of subjectification, engineered through flows of oil, lie at the heart of this churning, over which state-citizen formations are negotiated.

Chow Tsz Kwan, Anna. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2006-2007, design report." / Includes bibliographical references. / Chapter 0.0 --- Preface / Chapter 0.1 --- Preface / Chapter 0.2 --- Thesis Statement / Chapter 1.0 --- Conflicts / Subject / Chapter 1.1 --- Mutation of the Urban Surface / Chapter 1.2 --- Metropolitan Rhythm / Chapter 1.3 --- Disjunction / Chapter 2.0 --- Route 5 Manual / Research / Chapter 2.1 --- Overview / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Location of Route 5 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Formation of Route 5 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- City Structure along Route 5 / Chapter 2.2 --- Interuption / Chapter 2.2.1 --- View from the City / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Deficiencies of Crossings / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Edges and Boundaries / Chapter 2.2.4 --- City Nodes / Chapter 2.2.5 --- Homogenity VS Heterogenity / Chapter 3.0 --- Issues / Critique of Current Situation / Chapter 3.1 --- Incompatible Scale / Chapter 3.2 --- Segregation / Chapter 3.3 --- Underutilization / Chapter 4.0 --- Design Strategies / Integration / Chapter 4.1 --- Contiguity / Chapter 4.2 --- Reach Across / Chapter 4.3 --- Exploit the Infrastructural Space / Chapter 5.0 --- Potential Sites / Explorstion on different conditions / Chapter 5.1 --- Segmented Fabric / Sham Shui Po / Chapter 5.2 --- Fabric Edge / Tsuen Wan West / Chapter 5.3 --- Infrastructural Node / Lai Chi Kok / Chapter 5.0 --- Potential Sites / Exploration on different conditions / Chapter 5.1 --- Segmented Fabric / Sham Shui Po / Chapter 5.2 --- Fabric Edge / Tsuen Wan West / Chapter 5.3 --- Infrastructural Node / Lai Chi Kok / Chapter 6.0 --- Urban Scale Design / Infrastructure as the generator of Urban Form / Chapter 6.1 --- Distribution of Programs / Chapter 6.2 --- Site Context / Chapter 6.3 --- Conceptual Sketch / Chapter 6.4 --- Urban Strategy / Chapter 6.5 --- Grain Size and Edge Conditions / Chapter 6.6 --- Program / Chapter 6.7 --- Open Space Distribution / Chapter 6.8 --- Movement Pattern / Chapter 6.9 --- Explorations / Chapter 6.10 --- Roof Plan / Chapter 6.11 --- Terrace Level - Axonometric Drawing / Chapter 6.12 --- Scenarios - Section A and View 1 / Chapter 6.13 --- Scenarios - Section B and View 2 / Chapter 6.14 --- Scenarios - Section C and View 3 / Chapter 7.0 --- Appendix / Chapter 7.1 --- Vocabulary of Infratructure / Chapter 7.2 --- Reference Projects / Chapter 8.0 --- Bibliography

Chow King Mun. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-144). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract (in English and Chinese) --- p.iv-v / Acknowledgements --- p.vi / Notes --- p.vii / List of Figures --- p.viii / List of Diagrams and Tables --- p.viii / Figures / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- The Aim of the Study / Chapter 1.2 --- The Road to Chinese Modernity / Chapter 1.3 --- Modernity and Consumption / Chapter 1.4 --- Theories of Consumption / Chapter 1.5 --- Consumption in China / Chapter 1.6 --- "A Brief Overview of the Tian Village, Zhongshan" / Chapter 1.7 --- Methodology / Chapter 1.8 --- Summary of the Chapters Making up the Thesis / Chapter 1.9 --- Significance of Study / Chapter 2. --- Tian Village and its Environment --- p.27 / Chapter 2.1 --- The Xiaolan Town / Chapter 2.2 --- The Tian Village / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Background / Chapter 2.2.2 --- The Dramatic Transformation of the Village / Chapter 2.2.3 --- The Economic Activities / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Education Level / Chapter 2.2.5 --- Migrant Labourers / Chapter 2.3 --- Summary / Chapter 3. --- Aspiring to be Modern --- p.52 / Chapter 3.1 --- What is Modernity? / Chapter 3.2 --- The Aspirations of Older and Younger Villagers / Chapter 3.2.1 --- The young generation / Chapter 3.2.2 --- The old generation / Chapter 3.3.3 --- The hardships of the older villagers / Chapter 3.3 --- The Government Initiatives / Chapter 3.4 --- The Hong Kong Influences / Chapter 3.5 --- The Discourses of Modernity / Chapter 3.6 --- Summary / Chapter 4. --- Striving for a Better Life --- p.78 / Chapter 4.1 --- Strategies to earn money / Chapter 4.2 --- Case Study 1: Big Brother / Chapter 4.3 --- Case Study 2: Ah Ming's mother / Chapter 4.4 --- Case Study 3: AhYan / Chapter 4.5 --- Case Study 4: Mr He / Chapter 4.6 --- Summary / Chapter 5. --- Consumption and Modernity --- p.92 / Chapter 5.1 --- Interpreting modernity: Consumption as a strategy / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Housing / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Food / Chapter 5.1.3 --- Transportation / Chapter 5.1.4 --- Clothes / Chapter 5.1.5 --- Consuming modernity as a daily activity / Chapter 5.2 --- Economic power and generation differences in consumption / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Mobile Phones / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Debit cards/Shopping VIP cards / Chapter 5.2.3 --- The concept of frugality / Chapter 5.3 --- Anti-consumption: the problems of social security / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Ah Han Case / Chapter 5.4 --- Summary / Chapter 6. --- Conclusion --- p.130 / Appendix - List of Chinese Characters --- p.137 / Bibliography --- p.139

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

M.Tech. (Architecture) / Please refer to full text to view abstract