Eli Elinoff
Biographic Data
| ID | 81098 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eli Elinoff |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eli |
| FAMILY NAME | Elinoff |
| SIGNATURE | ELINOFF E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Victoria University of Wellington |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5356-5003 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 129 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Taking Turns: Editor's Farewell
After six issues of collaborating and taking turns steering the journal, we have made the decision to step down from the editorial collective of Commoning Ethnography. The time has come to refresh the journal’s perspective and open the publication to our colleagues as they push this experiment in thinking, writing, and publishing in new directions
The Concrete Pastoral
Eli Elinoff’s photo-essay reveals the proximities and relations generated by concrete across rural, extractive, industrial and urban spaces
Volumetric citizenship: Vibration, constraint, and respiratory topologies in Thailand
In Thailand, the volatile period from 2019 to 2023 was marked by changing material and political atmospheres. Air pollution, the COVID-19 pandemic, and government restrictions on speech transformed how Thai citizens breathed and how they related to the monarchy. Understanding this period as a history of breath reconceptualizes the citizen-body as volumetric, recasting politics as an intermaterial practice. Breath, its vibrations, and its constrai…
On Power and Obligation in Publishing
Welcome to Volume 5 of Commoning Ethnography. We’ll start with the obvious: this issue was a challenge to produce. It arrives nearly three calendar years after our last issue. This was not our plan. There are myriad reasons for the issue’s untimeliness. Chiefly, these have to do with a quite volatile period in the life of our institution in the long wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as it played out in its own untimely way in Aotearoa. They also have…
Environmentalisms in Twenty-First Century Thailand: Continuities, Discontinuities, and Emerging Trajectories
How have Thailand's environmental politics changed across the last five decades? How have they remained the same? What role do environmental movements in Thailand play in the country's current moment of extended military-led rule and global environmental change? This article addresses these questions by presenting a critical genealogy of Thailand's environmental politics. It begins with a larger framing of environmental movements within the conte…
Introducing Volume 4
Welcome to Volume 4 of Commoning Ethnography
Splintering disaster: Relocating harm and remaking nature after the 2011 floods in Bangkok
In the wake of the costly 2011 floods, the city of Bangkok struggled to respond to the water inundating Thailand’s major hub. In response, Thai leaders primarily blamed the external forces of nature and climate change. Depoliticising disasters and absolving national leaders of responsibility, these discourses about nature and climate change as the main cause of flooding led policymakers to primarily build infrastructure to block and drain water. …
Introducing Issue Three
This issue has taken shape within the context of a global pandemic, and despite these challenges it has provided a welcome space to continue our common intellectual work. Our authors hail from around the globe and have each experienced different aspects of this volatility in different ways at different times. The issue features a special collection entitled Trial by Fire. These essays probe and question the underlying assumptions embedded within …
Une maison, c'est bien plus qu'une maison: Bâtir la démocratie le long de la voie ferrée dans le Nord-Est de la Thaïlande
L’enfant acquiert le sentiment de son identité personnelle dès la troisième année de la vie. Par la suite la certitude de ce sentiment d’identité ne le quittera plus jamais jusqu’à la fin de l’âge adulte, sauf confusion mentale ou démence. L’identité personnelle repose sur la distinction entre le soi et l’objet. Le soi, ou self, c’est tout ce qui n’est pas l’objet. Le self existe avant que l’on puisse parler d’un « moi », séparé du ça et du surmo…
Introduction: A return to politics
What does politics mean in contemporary anthropology? Counter to propositions that argue that neoliberalism has produced a "post-political" condition, we argue the notion of a post-political world was never empirically accurate. Instead, using the ethnographic method, our contributors show ongoing and diverse forms of political practices and contestations in the contemporary moment. We reconsider politics at a conceptual level, defining politics …
Subjects of politics: Between democracy and dictatorship in Thailand
In May of 2014, the Thai military deposed elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Since the coup, the chief aim of the military government has been to bring order to the country by silencing politics. In this paper, I trace the drift from democracy to dictatorship as a set of disagreements about democracy and its redistribution of political capacity. Specifically, I show how debates revolving around the political capacities of the poor reflec…
Welcome to Commoning Ethnography
What does it mean to suggest that ethnography might be a site, source, or scene of commoning? What does combining the idea of commoning with the practice of ethnography allow us to think about or to do that we might not otherwise? Why create a journal dedicated to such an obviously paradoxical thought experiment? This editorial introduction outlines the impetus behind this project, our aspirations for it, and considers some of the questions it ra…
Concrete and corruption: Materialising power and politics in the Thai capital
Why do Thai citizens look to concrete to reveal political scandal? What do their readings of corruption in overbuilt, failed and obdurate structures tell us about the relationship between politics and construction in Thailand? How do these readings help us better understand the political power of this material and its enactments? In this paper, I trace the relationship between concrete and claims of corruption through three different projects—a r…
Constructing Asia: An introduction
10.1080/13604813.2017.1374777
Towards an Ethnography Commons
How might the notion of an ethnography commons transform ethnographic research practice and pedagogy? In this paper, I consider how the concept of the commons, in all of its messiness, might provide a way of not only addressing questions surrounding the boundaries of ethnographic research and knowledge that have been fundamental to anthropology since Writing Culture (Clifford and Marcus 1986), but also for crafting more transformative research an…
A house is more than a house: Aesthetic politics in a Northeastern Thai railway settlement
This article examines debates over architectural aesthetics between residents of Thai railway communities, state urban planners, and NGO activists. It interrogates the designs, colours, objects, and materials these groups use as they attempt to upgrade these settlements as part of a participatory urban housing project. I argue that through aesthetic practices, residents, planners, and activists propose, debate, and enact distinct political and mo…
Unmaking Civil Society: Activist Schisms and Autonomous Politics in Thailand
Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) is one of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute"s flagship publications. Now in its fourth decade of publication, CSEA has succeeded in building up an international reputation as one of Southeast Asia"s premier academic journals. The aim of the peer reviewed journal is to provide subscribers with up to date and in-depth analysis of critical trends and developments in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.…
Retheorizing the City Past the Edge of the Twenty-First Century
Sufficient Citizens: Moderation and the Politics of Sustainable Development in Thailand
After the 1997 Asian markets crash, the theory of the 'sufficiency economy' altered the discourse of development in Thailand. Emphasizing Buddhist notions of moderation and 'enough' sufficiency recast development as a means to temper socio-economic volatility by reforming consumer affect. Sufficiency theory pinned the nation's economic upheaval on excessive desires, attempting to intervene in these impulses through projects rooted in personal mod…
Smouldering Aspirations: Burning Buildings and the Politics of Belonging in Contemporary Isan
This paper examines the links between Bangkok's smoking skyline and the political and economic aspirations of North Eastern Thais. The author proposes that much of what was at stake during the 2009 and 2010 political upheaval was closely tied to a constricted sense of citizenship apparent in the frustrated political and economic aspirations expressed by North East Thailand's urban poor. Through an ethnographic analysis of the experiences of resid…
Sufficient Citizens: Moderation and the Politics of Sustainable Development in Thailand
After the 1997 Asian markets crash, the theory of the 'sufficiency economy' altered the discourse of development in Thailand. Emphasizing Buddhist notions of moderation and 'enough' sufficiency recast development as a means to temper socio-economic volatility by reforming consumer affect. Sufficiency theory pinned the nation's economic upheaval on excessive desires, attempting to intervene in these impulses through projects rooted in personal mod…
A house is more than a house: Aesthetic politics in a Northeastern Thai railway settlement
This article examines debates over architectural aesthetics between residents of Thai railway communities, state urban planners, and NGO activists. It interrogates the designs, colours, objects, and materials these groups use as they attempt to upgrade these settlements as part of a participatory urban housing project. I argue that through aesthetic practices, residents, planners, and activists propose, debate, and enact distinct political and mo…
Introduction: A return to politics
What does politics mean in contemporary anthropology? Counter to propositions that argue that neoliberalism has produced a "post-political" condition, we argue the notion of a post-political world was never empirically accurate. Instead, using the ethnographic method, our contributors show ongoing and diverse forms of political practices and contestations in the contemporary moment. We reconsider politics at a conceptual level, defining politics …
Smouldering Aspirations: Burning Buildings and the Politics of Belonging in Contemporary Isan
This paper examines the links between Bangkok's smoking skyline and the political and economic aspirations of North Eastern Thais. The author proposes that much of what was at stake during the 2009 and 2010 political upheaval was closely tied to a constricted sense of citizenship apparent in the frustrated political and economic aspirations expressed by North East Thailand's urban poor. Through an ethnographic analysis of the experiences of resid…
Concrete and corruption: Materialising power and politics in the Thai capital
Why do Thai citizens look to concrete to reveal political scandal? What do their readings of corruption in overbuilt, failed and obdurate structures tell us about the relationship between politics and construction in Thailand? How do these readings help us better understand the political power of this material and its enactments? In this paper, I trace the relationship between concrete and claims of corruption through three different projects—a r…
Environmentalisms in Twenty-First Century Thailand: Continuities, Discontinuities, and Emerging Trajectories
How have Thailand's environmental politics changed across the last five decades? How have they remained the same? What role do environmental movements in Thailand play in the country's current moment of extended military-led rule and global environmental change? This article addresses these questions by presenting a critical genealogy of Thailand's environmental politics. It begins with a larger framing of environmental movements within the conte…
Subjects of politics: Between democracy and dictatorship in Thailand
In May of 2014, the Thai military deposed elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Since the coup, the chief aim of the military government has been to bring order to the country by silencing politics. In this paper, I trace the drift from democracy to dictatorship as a set of disagreements about democracy and its redistribution of political capacity. Specifically, I show how debates revolving around the political capacities of the poor reflec…
Splintering disaster: Relocating harm and remaking nature after the 2011 floods in Bangkok
In the wake of the costly 2011 floods, the city of Bangkok struggled to respond to the water inundating Thailand’s major hub. In response, Thai leaders primarily blamed the external forces of nature and climate change. Depoliticising disasters and absolving national leaders of responsibility, these discourses about nature and climate change as the main cause of flooding led policymakers to primarily build infrastructure to block and drain water. …
Unmaking Civil Society: Activist Schisms and Autonomous Politics in Thailand
Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) is one of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute"s flagship publications. Now in its fourth decade of publication, CSEA has succeeded in building up an international reputation as one of Southeast Asia"s premier academic journals. The aim of the peer reviewed journal is to provide subscribers with up to date and in-depth analysis of critical trends and developments in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.…
Welcome to Commoning Ethnography
What does it mean to suggest that ethnography might be a site, source, or scene of commoning? What does combining the idea of commoning with the practice of ethnography allow us to think about or to do that we might not otherwise? Why create a journal dedicated to such an obviously paradoxical thought experiment? This editorial introduction outlines the impetus behind this project, our aspirations for it, and considers some of the questions it ra…
Constructing Asia: An introduction
10.1080/13604813.2017.1374777
Towards an Ethnography Commons
How might the notion of an ethnography commons transform ethnographic research practice and pedagogy? In this paper, I consider how the concept of the commons, in all of its messiness, might provide a way of not only addressing questions surrounding the boundaries of ethnographic research and knowledge that have been fundamental to anthropology since Writing Culture (Clifford and Marcus 1986), but also for crafting more transformative research an…
Volumetric citizenship: Vibration, constraint, and respiratory topologies in Thailand
In Thailand, the volatile period from 2019 to 2023 was marked by changing material and political atmospheres. Air pollution, the COVID-19 pandemic, and government restrictions on speech transformed how Thai citizens breathed and how they related to the monarchy. Understanding this period as a history of breath reconceptualizes the citizen-body as volumetric, recasting politics as an intermaterial practice. Breath, its vibrations, and its constrai…
Introducing Volume 4
Welcome to Volume 4 of Commoning Ethnography
Smouldering Aspirations: Burning Buildings and the Politics of Belonging in Contemporary Isan
This paper examines the links between Bangkok's smoking skyline and the political and economic aspirations of North Eastern Thais. The author proposes that much of what was at stake during the 2009 and 2010 political upheaval was closely tied to a constricted sense of citizenship apparent in the frustrated political and economic aspirations expressed by North East Thailand's urban poor. Through an ethnographic analysis of the experiences of resid…
Unmaking Civil Society: Activist Schisms and Autonomous Politics in Thailand
Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) is one of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute"s flagship publications. Now in its fourth decade of publication, CSEA has succeeded in building up an international reputation as one of Southeast Asia"s premier academic journals. The aim of the peer reviewed journal is to provide subscribers with up to date and in-depth analysis of critical trends and developments in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.…
Retheorizing the City Past the Edge of the Twenty-First Century
Sufficient Citizens: Moderation and the Politics of Sustainable Development in Thailand
After the 1997 Asian markets crash, the theory of the 'sufficiency economy' altered the discourse of development in Thailand. Emphasizing Buddhist notions of moderation and 'enough' sufficiency recast development as a means to temper socio-economic volatility by reforming consumer affect. Sufficiency theory pinned the nation's economic upheaval on excessive desires, attempting to intervene in these impulses through projects rooted in personal mod…
A house is more than a house: Aesthetic politics in a Northeastern Thai railway settlement
This article examines debates over architectural aesthetics between residents of Thai railway communities, state urban planners, and NGO activists. It interrogates the designs, colours, objects, and materials these groups use as they attempt to upgrade these settlements as part of a participatory urban housing project. I argue that through aesthetic practices, residents, planners, and activists propose, debate, and enact distinct political and mo…
Concrete and corruption: Materialising power and politics in the Thai capital
Why do Thai citizens look to concrete to reveal political scandal? What do their readings of corruption in overbuilt, failed and obdurate structures tell us about the relationship between politics and construction in Thailand? How do these readings help us better understand the political power of this material and its enactments? In this paper, I trace the relationship between concrete and claims of corruption through three different projects—a r…
Constructing Asia: An introduction
10.1080/13604813.2017.1374777
Towards an Ethnography Commons
How might the notion of an ethnography commons transform ethnographic research practice and pedagogy? In this paper, I consider how the concept of the commons, in all of its messiness, might provide a way of not only addressing questions surrounding the boundaries of ethnographic research and knowledge that have been fundamental to anthropology since Writing Culture (Clifford and Marcus 1986), but also for crafting more transformative research an…
Welcome to Commoning Ethnography
What does it mean to suggest that ethnography might be a site, source, or scene of commoning? What does combining the idea of commoning with the practice of ethnography allow us to think about or to do that we might not otherwise? Why create a journal dedicated to such an obviously paradoxical thought experiment? This editorial introduction outlines the impetus behind this project, our aspirations for it, and considers some of the questions it ra…
Introduction: A return to politics
What does politics mean in contemporary anthropology? Counter to propositions that argue that neoliberalism has produced a "post-political" condition, we argue the notion of a post-political world was never empirically accurate. Instead, using the ethnographic method, our contributors show ongoing and diverse forms of political practices and contestations in the contemporary moment. We reconsider politics at a conceptual level, defining politics …
Subjects of politics: Between democracy and dictatorship in Thailand
In May of 2014, the Thai military deposed elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Since the coup, the chief aim of the military government has been to bring order to the country by silencing politics. In this paper, I trace the drift from democracy to dictatorship as a set of disagreements about democracy and its redistribution of political capacity. Specifically, I show how debates revolving around the political capacities of the poor reflec…
Splintering disaster: Relocating harm and remaking nature after the 2011 floods in Bangkok
In the wake of the costly 2011 floods, the city of Bangkok struggled to respond to the water inundating Thailand’s major hub. In response, Thai leaders primarily blamed the external forces of nature and climate change. Depoliticising disasters and absolving national leaders of responsibility, these discourses about nature and climate change as the main cause of flooding led policymakers to primarily build infrastructure to block and drain water. …
Introducing Issue Three
This issue has taken shape within the context of a global pandemic, and despite these challenges it has provided a welcome space to continue our common intellectual work. Our authors hail from around the globe and have each experienced different aspects of this volatility in different ways at different times. The issue features a special collection entitled Trial by Fire. These essays probe and question the underlying assumptions embedded within …
Une maison, c'est bien plus qu'une maison: Bâtir la démocratie le long de la voie ferrée dans le Nord-Est de la Thaïlande
L’enfant acquiert le sentiment de son identité personnelle dès la troisième année de la vie. Par la suite la certitude de ce sentiment d’identité ne le quittera plus jamais jusqu’à la fin de l’âge adulte, sauf confusion mentale ou démence. L’identité personnelle repose sur la distinction entre le soi et l’objet. Le soi, ou self, c’est tout ce qui n’est pas l’objet. Le self existe avant que l’on puisse parler d’un « moi », séparé du ça et du surmo…
Introducing Volume 4
Welcome to Volume 4 of Commoning Ethnography
On Power and Obligation in Publishing
Welcome to Volume 5 of Commoning Ethnography. We’ll start with the obvious: this issue was a challenge to produce. It arrives nearly three calendar years after our last issue. This was not our plan. There are myriad reasons for the issue’s untimeliness. Chiefly, these have to do with a quite volatile period in the life of our institution in the long wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as it played out in its own untimely way in Aotearoa. They also have…
Environmentalisms in Twenty-First Century Thailand: Continuities, Discontinuities, and Emerging Trajectories
How have Thailand's environmental politics changed across the last five decades? How have they remained the same? What role do environmental movements in Thailand play in the country's current moment of extended military-led rule and global environmental change? This article addresses these questions by presenting a critical genealogy of Thailand's environmental politics. It begins with a larger framing of environmental movements within the conte…
The Concrete Pastoral
Eli Elinoff’s photo-essay reveals the proximities and relations generated by concrete across rural, extractive, industrial and urban spaces
Volumetric citizenship: Vibration, constraint, and respiratory topologies in Thailand
In Thailand, the volatile period from 2019 to 2023 was marked by changing material and political atmospheres. Air pollution, the COVID-19 pandemic, and government restrictions on speech transformed how Thai citizens breathed and how they related to the monarchy. Understanding this period as a history of breath reconceptualizes the citizen-body as volumetric, recasting politics as an intermaterial practice. Breath, its vibrations, and its constrai…
Taking Turns: Editor's Farewell
After six issues of collaborating and taking turns steering the journal, we have made the decision to step down from the editorial collective of Commoning Ethnography. The time has come to refresh the journal’s perspective and open the publication to our colleagues as they push this experiment in thinking, writing, and publishing in new directions
Law (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (9 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (5 works) · Water Governance and Infrastructure (5 works) · Anthropology (4 works) · Cambodian History and Society (4 works)