Thai History Research Articles

The Irony of Democratization and the Decline of Royal Hegemony in Thailand

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)I learned about the May 22, 2014 coup d'etat by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) under the leadership of the then commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Army, General Prayut Chan-o-cha, the day it occurred. I was at a workshop comparing recent political developments and protests in Turkey and Thailand at the London School of Economics. The first thing that came to mind when I heard the news was a sentence I had come across long ago in my reading of Marx's writings on the state, in the preface to the second edition of his celebrated work on Louis Bonaparte's coup, dated 1869 (1974, 144):I show how, on the contrary, the class struggle in France created circumstances and conditions which allowed a mediocre and grotesque individual to play the hero's role.It struck me as an apt portrayal of the gist of the political crisis that had been plaguing Thailand for the past decade, namely, a mutually dissipating and destructive, protracted class conflict that had aggravatingly undermined its governing institutions and political civility, leading occasionally to partial state failures and anarchy in its administrative and business centers. With that class conflict reaching yet another impasse and stalemate in 2014, the NCPO's coup then presented itself as a statist or bureaucratic politic (a la Fred Riggs's Bureaucratic Polity in Riggs, 1966) solution to it in the Bonapartist manner.However, from the time of the preceding Thai Bonaparte-Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, whose military absolutist rule lasted from 1958 to 1963-to the current one, much has changed in Thailand. Its population has more than doubled, from 28 million to 65 million; its GDP has increased 239-fold, from 54 billion to 12,910 billion baht; and its civil society has produced at least two successful popular uprisings, in 1973 and 1992, that managed to topple the military government of the day (Riggs 1966, 16; Pasuk and Baker 1995, 162; Baker and Pasuk 2005, xvii-xviii, 24, 201; Bank of Thailand 2015). Therefore, if the hugely corrupt and bullying womanizer of yesteryear who drank himself to death was still capable of producing some real tragedies, his latter-day sober and chaste if no less bullying aspirant seems more prone to making boastful, careless, farcical statements that have often landed his military administration in troubles both domestic and international (Thak 1979, 193-205; Grossman et al. 2009, 133; Anderson 2014, 52-53; Hookway 2015).1) He does indeed fit Marx's description of a Bonapartist hero insofar as mediocrity and grotesqueness are concerned.2)What I propose to do in this brief paper is to take a big picture and a long historical perspective of the current conflict and mass movements in Thailand, focusing on their class-related dimension, political dynamics, and royalist framing. Instead of focusing on the NCPO's coup per se, with its multifarious details and still ongoing eventuation, I would rather try to understand and assess it against the country's historical and cultural political backdrop.Power Shifts in Modern Thai Political HistoryIf one takes a long historical view of modern Thai politics since the late nineteenth century, one can't help but notice a recurrent pattern of major power shifts in modern Thai history. Its basic trajectory follows much the same logic:- It begins with the partly pressured, partly voluntary opening up of the economy to the outside world, and the resultant rapid economic growth;- That is followed by a big social change, especially the emergence and upward mobility of new social groups and classes in connection with the newly liberalized and expanding sector of the economy;- This leads to a political contest between the old elites and their privileged allies on the one hand, and the rising new groups and classes on the other;- Eventually, all this leads sooner or later to a regime change. …

Culinary tourism as living history: staging, tourist performance and perceptions of authenticity in a Thai cooking school

ABSTRACTThis study examined how a cooking school in Thailand acted as a site of living history in its staging and touristic experience of authenticity. The cooking school was one of the oldest, most visited and most comprehensively “staged” cooking schools in Bangkok. Research focused on understanding: (a) the nature of spatial and temporal staging of authenticity in the school, (b) tourists’ perceptions of authenticity and (c) parallels between the cooking school and living heritage sites. Findings showed that the cooking school was carefully designed to transport tourists from the heterogeneous tourist spaces of present-day Bangkok to the idealized, enclavic space of an imagined Thai culinary past. Tourists took on multiple roles, had rich sensory experiences, felt a sense of play and space–time transcendence, and revelled in close social relations with hosts and other tourists. These factors allowed them to experience multiple forms of both modernist and post-modernist authenticity. In its scenography, interpretative performance, narrative and rituals, the cooking school did indeed resemble a living history site. However, the school made no particular claim to expertise in Thai history, place or culinary culture, and tended more towards touristic entertainment, and less towards accurate historical and cultural visitor education.

5 May 2014 MW 6.1 Mae Lao (Northern Thailand) Earthquake: Interpretations of Recorded Ground Motion and Structural Damage

A moderate left-lateral strike-slip earthquake of MW 6.1 occurred on 5 May 2014 in northern Thailand, causing damage to the town of Mae Lao and nearby municipalities. Based on an instrumental earthquake catalog, the Mae Lao earthquake is the second largest earthquake in modern Thai history after the MW 6.3 Nan earthquake in 1935. In this study, the strong-motion records from the epicentral area are analyzed in order to investigate the characteristics of the ground motions. In addition, post-earthquake field observations and statistics for typical structural damage in the affected area, such as the soft story effect and the shear failure of columns, are summarized. Besides major structural damage, the majority of structures in the epicentral area withstood the strong motion, which could be due to the low stress drop of the main shock (40 bars) leading to below average ground motions for an MW 6.1 earthquake.

Custom, Kinship and the Law: An Analysis of Thailand’s Rural Northeastern Provinces (1946-1976)

The Siamese and Thai history of village level kinship ties and communalism in both Siamese and Lao culture contributed to the variegated evolution of Siamese and Thai traditions and customs. Legal frameworks for the Kingdom only began to take serious root in modernity when Western forms of administration and society began after World War II. This paper examines the customs, kinship relations, and relevant laws of the Kingdom’s rural provinces in the northeast.

Fiction and Social Consciousness in Interwar Siam: Thai Elite Culture in Crisis and Transition

This article examines representations of Thai society in fiction during the 1920s and 1930s. Initially the hobby of palace writers and readers, by the 1930s the evolving form had come to be widely popular with middle-class commoners. The rise of middle-class society was of profound importance in the interwar period: far beyond constituting a new reading and writing public, social and economic change undermined the political power of the old elite, and in 1932 a bureaucratic coup toppled the absolute monarchy. But the ‘revolution’, as it came to be known, was incomplete; the growth of new social classes and democratic ideas did not produce a new society. Nor, as this article demonstrates, did it destroy the cultural power of the old elite. The royal–aristocratic class remained cultural icons, and this is clearly shown in the new genre of realistic fiction that appeared. Royalist culture, an enduring aspect of twentieth century Thai history, maintained its power through a period of crisis largely because of its adaptation to changed circumstances.

(Un)Identified: détourned photographs from modern Siam

This visual essay weaves together images from an artistic research project with discussion of the critical and historical contexts which animated and informed it. The images – for the most part – are composites of late 19th and early 20th century photographic portraits discovered by chance in the National Archive of Thailand.In November 2014 these were exhibited at H Project Space, a Bangkok gallery located in a neo-colonial house built by an Anglo-Thai couple around the same time as the photographs were taken. For this, the composites were generated in real time using software designed by the author. These were projected at monumental scale to create two immersive spaces. In the interests of clarity, images from this exhibition and others generated during the visual research process are included here.The inquiry sought to raise questions about overlooked and taboo aspects of Thai history and to relate these to a political present characterised by mass censorship, curtailed freedom of expression and a heavily policed visual culture.

Performance of Structures in the Mw 6.1 Mae Lao Earthquake in Thailand on May 5, 2014 and Implications for Future Construction

An Mw 6.1 earthquake struck northern Thailand on the 5th of May 2014. The epicenter was located near Mae Lao district in Chiang Rai province. The earthquake caused unprecedented damage to structures, the most damaging earthquake ever in recorded Thai history. Five hundred and ninety-four buildings out of 10,863 were damaged to the extent that they were unsafe for occupancy. This article presents a reconnaissance investigation of damage to buildings and bridges in the two districts—Phan and Mae Lao—which suffered the most damage. Attention is paid to the performance of buildings with similar configurations and structural design, but with different layout of unreinforced masonry infills as non-structural components.

Benedict R. O'G. Anderson. Exploration and Irony in Studies of Siam over Forty Years. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 2014, 166 p.

Exploration and Irony in of Siam over Forty YearsProfessor Crocodile Who Blocks CanalHelpfully compiled and arranged both chronologically and thematically in one volume, various essays, articles, and reviews that make up this book reflect wonderful skepticism, relentless questioning, daring iconoclasm, contrarian perspective, critical intelligence, penetrating insight, mordant humor, wide-ranging and in-depth knowledge of country, its people and beyond, and above all, tender and deeply-felt love and care which Professor Ben Anderson, worldrenowned doyen of nationalism and Southeast Asian at Cornell University, has consistently brought to study of Siam/Thailand over past 40 years. Like Jorakhe khwang khlong or a crocodile who blocks canal (and thereby obstructing smooth flow of canal traffic) in a traditional Thai saying, this body of his work was indeed widely recognized as a paradigmatic watershed in Thai studies that has altered and shifted hitherto dominant, conservative, elitist, state-centric, royal-nationalist mainstream to an inundation of revisionist counter-streams and sub-streams since 1990s.I first encountered Khruu Ben's (or Teacher Ben as he likes to be called) path-breaking, seminal literature review essay of Thai State: The State of Thai Studies (first published in 1978, Chapter 1 of this volume) shortly after I leftthe communist-led maquis in northeastern Thailand in early 1980s when I was asked to translate it into Thai by editor of Pajarayasan Magazine, an independent intellectual periodical under patronage of Sulak Sivaraksa, a well-known conservative Buddhist intellectual who happened to be one of two commentators of this essay when it was first publicly presented. Still fresh from jungle and blinkered by rigid Maoist ideological frame of reference, I could hardly fathom groundshaking impact of its message, which attempted to overhaul in toto axiomatic foundations of Thai studies as practiced up till then by both Western scholars and their Thai official nationalist counterparts. Argued defiantly, systematically, solidly, and meticulously, review essay contains Ben's central revisionist vision of modern Thai history that has proven to be most thought-provoking, stood test of time, and rendered it an indispensable item in any serious reading list on modern Thai politics in past four decades. This central vision was subsequently expanded upon and developed further in other writings of his also included in this volume. Let me lay it out point-by-point here as briefly and succinctly as I can for readers' benefit.1. In order to properly understand essence and trajectory of modern Thai history, it is imperative to conceptually separate Thai nation from its monarchy. Not only are two non-identical and not only do they have different interests, but in many cases their interests also clash (p. 21).2. The state built by Jakri dynasty during reigns of King Rama V to VII (A.D. 1868- 1935) was by no means a modern nation-state but an absolutist dynastic auto-colonial one that carried out modernization in some aspects to a certain degree but delayed and/or obstructed it in others, particularly those that were related to vested interest and position of monarchy itself. Hence, rise of Siamese absolutist state did not amount to successful building of a modern nation-state. On contrary, it hindered latter alongside coming of Siamese nationhood (pp. 28, 34).3. In contrast with erstwhile European absolutist states, Siamese one was too short-lived (lasting about 40 years from 1892-1932), and reach and effects of its power were too shallow. Since it had not transformed Thai society and economy widely and profoundly enough, political reaction that finally came about in form of a constitutionalist putsch, staged by self-styled People's Party of junior military officers and government officials, was merely the partial, mystified revolt . …

Asian Studies across Academies

Let me begin with a conversation I had with the late David Wyatt of Cornell University, a prominent historian of Thailand and the 1993 president of the AAS, at one of the AAS meetings in Boston. I asked Professor Wyatt, what was the question about Thai history he got most often from Thai colleagues? His answer was:1)Was the execution of the king in 1782 by the founder of the current dynasty legitimate? If not, why did he do it?2)Was the death of another king in 1946 an accident, a suicide, or an assassination, and if it was the last one, who did it?

Homosociality in modern Thai political culture

'Nai nai' samai ratchakan thi 6 [Men of the inner palace during the sixth reign] By CHANAN YOTHONG Bangkok: Matichon, 2013. Pp. xxxi + 294. Notes, Bibliography, Plates, Drawings. 'Watthanantham nakrian chai luan khong wajirawut witthayalai nai yuk rongrian mahat lek luang' [The all-male student culture in Vajiravudh College when it was the Royal Pages Bodyguard School], Warasan an 4, 1 (Apr.-June 2012): 179-87. One of the most intriguing social spaces in Thai history is the court of the sixth Bangkok king, Vajiravudh (r. 1910-25), and the circle of young men he cultivated there. These men were deeply loyal to the king, and he to them. The relationships were emotional, affirming, intense, and physical; for many of the men, these close relationships of their youth lasted into adulthood and marriage, if they married, and many of them did. It is said, rather too coyly, that the sixth reign was controversial. The more forthright assessment both at the time and in the decades since is that it was a disaster. Vajiravudh became heir to the Siamese throne unexpectedly in 1895, when the Crown Prince, his older half-brother, died of typhoid in his late teens. The king was not all that interested in governing, nor was he very good at it, so the argument goes. He spent extravagantly on his courtiers as well as on himself, and by the end of the reign, the kingdom's finances had fallen into disarray. To avoid personal bankruptcy, a foreign loan had to be raised for the king. (1) 'The prestige and dignity of the throne took a great beating under his irresponsible rule,' says one Thai historian, and 'his reign became a nightmare for those who had spent their lives in strengthening and serving the monarchy.' (2) Cartoonists at the time mocked the king's competence, tastes, and appearance mercilessly; a British official writing back to London towards the end of the reign reported that the local press referred to Vajiravudh as 'Baldy' and 'Fatty'. (3) The king was powerless to put a stop to the ridicule. So much for royal absolutism. It would not be stretching the evidence to say that much of what King Bhumiphol, the incumbent monarch, has done in his six decades on the throne has been aimed at recovering from the disaster of the sixth reign. Successful dynasts have long memories and are haunted by the poor reputations of their predecessors. Vajiravudh's preference for the company of men, indeed his insistence on the company of particular young men, led to the appointment of favourites who had neither the experience nor the rapport with the bureaucracy and senior members of the royal family to manage the affairs of state. (4) About the male favourites and what intimacy with them might imply for modern Thai political culture, discretion has been the better part of frankness. It is only recently that historians writing in English, let alone in Thai, have felt able to say that the king was homosexual. (5) Public discussion of sex in the lives of the high and mighty is taboo, a private matter, particularly for members of the royal family. Many Thai people over a certain age find such discussion offensive. Benjamin Batson, who offers a constructive verdict on the reign, said guardedly that the king surrounded himself 'with male courtiers from relatively obscure backgrounds'. A thesis written by Stephen Greene in the early 1970s devoted a section to 'royal favourites', but did not explore the connections between these men, their careers, and the king's personality, except to say that they wielded much power. (6) Another historian was forthcoming about criticism of the king's homosexual lifestyle at the expense of the nation, yet could not gauge the extent to which this was public knowledge and what it might have meant for the emerging public sphere. (7) Benedict Anderson was possibly the first modern scholar to break the taboo and use the 'h word' in 1978, saying that the 'politics, style, and mistakes' of the reign cannot be understood without taking into account the king's homosexuality. …

Tracing an Uneven History: Notes on Sources and Trajectories of Thai State Violence

This research note outlines a series of questions about conducting research on state violence and human rights in Thailand. Taking as a central problem the recurrence of state violence across regimes both dictatorial and democratic in the 80 years since the end of the absolute monarchy, I argue that the failure to secure accountability for state violence can productively be placed at the center of researching and writing about modern Thai history. Unevenness is common both to the attempts to secure state accountability for state violence and to the available archival and other sources for writing histories of such violence. This research note examines the particular methodological and analytical difficulties and productive possibilities presented by the partial attempts and failures to secure state accountability and the equally partial available documentation of state violence.

Elective Affinities: The Reconstruction of A Forgotten Episode in the shared history of Thai and British Buddhism – Kapilavaḍḍho and Wat Paknam

The article discusses the first attempt to establish an independent bhikkhu-saṅgha in England in 1956 and the reasons that this initial attempt failed. The account draws on testimony from George Blake, one of the monks ordained under this initiative. After a short contextualization of the situation in which Blake met with Buddhism in London, there follows a further discussion of two issues on which his evidence sheds fresh light: the falling out of the British monk Kapilavaḍḍho with Luang Por Sodh (Phra Mongkolthepmuni), the abbot of Wat Paknam in Bangkok; and the move away from the teaching of the soḷasakāya meditation at the English Sangha Trust in London.

Apichatpong: Staging the photo session

When Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Loong Boonmee raleuk chat /Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2010, many international critics acclaimed its modernist cinematic vocabulary coupled with what they perceived to be Thai exoticism in character depiction, local custom, and environment. Focus on exoticism in Apichatpong’s films has been a familiar refrain in international critical reception of his films. This article explores reception of Uncle Boonmee in two registers: that of the international critic who knows little about Thai history or localisms, as opposed to that of a spectator with a wider and more nuanced appreciation of Thai history and custom. It is argued that the film is structured around a thematics of history/memory/remembrance. Texts speaking to recent Thai history are explored in order to exemplify the rich cultural associations surrounding Uncle Boonmee. Additionally, it is argued that this thematics and its surrounding cultural texts are woven together by a central trope of photography, theoretically enlivened by using Walter Benjamin’s concept of the ‘optical unconscious’. Apichatpong has constructed a film text that ingeniously melds a slice of Thai history with that of the fictive life of Uncle Boonmee and his relationships to set in motion parallel discourses – a personal life suggestive of the ‘life’ of the Thai nation.

The Meanings of Sanskrit Loanwords in Thai and Javanese Languages

Through history of nation building, Thai and Javanese people interacted with other language speakers. For example, they interacted with Indian mbrchants who also brought their literature and religions. In their contacts, Thai and Javanese speakers adopted Sanskrit words for enriching their own vocabularies. This article attempts to describe the meanings of Sanskrit loanwords. In comparison between the meanings of Sanskrit loanwords in Thai and Javanese languages, there are 14 categories of semantic adaptations which are found in both languages. These changes reflect the changes of the socio-cultural background of the Thai and Javanese speakers.

Genetic structure of the ethnic populations Lua and H’tin in Northern Thailand

The Lua are recognized as the first modern inhabitants of Northern Thailand and play an important role in Northern Thai history. There is no evidence stating that the Lua are in the Nan province, the place where the H’tin, who migrated from Laos, reside. The objectives of this study are to depict whether the Lua in Nan are the same ethnicity as the ancient Lua in northern Thai history, or they are the H’tin who call themselves. Lua; and to investigate the genetic structure between males and females of studied populations and the factors affecting their structure, employing the Y-chromosomal microsatellites and mtDNA as markers. The studied populations comprise 4 Lua subgroups from Mae Hong Son (Lua-1), Chiang Mai (Lua-2), and Nan (Lua-3 and Lua-4) provinces, as well as 3 H’tin subgroups from Nan: the Mai (H’tin-1), and Prai (H’tin-2, H’tin-3). The results revealed that the genetic structures of the Lua in Nan differed from the ancient Lua, hence they should not be the same ethnic group. The Lua-3 from Nan could be the same ethnicity as H’tin-1 (Mal), while the Lua-4 could be the same ethnicity as H’tin-3 and H’tin-4 (Prai). Furthermore, the sex-biased genetic structure in the studied populations was observed. The difference in post-marital residence, geography, language, as well as founder effect and/or inbreeding suggested the integrated effect on the genetic structure of the studied populations.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej, A Life’s Work: Thailand’s Monarchy in Perspective

This is a fascinating and insightful biography of one of the world's longest reigning and most revered monarchs. King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand is the world's longest reigning living monarch - an achievement few would have predicted when the Thai king acceded the throne after the mysterious death of his brother in 1946. How did King Bhumibol revive the sinking fortunes of the Thai monarchy? Why has he become arguably the most revered king in Thai history? This illustrated biography tells that remarkable story. Beginning with an introduction explaining the unique history and traditions of the Thai monarchy, King Bhumibol Adulyadej offers a fresh and insightful account of his life, from his birth in America and education in Europe to his unexpected accession to the throne. Following him through the Cold War and Indochina War periods, the book shows how the king has used his position to help develop the country and its people while at the same time securing the status of the monarchy itself.

From the Street to the Ballot Box: The July 2011 Elections and the Rise of Social Movements in Thailand

The July 2011 parliamentary elections in Thailand were significant because they ushered politics away from street demonstrations and into the polling booth. Just about a year after the worst political violence in Bangkok since the 1992 Black May incident, these elections confirmed the dominance of Thaksin Shinawatra-aligned parties and the prominence of social movements in engaging the electoral process. Notable were the Red Shirts who moved from street battle to electoral contestation in supporting Phua Thai and the Yellow Shirts who campaigned against politicians and political parties. No election in Thai history has had such a high degree of social mobilization as that of the 2011 polls.

ラーマ7世王治世期のバンコク国立博物館に関する一考察

This essay clarifies how Prince Damrong Rachanuphap, who is widely known as the first Minister of the Interior and the ‘father of Thai History,’ displayed and instilled the value of ‘Thainess’ at the Bangkok National Museum during the reign of King Rama VII（1925−1935）.

The Ways to Conserve and Develop Isan-Shadow Puppet Performances for Promoting Cultural Value and Worth

Problem statement: Nang Pra Mo Thai Isan (Isan-Shadow puppet performance) is a kind of cultural plays which has been performed for a long time. At present, it has declined from people’s popularity so it should be conserved and developed in order to promote its folk-cultural value and worth. The purposes of this research were: (1) to investigate the diffusion, the background, the elements, the custom, the belief of Nang Pra Mo Thai (Isan-shadow performance) and the ways of life of Isan-shadow puppet performance groups, (2) to search for the ways to conserve and develop Nang Pro Mo Thai and (3) to search for the ways to promote folk-cultural value and worth of Nang Pra Mo Thai (Isan-shadow puppet performance). Approach: Research areas were Roi-Et, Yasothon, Ubon Ratchathani, Udon Thani, Khon Kaen and Maha Sarakham Province. Because Nang Pro Mo Thai groups (Isan-shadow puppet performance groups) have lived in these areas and they have moved to perform in all northeastern areas of Thailand. Research population was 51 Isan-shadow puppet performance groups and a sample consisted of the chiefs, the deputy chiefs, the assistant chiefs, the puppet operators, the dabbers and the musicians. Research data were collected by means of a survey, an interview, an observation and a focus group interview. Research results were presented by means of a descriptive analysis. Results: (1) The diffusion of Nang Pra Mo Thai performances have found frequently in the central and lower of northeast Thailand but have rarely found in the upper part. Knowledge of performing Nang Pra Mo Thai has been transmitted from generation to generation among family and relatives, (2) The ways to conserve and develop Nang Pra Mo Thai focused on the elements of a performance, the art of presentation, the system of light and sound, public relations and the time of a performance and (3) The ways to promote folk film for promoting Nang Pra Mo Thai, holding activities for promoting Nang Pra Mo Thai, holding Nang Pro Mo Thai-competitions, producing souvenirs, writing a history of Nang Pra Mo Thai, producing visual compact discs for promoting Nang Pra Mo Thai. Conclusion: According to these research results, the persons who are involved in conservation and development of Nong Pra Mo Thai (Isan-shadow puppet performance) can adapt them for the appropriate operation concerning their duties.

Consolidating Democracy in Thailand: The First Four Years of Democracy under the Constitution of 1997

The period across parliamentary elections in Thailand, 2001–2005, constitutes the longest continuous government under a democratic constitution in Thai history. This article explores the consolidation of democracy in the Thai population during this period through national probability samples of Thai public opinion. The results indicate movement in the direction of greater support for democracy, but also revealing significant cleavages corresponding to the ‘two democracies’ thesis that proved to be the basis for bringing this era of democracy to an end.