Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T21:15:26.211Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dividing the rice: A microanalysis of the mediator's role in a Northern Thai negotiation1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Jack Bilmes
Jack Bilmes
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii, Department of AnthropologyHonolulu, HI 96822
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although there exists an extensive literature on mediation, little attention has been given to the close analysis of talk in actual mediations. This article applies various analytic techniques, particularly those of conversation analysis and sociolinguistics, to provide a culturally contexted account of a mediation. At issue is the division of a rice harvest between a sharecropper and the owner of a ricefield in a Northern Thai village. Practices with regard to accusation and criticism, defense and denial, expression of anger, formulation of parties, and perspectival shifting are central to the analysis.

In order to understand what is taking place, it is necessary to have some knowledge of a variety of cultural and “contextual” matters, for example, genres and styles of local speech, traditional and current share-cropping practices, the national law regarding sharecropping, and local administrative practices, as well as the history of relations between the parties to the negotiation. On the other hand, a close analysis of the talk reveals a good deal about general cultural contexts, as well as about Northern Thai mediation. (Mediation, conversation analysis, Thailand)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1992 , pp. 569 - 602
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Atkinson, J. M., & Drew, P. (1979). Order in court: The organization of verbal interaction in judicial settings, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bilmes, J. (1975). Misinformation and ambiguity in verbal interaction. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 5: 63–75.Google Scholar
Bilmes, J. (1976). Rules and rhetoric: Negotiating the social order in a Thai village. Journal of Anthropological Research 32: 44–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bilmes, J. (1980). Why do Thai villagers break the wood laws? Human Organization 39: 186–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bilmes, J. (1986). Discourse and behavior. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bilmes, J. (1988a). Category and rule in conversation analysis. Papers in Pragmatics 2: 25–59.Google Scholar
Bilmes, J. (1988b). The concept of preference in conversation analysis. Language in Society 17: 161–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bilmes, J. (in press). Constituting silence: Life in the world of total meaning. Semiotica.Google Scholar
Boden, D., & Zimmerman, D. H. (eds.). (1991). Talk and social structure: Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. L., & Roberts, S. (1981). Rules and processes: The cultural logic of dispute in an African context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Epstein, A. L. (ed.). (1974). Contention and dispute: Aspects of law and social control in Melanesia. Canberra: Australian National University Press.Google Scholar
Fillmore, C. J. (1971). Verbs of judging: An exercise in semantic description. In Fillmore, C. J. & Langendoen, D. T. (eds.), Studies in linguistic semantics. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 273–89.Google Scholar
Firth, A. (1991). Discourse at work: Negotiating by telex, fax, and ‘phone. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Aalborg, Denmark.Google Scholar
Frake, C. O. (1969). Struck by speech: The Yakan concept of litigation. In Nader, L. (ed.), Law in culture and society. Chicago: Aldine. 147–67.Google Scholar
Garcia, A. (1991). Dispute resolution without disputing: How the interactional organization of mediation hearings minimizes argument. American Sociological Review 56: 818–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Gluckman, M. (1955). The judicial process among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia. Manchester: University of Manchester Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, L. (1983). Talk never dies: The language of Huli disputes. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Goodwin, C., & Heritage, J. (1990). Conversation analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 283–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. (1991). He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization in an urban Black peer group. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Gulliver, P. H. (1963). Social control in an African society. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gulliver, P. H. (1979). Disputes and negotiations: A cross-cultural perspective. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Household, G. (1963). Rogue male. New York: Pyramid. (Original work published 1939)Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard, D. W. (1984). Inside plea bargaining: The language of negotiation. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mehan, H. (1991). The school's work of sorting students. In Boden, D. & Zimmerman, D. H. (eds.), Talk and social structure: Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. 71–90.Google Scholar
Merry, S. (1982). The social organization of mediation in nonindustrial societies: Implications for informal community justice in America. In Abel, R. (ed.), The politics of informal justice: Volume 2. Comparative studies. New York: Academic. 17–45.Google Scholar
Moerman, M. (1966). Ban Ping's temple: The center of a “loosely structured” society. In Nash, M. (ed.), Anthropological studies in Theravada Buddhism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. 137–74.Google Scholar
Moerman, M. (1972). Analysis of Tai conversation: making accounts, finding breaches and taking sides. in Sudnow, D. (ed.), Studies in social interaction. New York: The Free Press. 170–228.Google Scholar
Moerman, M. (1988). Talking culture: Ethnography and conversation analysis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moerman, M. (n.d.). Merit and motives in the Thai social order. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Nader, L. (in press). Community justice and harmony ideology. In Merry, S. E. & Milner, N. (eds.), The possibility of popular justice: A case study of community mediation in the United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Nader, L., & Todd, H. F. Jr. (1978). The disputing process – Law in ten societies. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Barr, W. M. (1982). Linguistic evidence: Language, power and strategy in the courtroom. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Phillips, H. P. (1965). Thai peasant personality: The patterning of interpersonal behavior in the village of Bang Chan. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation. Language 50: 696–735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1978). On some questions and ambiguities in conversation. In Dressler, W. U. (ed.), Current trends in texttinguistics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 81–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, E. A. (1991). Reflections on talk and social structure. In Boden, D. & Zimmerman, D. H. (eds.), Talk and social structure: Studies in Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. 44–70.Google Scholar
Silbey, S. S., & Merry, S. E. (1986). Mediator settlement strategies. Law and Policy 8: 7–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tambiah, S. J. (1970). Buddhism and the spirit cults in north-east Thailand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wieder, D. L. (1974). Language and social reality: The case of telling the convict code. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, T. P. (1991). Social structure and the sequential organization of interaction. In Boden, D. & Zimmerman, D. H. (eds.), Talk and social structure: Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. 22–43.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, D. H., & Boden, D. (1991). Structure-in-action: An introduction. In Boden, D. & Zimmerman, D. H. (eds.), Talk and social structure: Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. 3–21.Google Scholar