The ‘souvenirization' and ‘touristification' of material culture in Thailand – mutual constructions of ‘otherness' in the tourism and souvenir industries

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to deal with the effects of touristic imaginations of what is ‘typically’ Thai in terms of the local handicraft production and the souvenir business and its development since the 1960s by using the concept of the so-called mutual gaze as a theoretical frame. In this context, it has to be asked on the producers’ side how touristic conceptions of Thai material culture influence how and what kinds of objects are produced; it also raises the question whether producing and selling souvenirs constitutes a significant and supplementary income for people in peripheral regions with few other economic alternatives. On the consumers’ side the question arises, what attributes tourists actually imagine of being ‘typical’ for Thai material culture. In order to answer these questions, the types and form of production of items sold in contemporary touristic hotspots in the provinces of Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son, Northern Thailand, are analyzed. The findings presented in the present paper are derived from a series of qualitative interviews with producers of souvenirs in handicraft villages and from standardized, questionnaire based interviews with Western tourists in the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar area conducted in 2015 and 2016.