Rituals of National Loyalty: An Anthropology of the State and the Village Scout Movement in Thailand. KATHERINE A. BOWIE. New York: Columbia University Press; 1997; 393 pp. Reviewed by SUSAN M. DARLINGTON Hampshire College Bowie's book fills a gap in our comprehension of a significant and turbulent period in recent Thai history. She also contributes theoretically to understanding the use of ritual in promoting political goals. In a detailed, thorough, and engaging work, Bowie examines the evolution of the state-sponsored, rightwing Village Scout movement in Thailand during the 1970s and $ $80s. While the most dramatic incident in Village Scout history was its involvement in the violent crackdown against student protesters in 1976, Bowie critically explores its creation in 1971, its growth in numbers and popularity, culminating in 2,387 initiation rituals for almost 2 million people in 1976, and its sudden decline in the late $ $70s and $ $80s. What is most impressive and valuable in Bowie's analysis of this movement is her consideration of class interests as they play out in urban-rural relations and national-level political ambitions. Most ethnographic and historical accounts of Thailand in this century separate rural and urban issues; even fewer deal in detail with class issues. Bowie takes this process a step further in her focus on the right, a perspective few dare to consider seriously in Thai studies. Yet as the twenty-fifth anniversary of the October 6, 1976, crackdown passed three years ago, more and more questions have been asked about the implications of that violence. Bowie offers a major contribution toward answering those questions. Based on fieldwork carried out from 1974 to 1978, extensive use of Thai newspaper accounts and Village Scout records, and an in-depth interview with the founder of the Scouts, Bowie presents Scout history on multiple levels. The book is divided into two major sections: the first focuses on the state and the rapid rise in popularity of the Scout movement; the second reflects on peasant reactions to the movement at its height and as it faded. The cumulative result is an innovative consideration of a statesponsored ritual within its changing historical and social contexts. The use of two approaches - historical and ethnographic - combines to build an effective and complex picture of the Scouts. Had she limited herself to analyzing the five-day initiation ritual she witnessed in 1977, Bowie would have missed the full significance of the Scout movement. Instead, her accounting of the movement through two decades of Thai history sheds light on several aspects of that country's political culture. Among these is a subtle analysis of what she refers to as ,,state factions and class fractions, the complex divisions and debates both within the state and within each of the broader social (p. 9). The distinctions within the three major classes in Thai society - the elite, the middle class, and the lower class (including the peasantry) - are nuanced through a detailed study of relations within each grouping as well as across them. Beginning with a discussion of the movement's founding, Bowie relies extensively on interviews with Major General Somkhuan Harikul, a highranking officer in Thailand's counterinsurgency agency, the Border Patrol Police. Through his biography and the early history of the movement, the connections between Thai politics, various military agencies, the Communist insurgency, state-citizen relations, and the role of the monarchy are explored in depth. She critically delves into the shifting political alignment of the monarchy and its impact on both village and state levels as Thai politics polarized in the 1970s. In Part TWo Bowie emphasizes villager involvement in and reactions to the Village Scout movement, with particular focus on the efficacy of the movement among the peasantry. …
Read full abstract
Jun 29, 2018
Haden A Geiger + 2
Open Access