Claudio Sopranzetti
Biographic Data
| ID | 649386 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Claudio Sopranzetti |
| GIVEN NAMES | Claudio |
| FAMILY NAME | Sopranzetti |
| SIGNATURE | SOPRANZETTI C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Central European University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6044-9147 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 142 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Chapter 8 Ethnographies
David Graeber's rhythm of developing thought: On poetics, imagination, and estrangement
This article proposes an analysis of David Graeber's work following the methods proposed by Antonio Gramsci of exploring Marx's work in search of "the leitmotif, the rhythm of developing thought, must be more important than single random statements and detached aphorisms." Adopting this Gramscian approach, I argue, allows us to dispel frequent critique of Graeber's alleged idealism by recovering how Graeber's reflection on possibility and alterna…
Beyond vernacular and metropolitan concepts: Good governance, translation and word coinage in Thailand
This article explores the emergence and transformation of the concept of good governance in contemporary Thailand after the 1997 economic crisis to reveal how it morphed from a technocratic category to a moral one, central to conservative and anti-democratic discourses in the country. By reconstructing historical and contemporary debates over word coinage and translation in Thailand, this article questions the easy distinctions between “metropoli…
Informalities in urban transport: Mobilities at the heart of contestations over (in)formalisation processes
Dialogues: The King of Bangkok: a collaborative graphic novel
The King of Bangkok (Sopranzetti, Fabbri & Natalucci 2021) is a non-fictional graphic novel, based on more than a decade of anthropological research and an attempt to think graphically through ethnography and think ethnographically through comics. The book, which was first published in Italian, then in Thai, and finally in English, tells the story of Nok, an old blind man who sells lottery tickets in Bangkok, as he decides to leave the city and r…
Shifting informalities: Motorcycle taxis, ride-hailing apps, and urban mobility in Bangkok
This article reconstructs the shifting uses of local concepts of “informality“ (nǭk rabop) over the last 35 years in the streets of Bangkok, with a particular attention to the birth of the motorcycle taxi business in the 1980s, its development after the 1997 economic crisis, and its transformation since the arrival of ride-hailing apps in 2016. Based on more than 10 years of qualitative and quantitative research with motorcycle taxi drivers, stat…
Possibilities of Graphic Ethnography: An Interview with Claudio Sopranzetti, Sara Fabbri and Chiara Natalucci
Claudio Sopranzetti, Sara Fabbri, and Chiara Natalucci are the team behind the new graphic ethnography The King of Bangkok (University of Toronto Press 2021). The King of Bangkok tells the story of Nok, an urban migrant from Thailand’s northeastern region as he moves back and forth from his home village and attempts to build a life in the country’s capital across periods of massive economic growth and collapse and periods of democratic expansion,…
Excerpts from The King of Bangkok
This is an excerpt from The King of Bangkok. Originally appearing in Chapter 3, the section we present is a flashback that follows the book’s protagonist, Nok, on his journey to the island of Koh Pha-Ngan in the Gulf of Thailand. Nok has secured work on a construction site there during the height of the country’s economic boom. The section demonstrates how opportunity and precarity, excitement and devastation are fundamental forces animating and …
The Tightening Authoritarian Grip on Thailand
The regime's aim is to impose an authoritarian form of order on the country's makeshift and improvisatory everyday life and its freewheeling public sphere
Owners of the Map: Motorcycle Taxi Drivers, Mobility, and Politics in Bangkok
Framed by Freedom: Emancipation and Oppression in Post-Fordist Thailand
Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2009 and 2014, this article examines the discourse of freedom ('itsaraphāp) among motorcycle taxi drivers in Bangkok and the practices, both emancipatory and oppressive, that it supports and makes possible. I explore its central role in their self-construction as successful migrants, entrepreneurial subjects, and autonomous urban dwellers, as well as its relations to capitalist restructuring and pr…
Why do we read the classics
Debates on the epistemological, ethical, and historical constitution of the anthropological corpus are one of the reasons why anthropology has always thrived. Whether in terms of the complex relation between the production of anthropological knowledge and the political systems in which it takes place, or the proliferation of the language of "mutual constitution" as a way to bypass questions of causality, the question of the "suffering" vs. the "g…
Gramsci's Common Sense: Inequality and Its Narratives by Kate Crehan
Reviewed by: Gramsci's Common Sense: Inequality and Its Narratives by Kate Crehan Claudio Sopranzetti Kate Crehan, Gramsci's Common Sense: Inequality and Its Narratives. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. 222 pp. Anthropological engagements with Antonio Gramsci in the English language have fallen into three main streams. The first—most prominent in Euro American circles—emerged from Raymond Williams's (1977, 1985) work and was further developed…
Thailand's Relapse: The Implications of the May 2014 Coup
On May 20, 2014, the Royal Army imposed martial law on Thailand, with the declared purpose of restoring peace to the people. Allegedly, the military intervened to put an end to seven months of political turmoil that had begun when the PDRC-the English acronym for the Thai People's Committee for Absolute Democracy with the King as Head of State-occupied key street intersections and government offices in Bangkok. The conservative mobilization had d…
Owners of the Map: Mobility and Mobilization among Motorcycle Taxi Drivers in Bangkok
In this article, I discuss the connection between spatial mobility and political mobilization among motorcycle taxi drivers during the 2010 protests in Bangkok. Through the study of their multiple roles, both as transport operators and as political mobilizers, I explore the nexus of mobility and mobilization and analyze motorcycle taxi drivers as central political actors in contemporary Thailand. In this sense, the article focuses on investigatin…
Burning Red Desires: Isan Migrants and the Politics of Desire in Contemporary Thailand
The Red Shirt movement, which reached its peak during May 2010, has been met with puzzlement and ambiguity by media and scholars in and beyond Thailand. Often presented as a one-man-driven movement or a ‘peasant revolt’, the movement has remained opaque to many observers. This article analyses the ongoing conflict through the eyes of Isan (North Eastern Thai) migrants in Bangkok, especially motorcycle taxi drivers, as motivated by ‘politics of de…
Owners of the Map: Mobility and Mobilization among Motorcycle Taxi Drivers in Bangkok
In this article, I discuss the connection between spatial mobility and political mobilization among motorcycle taxi drivers during the 2010 protests in Bangkok. Through the study of their multiple roles, both as transport operators and as political mobilizers, I explore the nexus of mobility and mobilization and analyze motorcycle taxi drivers as central political actors in contemporary Thailand. In this sense, the article focuses on investigatin…
Framed by Freedom: Emancipation and Oppression in Post-Fordist Thailand
Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2009 and 2014, this article examines the discourse of freedom ('itsaraphāp) among motorcycle taxi drivers in Bangkok and the practices, both emancipatory and oppressive, that it supports and makes possible. I explore its central role in their self-construction as successful migrants, entrepreneurial subjects, and autonomous urban dwellers, as well as its relations to capitalist restructuring and pr…
Burning Red Desires: Isan Migrants and the Politics of Desire in Contemporary Thailand
The Red Shirt movement, which reached its peak during May 2010, has been met with puzzlement and ambiguity by media and scholars in and beyond Thailand. Often presented as a one-man-driven movement or a ‘peasant revolt’, the movement has remained opaque to many observers. This article analyses the ongoing conflict through the eyes of Isan (North Eastern Thai) migrants in Bangkok, especially motorcycle taxi drivers, as motivated by ‘politics of de…
Thailand's Relapse: The Implications of the May 2014 Coup
On May 20, 2014, the Royal Army imposed martial law on Thailand, with the declared purpose of restoring peace to the people. Allegedly, the military intervened to put an end to seven months of political turmoil that had begun when the PDRC-the English acronym for the Thai People's Committee for Absolute Democracy with the King as Head of State-occupied key street intersections and government offices in Bangkok. The conservative mobilization had d…
Shifting informalities: Motorcycle taxis, ride-hailing apps, and urban mobility in Bangkok
This article reconstructs the shifting uses of local concepts of “informality“ (nǭk rabop) over the last 35 years in the streets of Bangkok, with a particular attention to the birth of the motorcycle taxi business in the 1980s, its development after the 1997 economic crisis, and its transformation since the arrival of ride-hailing apps in 2016. Based on more than 10 years of qualitative and quantitative research with motorcycle taxi drivers, stat…
Informalities in urban transport: Mobilities at the heart of contestations over (in)formalisation processes
Why do we read the classics
Debates on the epistemological, ethical, and historical constitution of the anthropological corpus are one of the reasons why anthropology has always thrived. Whether in terms of the complex relation between the production of anthropological knowledge and the political systems in which it takes place, or the proliferation of the language of "mutual constitution" as a way to bypass questions of causality, the question of the "suffering" vs. the "g…
Dialogues: The King of Bangkok: a collaborative graphic novel
The King of Bangkok (Sopranzetti, Fabbri & Natalucci 2021) is a non-fictional graphic novel, based on more than a decade of anthropological research and an attempt to think graphically through ethnography and think ethnographically through comics. The book, which was first published in Italian, then in Thai, and finally in English, tells the story of Nok, an old blind man who sells lottery tickets in Bangkok, as he decides to leave the city and r…
Burning Red Desires: Isan Migrants and the Politics of Desire in Contemporary Thailand
The Red Shirt movement, which reached its peak during May 2010, has been met with puzzlement and ambiguity by media and scholars in and beyond Thailand. Often presented as a one-man-driven movement or a ‘peasant revolt’, the movement has remained opaque to many observers. This article analyses the ongoing conflict through the eyes of Isan (North Eastern Thai) migrants in Bangkok, especially motorcycle taxi drivers, as motivated by ‘politics of de…
Owners of the Map: Mobility and Mobilization among Motorcycle Taxi Drivers in Bangkok
In this article, I discuss the connection between spatial mobility and political mobilization among motorcycle taxi drivers during the 2010 protests in Bangkok. Through the study of their multiple roles, both as transport operators and as political mobilizers, I explore the nexus of mobility and mobilization and analyze motorcycle taxi drivers as central political actors in contemporary Thailand. In this sense, the article focuses on investigatin…
Thailand's Relapse: The Implications of the May 2014 Coup
On May 20, 2014, the Royal Army imposed martial law on Thailand, with the declared purpose of restoring peace to the people. Allegedly, the military intervened to put an end to seven months of political turmoil that had begun when the PDRC-the English acronym for the Thai People's Committee for Absolute Democracy with the King as Head of State-occupied key street intersections and government offices in Bangkok. The conservative mobilization had d…
The Tightening Authoritarian Grip on Thailand
The regime's aim is to impose an authoritarian form of order on the country's makeshift and improvisatory everyday life and its freewheeling public sphere
Owners of the Map: Motorcycle Taxi Drivers, Mobility, and Politics in Bangkok
Framed by Freedom: Emancipation and Oppression in Post-Fordist Thailand
Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2009 and 2014, this article examines the discourse of freedom ('itsaraphāp) among motorcycle taxi drivers in Bangkok and the practices, both emancipatory and oppressive, that it supports and makes possible. I explore its central role in their self-construction as successful migrants, entrepreneurial subjects, and autonomous urban dwellers, as well as its relations to capitalist restructuring and pr…
Why do we read the classics
Debates on the epistemological, ethical, and historical constitution of the anthropological corpus are one of the reasons why anthropology has always thrived. Whether in terms of the complex relation between the production of anthropological knowledge and the political systems in which it takes place, or the proliferation of the language of "mutual constitution" as a way to bypass questions of causality, the question of the "suffering" vs. the "g…
Gramsci's Common Sense: Inequality and Its Narratives by Kate Crehan
Reviewed by: Gramsci's Common Sense: Inequality and Its Narratives by Kate Crehan Claudio Sopranzetti Kate Crehan, Gramsci's Common Sense: Inequality and Its Narratives. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. 222 pp. Anthropological engagements with Antonio Gramsci in the English language have fallen into three main streams. The first—most prominent in Euro American circles—emerged from Raymond Williams's (1977, 1985) work and was further developed…
Possibilities of Graphic Ethnography: An Interview with Claudio Sopranzetti, Sara Fabbri and Chiara Natalucci
Claudio Sopranzetti, Sara Fabbri, and Chiara Natalucci are the team behind the new graphic ethnography The King of Bangkok (University of Toronto Press 2021). The King of Bangkok tells the story of Nok, an urban migrant from Thailand’s northeastern region as he moves back and forth from his home village and attempts to build a life in the country’s capital across periods of massive economic growth and collapse and periods of democratic expansion,…
Excerpts from The King of Bangkok
This is an excerpt from The King of Bangkok. Originally appearing in Chapter 3, the section we present is a flashback that follows the book’s protagonist, Nok, on his journey to the island of Koh Pha-Ngan in the Gulf of Thailand. Nok has secured work on a construction site there during the height of the country’s economic boom. The section demonstrates how opportunity and precarity, excitement and devastation are fundamental forces animating and …
Shifting informalities: Motorcycle taxis, ride-hailing apps, and urban mobility in Bangkok
This article reconstructs the shifting uses of local concepts of “informality“ (nǭk rabop) over the last 35 years in the streets of Bangkok, with a particular attention to the birth of the motorcycle taxi business in the 1980s, its development after the 1997 economic crisis, and its transformation since the arrival of ride-hailing apps in 2016. Based on more than 10 years of qualitative and quantitative research with motorcycle taxi drivers, stat…
Beyond vernacular and metropolitan concepts: Good governance, translation and word coinage in Thailand
This article explores the emergence and transformation of the concept of good governance in contemporary Thailand after the 1997 economic crisis to reveal how it morphed from a technocratic category to a moral one, central to conservative and anti-democratic discourses in the country. By reconstructing historical and contemporary debates over word coinage and translation in Thailand, this article questions the easy distinctions between “metropoli…
Informalities in urban transport: Mobilities at the heart of contestations over (in)formalisation processes
Dialogues: The King of Bangkok: a collaborative graphic novel
The King of Bangkok (Sopranzetti, Fabbri & Natalucci 2021) is a non-fictional graphic novel, based on more than a decade of anthropological research and an attempt to think graphically through ethnography and think ethnographically through comics. The book, which was first published in Italian, then in Thai, and finally in English, tells the story of Nok, an old blind man who sells lottery tickets in Bangkok, as he decides to leave the city and r…
Chapter 8 Ethnographies
David Graeber's rhythm of developing thought: On poetics, imagination, and estrangement
This article proposes an analysis of David Graeber's work following the methods proposed by Antonio Gramsci of exploring Marx's work in search of "the leitmotif, the rhythm of developing thought, must be more important than single random statements and detached aphorisms." Adopting this Gramscian approach, I argue, allows us to dispel frequent critique of Graeber's alleged idealism by recovering how Graeber's reflection on possibility and alterna…
Sociology (14 works) · Political science (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (9 works) · Politics (8 works) · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies (6 works) · Art (5 works) · History (5 works) · History (5 works) · Law (5 works)