(Im)mobilizing Bangkok: Towards an ethnography of urban circulation

This chapter begins from the realization that circulation constituted and shaped the birth and functioning of the modern metropolis: it was transportation infrastructure to guarantee its growth and circulation of people, ideas, and objects to create the typical urban experience of density, anonymity, and living its space as a network. Anthropological studies of these processes, however, have historically suffered from a disconnect between social theory, urban management, and ethnographic analysis. Reconstructing my own fieldwork in Bangkok, I present this work on motorcycle taxis and mobility in Bangkok as part of new attempts to investigate urban circulation ethnographically. In particular, I explore the methodological challenges that emerged from a refusal of the traditional ethnographic precept of focusing on a specific locale or cohesive group.