| Presenter Alphabetical by first name |
Title and Abstract | Presentation Mode |
|---|---|---|
|
Aarie Glas |
Agency and leadership in ASEAN: Thailand’s pursuit of status quo consensus and calibrated change ASEAN faces pressing challenges as the organization and its membership navigate geopolitical tensions between the US and China and growing regional crises. A growing literature is attentive to how the agency of the organization is increasingly circumscribed by structural features beyond its control, leading ASEAN to an untenable commitment to the status quo over a range of issues, from the South China Sea to regional trade integration to the coup in Myanmar. This paper intervenes in this literature by examining dynamics of leadership and agency within ASEAN through the case of Thailand’s response to the 2021 coup in Myanmar. The paper bridges recent scholarly accounts of norm change with scholarship attentive to agency within communities of practice to examine how agency and leadership operate within the constraints of ASEAN diplomacy – notably ASEAN’s competitive national interests, institutional design, and the cultural-normative commitments of its diplomacy. The paper argues that Thailand has played a leading role in shaping the ASEAN response to the coup in Myanmar through both rhetoric and practice and within and alongside the organization. More narrowly, the paper investigates the mechanisms by which Thailand has affected the ASEAN response, including fostering and maintaining the regional status quo around the Five Point Consensus (5PC) as well as calibrated changes in ASEAN’s approach in recent years. The paper finds Thailand’s approach has been largely effective, making possible a commitment to both consensus around the status quo via a commitment to the 5PC and incremental change through the approach of calibrated engagement. |
In-person Panel 3 English |
|
Adrian Beyer |
Ambivalent Migrations: Transmasculine Diaspora Communities in Thailand Scholars and the public have long debated whether Thailand deserves the moniker of an “LGBTQ paradise” Although transgender migration from the Global North to Thailand is not new, existing literature primarily focuses on short-term medical migration for gender-affirming care. However, since the reelection of Donald Trump in 2024 and an increasingly transphobic legal landscape in the U.S., a new community of transgender immigrants from the U.S. to Thailand has emerged. Through in-depth interviews with recent transmasculine-identified migrants to Thailand, I investigate how these individuals create new bonds of kinship with other migrants and local transgender communities. Furthermore, I analyze how these processes of kinship formation are entangled with class, race, ethnicity, and nationality. This paper argues that the migration of transgender U.S. citizens to Thailand simultaneously offers new possibilities for cross-cultural solidarity among local and foreign trans communities while also reifying the global economic hierarchies that facilitate this very migration. Despite many of my interlocutors developing a stronger condemnation of U.S. empire, I argue that many transmasculine migrants still benefit from and ultimately reimpose global hierarchies of race, class, and nation through their resettlement to Thailand. In a time of increasing authoritarian regulation of bodies, sex, and gender around the world, I argue that understanding how western exceptionalism, Cold War imperial legacies, and economic power imbalances mediate the formulation of diasporic trans kinship in Thailand is imperative to the trans survivance of both migrant and local trans communities. |
In-person Panel 5 English |
|
Alan Potkin |
The defunct Pak Mun Dam Community Museum: Re-purposing a 2015 archival documentary as a “digital memorial” In the 1990s, the Pak Mun Dam in northeast Thailand (Isaan) became a symbol of top-down development and its unintended socio-ecological consequences. Among the few lasting "mitigations" was a small, community-oriented museum established by the Assembly of the Poor, intended to archive the lost fisheries, livelihoods, and cultures of the Mun River basin. But by 2013-14, that physical museum was underfunded, underutilized, and mouldering. In response, a digitization project captured its interpretive displays and recorded oral histories, producing a conceptual eBook prototype for an online presence. Today, the physical museum is defunct, existing only as digital fragments. This paper asks: could/should we re-purpose that original digital archive as a fully-fledged “digital museum”. Drawing on the Pak Mun case, we explore the pros and cons of virtual museums versus traditional brick-and-mortar institutions. We argue that while digital platforms cannot replicate the embodied, communal, and auratic qualities of physical heritage spaces, the complete loss of the physical museum forces a pragmatic re-evaluation. A thoughtfully designed digital museum can serve as a surrogate for institutional memory, an advocacy tool for affected communities, and a replicable model for other large resources management (WRM) schemes in the Greater Mekong Subregion. However, sustainability, governance, and accessibility remain critical challenges. The paper concludes with recommendations for repurposing the Pak Mun archive as a living digital museum that complement – not replaces – the ideal of future physical heritage spaces. |
In-person Panel 7 English |
|
Anchana Wachira-asakon |
The Bad Girls Dictionary as Subversive Lexicon: Feminist Meaning-Making Against Development Discourse Since the United Nations Decade for Women (1976-1985), several objectives and initiatives have been pushed forward to improve the well-being and welfare of women and children, many of which were framed under the name of development. Despite undeniably crucial intentions and remarkable effort, several projects and movements, for example, the global anti-trafficking movement and the passage of the 2000 UN Palermo Protocol, were modelled and mobilised by people and institutions in the Global North, obscuring unequal power structures and the different socio-historical contexts of the Global South. Sex workers, in particular, have often been rendered legible within these frameworks only as victims to be rescued or threats to be policed, rarely as authors of their own political vocabulary. Additionally, these frameworks were imbricated in liberal paradigms of state security and policing, deeming subjects as either vulnerable or threatening in order to maintain the status quo, foreclosing alternative feminist epistemologies that might emerge from the ground up. This paper examines critiques of international development institutions and mainstream narratives on women and gender equality through a reading of Empower Foundation’s The Bad Girls Dictionary, a feminist project of word-building and world-building by sex workers in Thailand. It asks how this collaborative lexicon project, as a site of subversive meaning-making, reclaims and redefines the vocabulary of gender equality and development from a feminist standpoint. It looks at terms once imposed from above into tools of struggles and self-representation. By tracing how commonly used words and phrases are redefined, repeated, and resignified across the dictionary’s entries, the paper aims to challenge the gendered and colonial assumptions embedded in the Thai context and to imagine possibilities for intervention and subversion at the level of words and their iteration. |
In-person Panel 2 English |
|
Athita Kuankachorn |
Bridging East-West String Sonorities: Conveying Thai String Idioms on the Cello for Cultural Sustainability The challenge Thai fiddle (saw) music faces in reaching broader global audiences stems from an interplay of organology, tuning systems, pedagogical barriers, and traditional modes of oral transmission. However, the expressive nuance of the Thai fiddle can engage international audiences when translated to Western bowed strings, leveraging an established global infrastructure of conservatories, ensembles, and standardized notation. Translating Thai fiddle idioms into cello technique enables performers worldwide to study and program this repertoire without the need for physical Thai instruments or direct oral training. While this creative translation does not aim to replicate the exact acoustic timbre of the fiddle, it resolves practical dynamic and distribution constraints, introducing the aesthetic core of Thai bowed strings to an international context. This paper explores this potential through an original contemporary cello concerto that reimagines the Thai melody “Phama Plaeng” for solo cello and chamber orchestra. The work investigates how Thai sonic identity and string idioms can be integrated into the Western classical tradition without compromising their indigenous character. Drawing on an applied ethnomusicological framework, the composition adapts the performance practices of Thai fiddle master Vorayot Suksaichon and non-Western pitch systems into Western notation and cello technique. By translating these indigenous idioms into versatile international scoring formats, the project underscores the potential of Thai musical heritage to enrich both the global concert stage and broader media landscapes. |
In-person Panel 6 English |
|
Boonyarak Chuanchit |
Assessment of Water Quality and Microplastic in an Urbanizing City’s Groundwater, Thailand Groundwater is an important freshwater resource in Thailand and is increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of rapid urbanization. This study investigated groundwater quality and microplastics in Nakhon Pathom Province, an urbanizing area in central Thailand, from 2023 to 2025. Groundwater samples were collected from 12 monitoring wells representing shallow (26 – 62 m) and deep (122-184 m) aquifers during four sampling campaigns. Water quality parameters, major ions, heavy metals, and microplastics were analyzed using Laser Direct Infrared (LDIR) spectroscopy. Shallow groundwater exhibited higher salinity (1.02 - 8.93 ppt) and total dissolved solids (710 - 3,150 ppm) than deep groundwater. Microplastics were consistently detected in both aquifers, with concentrations ranging from 484 to 2,007 particles/L in shallow wells and 943 to 1,210 particles/L in deep wells. On average, shallow wells contained slightly higher microplastic abundance (1,114 particles/L) than deep wells (1,050 particles/L). Polypropylene (PP), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), and polyamide (PA) were the dominant polymers, indicating inputs from common consumer plastics. Mass calculations showed that shallow groundwater contained approximately 35% greater total microplastic mass than deep groundwater. Rubber particles contributed substantially to the overall microplastic burden, accounting for approximately 40 - 45% of detected particles and frequently exceeding the combined mass of all other polymers. Their presence is likely associated with tire wear particles transported through surface runoff and preferential flow paths. No significant correlations were observed between microplastic abundance and hydrochemical parameters, suggesting that microplastic occurrence is controlled primarily by physical transport rather than groundwater chemistry. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating mass-based assessments alongside particle abundance when evaluating groundwater microplastic contamination. |
In-person Panel 7 English |
|
Chanodom Tannarat |
Preliminary Archaeological Evidence on Early Phayao The Kingdom of Phayao emerged in the late 11th century AD as a major Tai polity following the establishment of Mueang Phayao and the subjugation of its subordinate Wiang. The territorial extent of the Phayao polity is described in comprehensive detail in regional chronicles, but there has yet to be a proper synthesis incorporating archaeological evidence with historical literature. Modeled here is a cartographic reconstruction of the Phayao polity’s sphere of influence taking into consideration the spatial distribution of Wiang sites, their hierarchical prominence in relation to one another as revealed by aerial photography, and ceramic assemblage distribution (with respect to their kiln of origin) as markers of sociopolitical geography. Through this synthesis of archaeological material, this research hopes to provide a more nuanced understanding of the administrative and sociopolitical complexities inherent to early Phayao via a methodological approach consistent with archaeological GIS analysis. |
In-person Panel 4 English |
|
Chidi Emenike |
Breathing in Cycles: Gendered Care Labour and the Politics of Seasonal Inhabitability in Chiang Mai's Haze Crisis Every year, Chiang Mai becomes temporarily uninhabitable. Between March and May, PM2.5 levels rise beyond the stipulated WHO threshold, impacting health and tourist activities. However, this is not a sudden disaster like an earthquake or tsunami, rather it is a seasonal crisis that residents expect. In January, residents begin watching the sky, checking AQI apps, and stocking N95 masks. By February, the wealthy flee to Bangkok or abroad, and the middle class buy quality air purifiers in anticipation of the crisis. However, the poor farmers, street vendors, and ethnic minorities in Chiang Mai who do not have the economic privilege remain trapped in this crisis. Notably, in this period, life is sustained through intensified, invisible care labour performed predominantly by women. Thus, this research examines how seasonal cycles of toxic air structure gendered care work, revealing air pollution as a political and economic process that operates through social reproduction. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 3 English |
|
Christopher Sneddon Ian Baird |
Sand and Gravel Mining along the Mekong River in Thailand: Exploring the Contradictions between Capitalist Extraction and Beliefs in Spirits For eight months each year - between November and June - large amounts of sand and gravel are commercially extracted by dozens of companies situated along the Thai side of the mainstream Mekong River using large boats, barges, pumps, pipes, sifting machines and excavators, as sand and gravel from the Mekong River are important raw materials for concrete production and road construction in parts of northeastern Thailand within a few hundred kilometers from the Mekong River. Indeed, Mekong River sand and gravel have become a crucial part of the capitalist economy and infrastructure development. However, despite the strong capitalist orientation of the sand and gravel business along the Mekong River in northeastern Thailand, those involved in the sandmining business typically follow local animist practices, including providing elaborate ritualized offerings to various spirits, including spirits of place, spirits of minerals, and other spirits, and not extracting sand and gravel on certain days during the lunar cycle. This paper explores the links and apparent contradictions between sand and gravel extraction operations along the Mekong in Thailand and older beliefs still held by those operating these businesses related to spirits in the Mekong River. We argue that despite the apparent contradictions, rituals related to spirits are actually a crucial part of the capitalist sand and gravel extraction industry, as people have found ways to reconcile capitalist and spiritual sensibilities related to their large-scale extractive activities, which are having little understood environmental impacts. |
In-person Panel 8 English |
|
Clayton Shuttleworth |
“A Place for People who Speak Like Us”: the Affordances and Limitations of Enregistering Queerness in Chiang Mai Thailand is touted by many around the world as a safe destination for queer people. It is also widely known to have a unique framework (phet) for categorizing social subjects that resonates with but is irreducible to either gender or sexuality. While aspects of contemporary Thai LGBTQ+ subcultures resonate with forms of queerness in other contexts, mainstream international rhetoric regarding gender, sexuality, and queerness often does not translate seamlessly into Thai linguistic or social frameworks. Chiang Mai, known for its ancient cultural heritage, dynamic flows of tourism, numerous universities, and transient Thai and transnational populations, is a city of where the overlapping and fraught binaries of traditional/modern, rural/urban, local/global, and Thai/non-Thai are ever-present. Within this political economic context, this paper asks how do you open a gay bar? Drawing on historical and anthropological literature about Thailand and Chiang Mai and in conversation with contemporary media, this paper investigates how and to what ends meanings related to gender, sexuality, phet, and queerness are coalescing in Chiang Mai today. Given the wide range of backgrounds, languages, and relationships to the space that characterize the people in Chiang Mai at a given moment, these meanings emerge inconsistently across spaces. I claim that spaces of social interaction in Chiang Mai (like bars) are key sites of contestation, where people from various backgrounds come together to negotiate what it means to be queer today, alternately imagining new queer possibilities, building transnational connections, and at times exposing social and cultural differences. |
In-person Panel 2 English |
|
Colin Kuehl |
Should I Stay or Should I go: Deconstructing Climate Immobility among Agrarian Communities in Thailand As the impacts of climate change increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters, millions of people around the world will be displaced. In Thailand, agrarian communities are on the front lines of these changes. Climate change is already altering weather patterns in ways that increase the occurrence of severe drought and flooding as well as landslides and other natural disasters. Farmers’ lives are inextricably linked to natural resources, and this instability makes sustaining a reasonable standard of living increasingly challenging or, often, impossible. The result is climate-induced relocation from agrarian communities. This paper uses survey data and focus groups to understand the personal relocation decision-making of members of three front-line communities. Data from a village in Nan province exposed to landslides, Ayutthaya at risk of flooding, and Surat Thani exposed to drought are analyzed to better understand how differing threats in different parts of the country impact the relocation decision. Explanations focus on the structural roots of these issues and reject mainstream narratives frequently utilized to explain non-migration, particularly among ethnic minorities, attributing immobility to "place attachment" or spiritual "ancestral ties" to the land. These discourses and myths are often reproduced by the state, serving as a ready-made rationale to explain why citizens seemingly tolerate risk and a lack of proactive intervention by authorities. Broadly, the results provide insights into the long-term impacts on population shifts in Thailand and around the world. |
In-person Panel 7 English |
|
Danuporn Kaewchuea |
Thai Diaspora and Culture identity: soft power influence in Hungary บทความนี้ศึกษาบทบาทของชาวไทยพลัดถิ่นในประเทศฮังการีในฐานะผู้มีบทบาทนอกภาครัฐ ในการสร้างและเผยแพร่อำนาจละมุน โดยเน้นเป็นพิเศษที่การสร้างและการเจรจาต่อรองอัตลักษณ์ทางวัฒนธรรมในบริบทของยุโรปกลาง โดยอ้างอิงจากกรอบทฤษฎีอำนาจละมุนที่พัฒนาโดยโจเซฟ ไนย์ ควบคู่ไปกับแนวทางสร้างสรรค์นิยมในการก่อตัวของอัตลักษณ์ งานวิจัยนี้ก้าวข้ามแบบจำลองการทูตสาธารณะที่เน้นรัฐเป็นศูนย์กลาง เพื่อตรวจสอบว่าอิทธิพลทางวัฒนธรรมฝังรากลึกอยู่ในแนวปฏิบัติทางสังคมในชีวิตประจำวันอย่างไร โดยมุ่งเน้นที่ความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างไทยและฮังการี บทความนี้วิเคราะห์ว่าผู้อพยพชาวไทย โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งผู้ที่ประกอบธุรกิจขนาดเล็กและขนาดกลาง เช่น ร้านอาหาร บริการด้านสุขภาพ และธุรกิจทางวัฒนธรรม หรือแม้กระทั่งนักเรียน นักศึกษา ทำหน้าที่เป็นตัวแทนที่ไม่เป็นทางการของการทูตทางวัฒนธรรมอย่างไร ผ่านปฏิสัมพันธ์ในชีวิตประจำวัน ผู้มีบทบาทเหล่านี้อำนวยความสะดวกในการเผยแพร่ การตีความใหม่ และการปรับให้เข้ากับท้องถิ่นของ "ความเป็นไทย" ภายในสังคมฮังการี บทความนี้กล่าวว่า การมีส่วนร่วมในระดับจุลภาคดังกล่าวมีส่วนช่วยในการกำหนดมุมมองที่มีต่อประเทศไทย ขณะเดียวกันก็ปรับเปลี่ยนขอบเขตของอัตลักษณ์ทางชาติในพื้นที่ข้ามชาติ นอกจากนี้ งานวิจัยนี้ยังวิเคราะห์อย่างมีวิจารณญาณว่า สมาชิกของชาวไทยพลัดถิ่นเจรจาอัตลักษณ์ของตนเองอย่างไร โดยจัดการกับความตึงเครียดระหว่างการอนุรักษ์วัฒนธรรม การบูรณาการทางเศรษฐกิจ และการปรับตัวทางสังคม โดยการวางพลวัตเหล่านี้ไว้ในบริบทของการถกเถียงที่กว้างขึ้นเกี่ยวกับความเป็นข้ามชาติ การย้ายถิ่นฐาน และการเมืองเรื่องอัตลักษณ์ บทความนี้เน้นย้ำถึงความสัมพันธ์แบบต่างตอบแทนระหว่างมุมมองของสังคมเจ้าบ้านและการนำเสนอตนเองของชาวพลัดถิ่น ในเชิงวิธีวิจัย งานวิจัยนี้ใช้วิธีการเชิงคุณภาพ โดยผสมผสานการวิเคราะห์วาทกรรม วรรณกรรมทุติยภูมิ และการสังเกตการณ์ตามกรณีศึกษา ท้ายที่สุดแล้ว บทความนี้มีส่วนช่วยในการขยายขอบเขตการวิเคราะห์อำนาจละมุน โดยเน้นบทบาทของชาวพลัดถิ่น และแสดงให้เห็นว่าการเผชิญหน้าทางวัฒนธรรมในชีวิตประจำวันสามารถสร้างการเปลี่ยนแปลงที่มีความหมายต่อมุมมองระหว่างประเทศและความเข้าใจระหว่างวัฒนธรรมได้อย่างไร |
In-person Panel 5 ภาษาไทย |
|
Dolhathai Intawong |
Transcultural Fusion in Thai Contemporary Music: A Case Study of Thai Choral Opera: Manohra Within the evolving landscape of the Thai choral and opera scenes, Manohra: Thai Choral Opera, composed by Kaiwan Kulavadhanothai, emerges as a highly innovative contemporary production. The primary objective of this article is to define the emerging genre of “Thai Choral Opera” and explain its unique characteristics through the lens of this specific work. It aims to explore the adaptation of renowned Thai literature into an operatic story, and examine the comprehensive integration of choral elements, Thai traditional music, classical dance, and Western operatic conventions. The study employs a qualitative approach. The methodology includes a comparative analysis distinguishing the structural differences between traditional choral music, classical opera, and the choral opera format. This is supported by an analysis of the musical structure and stylistic elements within the Manohra score, and a short interview with the composer regarding his artistic rationale and expectations. The findings reveal Manohra’s uniqueness in its elaborate transcultural fusion. Transcending its conventional role, the choir functions as both narrator and active participant using diverse singing techniques. Musically and visually, the production intricately blends Western orchestration with a Thai ensemble, traditional dance, shadow play, and costumes. Ultimately, this innovative integration establishes a practical model for Thai-Western compositions, serving as a progressive role model for future theatrical works and marking a significant step in presenting Thai cultural identity within the contemporary performing arts scene. |
In-person Panel 6 English |
|
Edgardo Diaz Vega |
Patterns of Authoritarian Repression in Myanmar and Thailand (2021-2025) Having experienced decades of authoritarian and military rule, Thailand and Myanmar provide an ideal setting for the comparative study of authoritarian practices. In the case of Myanmar, the aftermath of the 2021 coup d’état consisted of mass protests and renewed armed conflict. Apart from a strong military influence, Thailand has increasingly polarized electoral politics and a prominent monarchy. The electoral victory of the Move Forward Party in the 2023 elections marked a turning point in Thai politics, with former protest leaders becoming legislators. In both nations, these events did not result in transformative change for the institutions of the country, in part due to the targeting of individual activism. To effectively examine repressive practices in Thailand and Myanmar, the research focuses on cases of judicial and extrajudicial targeting of individuals for engaging in political activism or simply exercising their fundamental human rights. The length and intensity of the persecution are examined to identify patterns of repression. Utilizing the author’s dataset of sixty individuals targeted from 2021 to 2025, the research provides insights into the tactics against dissenters. The overview of cases is then used to identify the most commonly used laws, mechanisms, and practices of autocratic repression. The repression of activists and ordinary citizens is a result of policies that form a part of the state’s wider national security policies. With a continued democratic decline across the world, understanding the relationship between repressive practices and national security is crucial for understanding wider challenges to domestic and international security. |
In-person Panel 3 English |
|
Emma Bell |
The Lanna Phin Pia: Sustainability Within Regional Thai Musical Heritage This study examines cultural and environmental sustainability in Northern Thai musical traditions through an archaeological, ecological, and ethnological study of the Lanna chest-resonated stick zither known as the Phin Pia. In this study, sustainability refers to the ability of the Phin Pia and associated cultural practices to persist through changing environmental and social conditions while maintaining connections to traditional materials, knowledge, and customs. Focusing on the materials used in its construction, particularly rosewood (Mai Ching Chan, Dalbergia oliveri) for the instrument body and coconut (Maphrao, Cocos nucifera) for its resonator, the study considers how material availability, preferences, and changing environmental and social conditions have shaped Phin Pia construction over time. Archaeological investigation provides a historical framework for understanding material use, while interviews with a Lanna instrument maker documents attitudes towards material availability. Traditional materials remain preferred, but have become increasingly difficult to obtain, prompting contemporary instrument makers to experiment with alternative materials. These changes demonstrate that the continuance of Lanna musical traditions depends upon changing material practices, while highlighting the importance of traditional material use, thus highlighting the importance of environmental diversity and native planting within environmental management. By tracing the cultural and ecological significance of the plants used to construct the Phin Pia, this study positions the instrument as a material expression of both cultural and ecological heritage. It demonstrates how changes in the availability and use of plant materials can reveal processes of adaptation within traditional practices and the continued significance of local ecological knowledge to Lanna lifeways. |
In-person Panel 6 English |
|
Erick White |
ROUNDTABLE - Debating "Enchanted Modernities" – Rethinking Indigeneity, Ethnicity and Religion in the Upper Mekong Participants: Micah Morton, Nancy Eberhardt, Kathleen Gillogly |
In-person Roundtable 2 English |
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Habbat Shah |
Econareative and Solastalgia in post-draught situation This study examines the relationship between solastalgia, climate change, and eco-narratives in the post-drought context of Loralai, Balochistan. Solastalgia refers to the emotional and psychological distress experienced when one’s home environment undergoes visible degradation. In Loralai, prolonged drought has not only altered the ecological landscape but has also disrupted the everyday lives, livelihoods, and cultural rhythms of local communities. The research draws on qualitative insights, including oral narratives and lived experiences, to explore how individuals interpret and respond to these environmental changes. The findings suggest that drought has produced a deep sense of loss, expressed through memories of fertile land, flowing water, and stable pastoral life. Such narratives reveal an emotional attachment to place that intensifies the pain of environmental decline. At the same time, eco-narratives emerging from the region reflect resilience and adaptation. Community members use storytelling to make sense of uncertainty, preserve ecological knowledge, and articulate moral concerns about human–environment relationships. These narratives serve not only as expressions of grief but also as strategies for coping and continuity. By focusing on Loralai, this study highlights the importance of local, place-based experiences in understanding climate change. It argues that environmental crises are not solely physical phenomena but are deeply embedded in social and emotional worlds. The paper contributes to environmental humanities by demonstrating how solastalgia and eco-narratives together illuminate the human dimensions of climate change in vulnerable regions. |
In-person Panel 7 English |
|
Jittapim Yamprai |
ROUNDTABLE – Transcending Ethnomusicology: Honoring the Legacy of Terry E. Miller (1945–2025) Participants: Sara Miller, Sonia Srichai, Andrew Shahriari, Priwan Nanongkham, Supeena Insee Adler |
In-person Roundtable 1 English |
|
John Hartman |
Royal Reverberations from the Publication of Sanuk Neuk 'Amusing Imaginings" Royal Reverberations from the So-Called “First Thai Short Story”: Sanuk Nük ‘Amusing Imaginings’ John F. Hartmann – NIU Emeritus Professor [with the critical assistance of Jenjit Gasigitamrong and John Grima] The 1886 publication of Sanuk Nük (‘Amusing Imaginings’), during the reign of King Chulalongkorn (1853-1910), was an attempt by Prince Phichit (1855-1909)—the 20th of King Mongkut’s children—to write the first Thai novel. He published Sanuk Nük in Wachirayan Wiset Weekly, of which he was the editor. A scandal arose immediately. The setting of his short piece was Wat Boworniwet. His Holiness Prince Pavares Variyalongkorn. (Phra Ong Chao Rerk), resided there as Supreme Patriarch at the time, with Krom Phra Wachirayan as Abbot. Wachiryan, younger half-brother to King Chulalongkorn, believing it to be a factual report, threatened to resign in protest. Overlooked by the royal readers was the fact that Phichit noted in in the closing lines of the opening page of the July 30, 1886 issue of Wachiryan Weekly that he had written Sanuk Nük to leaun lamnuan, “to ridicule by mimicking or mocking in a comical way.” Compelled to contain the widening controversy, in several letters, the king and another half-brother, Prince Damrong, explained to the abbot that the story was fiction, not fact. Their letters provide an intimate look at their skill in mediation and keeping the monarchy intact. Wachirayan was key to Chulalongkorn’s plan to use the sanga as the main tool for reforming and centralizing the educational system, starting with the improvement of educating the Thammayut monks. In this COTS presentation, the focus will be on the text of Sanuk Nük and the deftly composed, reassuring letters of King Chulalongkorn and Prince Damrong. |
In-person Panel 1 English |
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Joseph Jordan Black |
Visible Men, Invisible Masculinity: Gender and Labour in Historical Representations of Chiang Mai’s Market Life Historical accounts of markets frequently make men visible as economic actors while leaving masculinity itself largely unexamined. This paper explores this distinction through historical representations of market life in Chiang Mai, with particular attention to Warorot Market (Kad Luang) and its surrounding commercial environment. Drawing on published historical accounts, archival and documentary materials, and existing scholarship on Chiang Mai’s commercial development, the paper examines how male merchants, labourers, transport workers, shopkeepers, and other market actors have been represented within narratives of urban and economic change. Rather than attempting to reconstruct a singular historical model of Northern Thai masculinity, the paper asks how gender becomes visible or remains unmarked within accounts of everyday commercial life. It argues that the historical visibility of men does not necessarily produce the analytical visibility of masculinity: male participation can instead appear as an implicitly neutral component of commerce, labour, mobility, and urban development. Bringing insights from gender history and masculinity studies into dialogue with Thai urban history, the paper proposes that treating apparently ungendered categories of economic activity as historically gendered can reveal dimensions of market life obscured by conventional economic and institutional narratives. This approach provides a basis for reconsidering how the history of Chiang Mai’s marketplaces is written and for connecting historical representations of labour with contemporary questions concerning gender and everyday economic life. Generative artificial intelligence was used for language editing and assistance with the organisation and presentation of this abstract; the author retains full responsibility for the abstract. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 3 English |
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Krittawit Krittayaruangroj |
When the Government Funding Ends: State-Led Development and Community Agency in Thailand's Community-Based Tourism Community-based tourism (CBT) has been widely promoted in Thailand as a pathway to sustainable development, local empowerment, and community economic revitalization. Yet, despite substantial government investment and the expansion of CBT initiatives, communities have experienced different trajectories of development and sustainability. While some have developed resilient local tourism ecosystems, others have struggled to maintain momentum and local agency as external support changes or declines. This raises a critical question: What enables some Thai community-based tourism communities to sustain and develop their initiatives while others struggle to maintain local agency? Drawing on a qualitative comparative case study of three Thai CBT destination —Ban Chiang in Udon Thani, Ban Laem Sak in Krabi, and Wang Nam Khiao in Nakhon Ratchasima —this study examines the relationship between state-led development interventions and community agency. The analysis integrates the Community Capitals Framework, Stakeholder Theory, and Social Exchange Theory to explore how local leadership, community participation, stakeholder relationships, cultural identity, and benefit-sharing interact across different forms of community capital. The findings suggest that CBT sustainability cannot be explained simply by tourism resources, government support, or visitor growth. Rather, it depends on communities' ability to translate external resources into locally owned capabilities and interconnected forms of social, human, cultural, natural, political, and financial capital. This process may generate a “spiraling-up” effect, whereby gains in one form of capital reinforce others, strengthening community capacity and agency. The study offers broader insights into the tensions and complementarities between state-led development and community self-determination in contemporary Thailand. |
In-person Virtual Panel 1 English |
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Li Yu |
How maps can connect people with multi-sensory environments Historically, maps have been a means for people to expand spatial impressions because they stand for a certain memory location and a real experience. However, under the wide application of the Cartesian coordinate system, the space that people see on maps today is mostly separated from each person's body, behavior, consciousness and feelings. In this way, individual existence and the expression of discourse are excluded. Map serves as a tool in my project. The information that appears on the map and the logic behind them reflect specific spatiotemporal and field elements, which is the key to enabling people to break free from the constraints of the Cartesian spatial system and establish a multi-sensory spatiotemporal cognitive system. Unlike the common maps in life that constantly replace and exclude individual experiences with the logic of systems and algorithms, maps in my project precisely emphasize the recording and preservation of information that is difficult to abstract from multiple temporal and spatial dimensions of the scene. |
In-person Panel 8 English |
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Malavika Reddy |
Law and Kingship in Mae Sot During the Reign of King Bhumibol This paper explores the relationship of kingship and law in Thailand during the last decades of the reign of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Scholars have tended to focus on the ways in which this relationship has structured national politics, with Bangkok or major regional centers of the country being the implicit spaces of analysis. This paper situates the law/kingship nexus not in the center of royal power in Bangkok but in the perspectives of the lawyers and migrant clients of a legal aid clinic in Mae Sot. It explores the idea that the juridical became so invested with cosmological and royal significance during the last years of the reign of King Bhumibol that it was could be a stage for the enactment of kingly attachment. The paper advances the concept of charismatic investment, the process through which a sovereign locates an object in a cosmos of dense power relations, to theorize the binds of legal aid in Thailand during this period and to synthesize previous scholarship on the auratic foundations of Thai kingship with more recent arguments about the institution’s legal grounds. |
In-person Panel 4 English |
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Mia Haas-Goldberg |
Rubber Replanting as Regional Integration in Thailand, 1960-1982 With transnational and colonial roots spanning from Brazil to Malaysia, the Thai natural rubber industry achieved international primacy at the intersection of multiple empires. Drawing from archival materials across multiple sites, I explore the ways in which the Thai state attempted to enfold a a “rebellious”southern periphery region into the cultural, economic, and material infrastructure of the nation by way of rubber replanting programs from 1960-1982. Government attempts to mediate the incursion of foreign capital, military personnel, and agricultural knowledge in Bangkok during the Cold War shaped the trajectory of state centralization and global market integration in peripheral southern provinces inhabited by a Malay-Muslim population seeking political autonomy. The restructuring of the natural rubber industry facilitated regional integration through state knowledge production of Malay smallholders, their land, and their role in commodity production. By mandating specific agricultural methods that relied on land registration, market-oriented labor schedules, and population registration, the government aimed to link the daily lives of periphery villagers with the logics, timescales, and history of the modern Thai nation. Rubber replanting in southern Thailand offers a unique historical case from which to consider how commodity agriculture has assisted in building lasting infrastructures of surveillance, citizenship, and population management. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 1 English |
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Molly Pasley |
Educating the Blind in Thailand: An Orientation and Mobility Specialist's Knowledge Exchange Tour The presenter engaged in a knowledge exchange in the areas of orientation and mobility and activities of daily living with the Charity Foundation for the Blind in Thailand (CFBT). She will share what she learned from the largest network of education and vocational training centers in Thailand. |
In-person Panel 1 English |
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Montita Sowapark |
“Minimize Suffering, Protect Life”: Abortion in the Age of Decriminalization On February 7, 2021, Thailand decriminalized abortion, reversing a criminal code in place since 1957, yet physicians have responded unevenly to this change. Some medical providers assert their right not to perform abortion, creating a disparity between legal rights and practical inaccessibility. Competing framings of abortion – as a medical procedure managed by physicians, a long-standing Indigenous practice conducted via herbs and massage, a Buddhist sin (bap), or the cause of ghostly hauntings – have been debated in Thai society for decades, with contestations emerging across religious, class, rural/urban, professional and gendered lines. Given the new legal license to provide abortion, or “ทำแท้งเสรี,” my project asks how providers and administrators make decisions regarding the ethics of abortion care amidst competing world views and framings of responsibility and harm – at once bodily, national, and cosmological. My research, based on three months of preliminary ethnographic fieldwork in Bangkok and Khon Kaen, demonstrates that abortion providers occupy a range of religio-ontological positions regarding life, sin, and suffering. While providers I interviewed largely identify as Buddhists, they employ a variety of explanations, informed by personal, professional, and societal considerations, for providing abortion care to patients. Moreover, eliding a binary pro- or anti-abortion stance, the affective dimensions of providing abortion care experienced by providers are often not inherent in the procedure itself but depend on considerations such as medical indication and the patient’s history. |
In-person Panel 3 ภาษาไทย |
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Nam Yamprai |
Composing Solidarity: 'Tai no musume' and the Sound of Thailand-Japan Relations, 1941-1945 During World War II, Japanese musicians composed numerous songs whose titles referenced nations across Asia. These works were products of both Japan's Pan-Asianist ideology and its vision of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan's perception of other Asian peoples was transmitted through the musical character, titles, and lyrics of these compositions, making them valuable sources for understanding wartime cultural attitudes. Thailand was among the few Asian nations allied with Japan during the Pacific phase of the war from 1941 to 1945. The Thai government cooperated with the Japanese military and assisted its operations, fostering a sense of solidarity between two independent Buddhist states while also advancing Thai expansionist ambitions. For years, Japanese personnel stationed in Thailand cultivated relationships, both positive and strained, that extended well beyond diplomacy and politics into cultural, social, and economic life. Among the artifacts of these relations, the interwar song "Tai no musume" (Thai Maiden) was composed and performed specifically for a Japanese audience, depicting the perceived solidarity between the Japanese and Thais. This research aims to clarify how "Tai no musume" expresses Japan's appreciation of Thai culture and people through an analysis of its music and lyrics, situated in comparison with similar interwar songs produced by Japan. By examining melodic choices, thematic imagery, and language, the study illuminates how music functioned as an instrument of pan-Asian sentiment and how Thailand was represented within Japan's broader wartime cultural imagination. |
In-person Panel 6 English |
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Nattamon Saphaokham |
Queer Words in Translation: Thai LGBTQ+ Language, Western Influence, and Local Authenticity This paper investigates the evolution of LGBTQ+ language in Thailand, examining the transition from traditional vernacular values—rooted in Buddhist cosmology and social hierarchy—to a contemporary modernity shaped by global media, market capitalism, and political activism. Drawing on Michael Agar’s concepts of "languaculture" and "rich points," the research explores the dynamic interplay between local identities, such as kathoey, tom, and dee, and globalized Western labels like trans, nonbinary, and queer. The study argues that Thai LGBTQ+ linguistic practices serve as strategic tools for agency. While Western terminology provides access to international human rights frameworks and global queer modernity, local categories preserve culturally embedded complexity and relational identity. The paper identifies a "rich point" where Western interpretive frames often fail to capture the plural, historically layered meanings of Thai terms, such as the relational polarity of the tom-dee system. Furthermore, it highlights an emerging linguistic hierarchy where English-dominant activism among urban, university-educated youth risks marginalizing rural and working-class communities who continue to rely on Thai vernacular. Ultimately, the paper reveals a unique linguistic hybridity. Thai LGBTQ+ speakers do not simply assimilate into Westernized vocabularies; instead, they employ creative linguistic play, humor, and embodied performance to reclaim stigma and build community. This strategic integration of global and local terms allows for the negotiation of belonging within both national and global queerscapes, ensuring that Thai queer politics maintains its cultural authenticity and lived experience. |
In-person Panel 2 English |
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Nattavud Pimpa |
Beyond Compliance: Business and Human Rights in Thailand This study explores key Business and Human Rights (BHR) policies and practices through the lens of both corporate disclosures and stakeholder experiences in Thailand, examining whether businesses move beyond mere regulatory compliance toward substantive human rights protection. Human rights policies and issues were selected and analyzed from the top ten companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) in 2024. Institutional theory is applied to explain the gap between stated commitments and lived realities, conceptualizing corporate human rights disclosures as a form of isomorphic response to global normative pressures (notably the UNGPs) rather than necessarily reflecting deep organizational change—a pattern of symbolic adoption, or "decoupling," that resonates with Thai corporate governance norms shaped by hierarchical deference to authority over confrontational accountability. The second stage engages migrant workers—primarily from Myanmar—in the construction industry through the photovoice technique, surfacing voices often marginalized within Thai social and linguistic hierarchies. The research identifies six key human rights themes: labor rights, protection of vulnerable groups, environmental justice, ethical business conduct, ethical supply chains, and accountability. Findings reveal growing stated alignment with the UNGPs in corporate disclosures, particularly on labor and supply chain issues, yet this reflects reported commitments rather than verified implementation—consistent with institutional theory's coercive and mimetic isomorphism. Photovoice analysis uncovers lived concerns including occupational health risks, inadequate living conditions, and social isolation. The study argues that moving beyond compliance requires explicit UNGP engagement and deeper integration of human rights into core business decision-making, beyond isomorphic mimicry. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 1 English |
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Nida Sanglimsuwan |
The Stigma of Authenticity: How Thai Restaurateurs are Caught between Cultural Expectations and Creative Agency Scholars across the social sciences and humanities agree that authenticity has become a prevalent concern in modern society. Cultural sociologists have shown how authenticity is a performance in which producers and consumers negotiate an idealized representation of a social reality. Similarly, organization scholars have documented the market value and appeal of authenticity, developing typologies to organize the various meanings associated with the ambiguous term and proposing strategies to successfully project an “authentic” image. Meanwhile, scholars of race and ethnicity have diverged: while some have argued for understanding authenticity as an empowering assertion of cultural tradition, others have critiqued the concept as the manifestation of colonial attitudes that maintain cultural and economic boundaries and perpetuate the idea of racial and ethnic minority groups as an exotic “Other”. As sites of cultural production where entrepreneurial aspirations must contend with market concerns and questions of sociocultural representation, Thai restaurants in Los Angeles present a prime case to explore this underlying tension of authenticity. How can authenticity claims be both desirable (i.e., value added) and simultaneously undesirable (i.e., constraining)? I argue that the various meanings of authenticity can be organized along a spectrum of (audience) accountability and (producer) creative agency. Using the theory of racialized organizations along with empirical interview data with Thai restaurateurs, I bridge the gap between literatures to show how authenticity claims are not all created equal” and in the racialized field of American dining, these claims can produce unequal material consequences |
In-person Panel 5 English |
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Panathip Chimrak |
The Logistics of a Waste-to-Energy Plant: Waste Transfer and Environmental Cost in Thailand This presentation examines waste-to-energy in Thailand as a system of waste transfer that can shift environmental costs from one place to another. While waste-to-energy plants are often promoted as solutions to municipal waste problems, landfill pressure, and energy demand, their operation depends on the daily movement of large volumes of waste. A plant that requires at least 300 tons of waste per day raises an important question: where does this waste come from, and who must live with the consequences of receiving it? Rather than treating waste-to-energy only as a technical solution, this presentation focuses on the logistics that make the system possible. Waste produced in one municipality, district, or province may be transported to another community for processing. In this process, the environmental burden of waste is separated from the places and people that produce it. The waste-generating area may appear cleaner, while the receiving community must contend with truck traffic, odor, emissions concerns, ash disposal, land use change, and long-term environmental risk. The presentation argues that waste-to-energy can transform waste management into a redistribution of environmental cost. By following the movement of waste to the plant, it shows how infrastructure can create distance between waste creation and waste consequence. This distance makes the problem more difficult to solve because waste producers are not required to confront the full effects of their own waste. The question, then, is not only whether waste-to-energy manages waste, but how it reorganizes responsibility, risk, and environmental burden across Thai communities. |
In-person Panel 8 English |
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Parit Chiwarak |
Mandala or Feudal: Mandala State Model in Lanna Perspectives This paper investigates the historicity of O.W. Wolters' "mandala state" model, alongside Stanley Tambiah's "galactic polity" and Clifford Geertz's "theatre state", as analytic lenses for the pre-19th-century Lanna state structure. Wolters' model was proposed as a departure from the allegedly Eurocentric Weberian definition of the state. However, recorded data on the political and socio-economic structure of pre-modern Lanna do not align with its key features. The model posits that the identity of Southeast Asian states was defined by their political centers, that they functioned in ritualistic terms at the expense of material control, that they intentionally avoided projecting power beyond the capital, and that they lacked fixed territorial boundaries. Yet this paper finds that the Lanna state was rarely identified by its capital until the 17th century, when it disintegrated into smaller city-states. Moreover, the model overlooks the state’s material power and the gradual expansion of royal authority beyond the capital, and it ignores detailed descriptions of territorial limits for both Lanna’s constituent muangs and Lanna itself, found in several chronicles. This paper further suggests that the plain feudal model may better suit Lanna’s socio-political organization, which was centered on fiefs (naa). Finally, it joins previous critics in evaluating the model as imprecise and susceptible to academic orientalism: its raison d'être as a substantially Southeast Asian and non-Western model risks reinforcing an East–West dichotomy, and the term mandala itself, never used in any Southeast Asian political treatise to describe a state, appeals to a mystic exoticist view of Asia. |
In-person Panel 4 ภาษาไทย |
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Pattra Pongsangsuriya |
Reinterpreting Traditional Thai Musical Materials in Contemporary Composition: Sungthong: Nang Rojana Chooses Her Husband The musical composition Sungthong: Nang Rojana Chooses Her Husband is a contemporary classical work that draws upon Thai literature and traditional Thai music as its primary sources of inspiration and musical materials. The episode in which Nang Rojana chooses her husband from the Thai literary work Sungthong provides the narrative framework and overall direction of the composition. The creative process explores the relationships among the narrative, characters, and musical materials, with an emphasis on reinterpreting elements of traditional Thai music through contemporary compositional approaches. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 4 (Roundtable) ภาษาไทย |
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Peyton Rundell |
Queer Vernacular, Affect, and Kinship among Thai Youth: Feeling “Real” Through Language In Thailand, many forms of slang, pop culture references, and embodied gestures can be traced back to the queer community-particularly to kathoey (a fluid Thai gender category) and kathoey influencers. Certain words and expressions, such as “อ่อม” are described by students as conveying sincerity and emotional authenticity amongst their peer groups even when the same word or phrase might be considered incongruous or offensive in other contexts. My project examines how students use this kathoey-influenced language to express identity, belonging, and differentiate between in-groups and out-groups. It considers what makes these expressions feel more emotionally charged (i.e “sincere”) and honest than their standard equivalents and how these affective performances contribute to the perception of authenticity and intimacy within peer networks. Finally, the project situates these dynamics within a broader transnational context, connecting Thai youth vernacular to the global visibility of queer cultures and their role in setting linguistic and aesthetic trends. In doing so, it asks how queer modes of expression travel, resonate, and redefine authenticity in contemporary Thailand. This research can be broken up into the following questions:
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In-person Panel 2 English |
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Phoom Langsamang |
The Development of Cosmopolitan Humanitarian Norms in the Thai–Cambodian Border Camps Following the Cambodian refugee crisis of 1979, the Thai–Cambodian border became one of the world’s largest and longest-running humanitarian spaces. While existing scholarship has primarily examined the border camps through the lenses of Cold War geopolitics, refugee governance, and humanitarian operations, less attention has been paid to their role in shaping humanitarian norms among the international aid workers who served there. This paper argues that the prolonged existence of the Thai–Cambodian refugee camps fostered the development of cosmopolitan humanitarian norms through sustained collaboration among humanitarian organizations, United Nations agencies, local staff, and international volunteers. Drawing upon historical literature, humanitarian archives, and studies of humanitarian practice, the paper examines how the border camps evolved beyond sites of emergency relief into communities of practice where humanitarian actors developed shared professional identities, collective ethics, and transnational networks of cooperation. Over more than a decade of continuous engagement, humanitarian workers cultivated practices of collective care that transcended national, political, and cultural boundaries. These experiences reinforced a cosmopolitan understanding of moral responsibility toward displaced populations regardless of nationality and contributed to the professionalization of modern humanitarianism. By situating the Thai–Cambodian border within theories of cosmopolitanism and humanitarianism, this paper demonstrates that refugee camps were not merely spaces of humanitarian intervention but also sites where global humanitarian norms were produced and institutionalized. In doing so, it contributes to broader discussions on Thailand’s role in the history of international humanitarianism and highlights how prolonged humanitarian engagement can reshape ethical commitments beyond the nation-state. |
In-person Panel 3 English |
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Phumraphi Wong-Anusorn |
From moha to sound: Buddhist Thought and Contemporary Thai Composition in Delusion Buddhism occupies a central place in Thai cultural and social life, shaping belief, ritual, and everyday practice. Delusion: From the Root of Suffering, a chamber orchestral work by Phumraphi Wong-anusorn, draws on moha (delusion)—one of the three unwholesome roots in Buddhist thought—as both conceptual foundation and structural premise. Within this framework, contemporary religious practices presented as Buddhist teaching but lacking canonical grounding are read as products of gradual distortion, a drift the composition mirrors through musical process. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 4 (Roundtable) ภาษาไทย |
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Rajib Roson Ghosal |
The Kinetics of Pathology: Vāyo-ābadha and the Etiology of Disease from the Pali Canon to Thai Traditional Medicine This paper examines the conceptual development of wind-related diseases (Vāyu-Ābād/Vāta-Ābād), from their earliest references in the Pali Canon, particularly the Bhesajjakkhandhaka of the Vinaya Piṭaka, to their systematic formulation in the traditional Thai medical text Phaetthayasat Songkhro. It argues that although classical Indian Ayurveda is based on the balance of the three doṣas (Vāta, Pitta, and Kapha), and both traditions share a common intellectual background, Theravāda monastic medicine gradually came to regard the Vāyu-dhātu (wind element) as the primary cause of bodily illness. Through a comparative philological and historical analysis, this study traces how early Buddhist meditation practices—specifically Ānāpānasati and Vipassanā (somatic observation)—re-conceptualized wind from an abstract biological force into a tangible, manipulable network of ten primary energy pathways (Sen Sib). The paper demonstrates that the Thai concept of "trapped wind" (Lom) represents a unique historical transformation: stripping classical Indian nāḍī theory of its esoteric tantric features to create a somatic, Theravada-aligned therapeutic discipline centred on physical touch (Nuad Boran) as an expression of Mettā (loving-kindness). |
Virtual Virtual Panel 2 English |
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Rui Zhao |
The Gender of Native Chieftaincy: Tai Elite Women in the Sino-Southeast Asian Borderland This paper presents a case study of Tai elite women to examine indigenous chieftains’ adaptation to Chinese imperial rule. During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) periods, indigenous peoples in the Sino-Southeast Asian borderland were never completely assimilated into the Chinese society. There, the Chinese emperors instituted indirect rule by bestowing titles on chieftains, including the elites of Tai society, and empowering them to govern diverse non-Han peoples as hereditary “native officials.” This paper argues that Tai elites promoted a gender order that was suitable for the continuation of the native official system. They attributed political and hierarchical significance to women’s reproductive capacities to leverage their functions in unifying and continuing bloodlines. Such a gender order, while allowing women to exert a certain degree of agency in managing political and familial affairs, also confined their agency to fulfilling the needs of maintaining the operation of the native official system. Therefore, the continuation of the native official system was achieved by functionalizing female bodies. |
In-person Panel 1 English |
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Suchismita Ghoshal |
The Land Remembers: Territorial Spirits, Sacred Landscapes, and the San Phra Phum from the 10th–13th Centuries to the Present I begin from a deceptively small object: the Thai spirit house, or “san phra phum”. Rather than treating it as a surviving fragment of an ancient “belief,” I ask how relationships between territory, spirits, habitation, and protection have been remade across Thai history. Beginning with evidence of Brahmanical traditions and sacred landscapes from approximately the tenth to thirteenth centuries, I trace how territorial spirits and ritualized relations to land were reconfigured through Buddhist kingdoms, changing political geographies, royal ritual, and modern urbanization. My central questions are: What happens to a sacred landscape when the political and religious worlds that produced it change? How does a territorial spirit become materially relocated into a miniature shrine? And can the san phra phum be read as an archive—not of written history, but of accumulated relationships between people, places, and unseen beings? Methodologically, I bring together archaeological and epigraphic evidence, historical scholarship, material culture, and contemporary spirit practices. I engage scholars including Stanley Tambiah, Rosalind Morris, Pattana Kitiarsa, and Benjamin Baumann, in conversation with memory and heritage studies. Rather than assuming an uninterrupted tradition, I examine the transformations through which older sacred geographies acquire new forms across successive historical and political regimes. I argue that the san phra phum is not a fossil of Thailand’s religious past but a living archive of place. Its miniature architecture condenses centuries of negotiation among land, sovereignty, religion, memory, and everyday habitation, demonstrating how the past persists not by remaining unchanged, but by continually finding new material forms. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 2 English |
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Suthikarn Meechan |
Isan at the Crossroads: Competition, Contention, and Realignment in Thailand's 2026 General Election Thailand's northeastern region, known as Isan, has long been the stronghold of the Pheu Thai Party and the Red Shirt movement. However, the 2026 general election confirms a decisive fracture in this once-monolithic base. Comparing electoral data from 2019 to 2026, this paper demonstrates a shift from dominant party consolidation to a fragmented and highly competitive arena. While Pheu Thai's influence has contracted following its controversial coalition-era return to power, the field has opened for other political actors. The Bhumjaithai Party expanded its footprint by leveraging state-linked patronage networks, while the Kla Tham Party has positioned itself as a new brand driven by strategic potential candidates in certain constituencies, securing distinct victories both within Isan and across other regions. Concurrently, the progressive People's Party has continued to face deep structural challenges in rural areas. This study argues that Isan's transformation reflects overlapping political logics. At the macro level, it is driven by state-linked patronage, Thai-Cambodian border nationalism, and enduring partisan memory; at the local level, it is shaped by network consolidation, reformist mobilization, and the rise of neo-baan-yai—dynamic forms of political dynasty operating as fluid territorial brokerage. Ultimately, the 2026 results reveal Isan not as a unified partisan bloc but as a negotiated region where national parties, coalition positioning, and provincial power brokers continually rebalance influence. The 2026 election thus provides a critical lens for understanding how regional strongholds evolve within coalition-based frameworks and the broader political transformations that extend far beyond the ballot box. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 1 English |
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Taylor Easum |
“We need a university for Lanna Thai!”: Chiang Mai University and the Meaning of Urban History and Heritage in Northern Thailand As UNESCO reviews Thailand’s World Heritage nomination for "Monuments, Sites and Cultural Landscape of Chiang Mai, Capital of Lanna," it is an opportune time to critically assess how official heritage discourse relates to modern Chiang Mai and Lanna identity. While the nomination itself focuses heavily on the pre-modern, sacred spaces of the walled city, famous temples, and 13th-to-19th-century urban development, it sidesteps the 20th-century institutional and architectural transformation of the city that shapes modern Lanna identity. This presentation uses the UNESCO nomination as a critical frame around the spatial and intellectual history of the post-War city, with an emphasis on the design and expansion of Chiang Mai University (CMU). Founded in 1964 following a vibrant regional campaign by local media and political elites, CMU was built as both a monument to regional pride and as a node of Cold War international development. Drawing on local press archives, architectural analyses of mid-century tropical modernism, and institutional records from US university partnerships (UIUC and Indiana University), this paper traces how CMU reoriented Chiang Mai's urban footprint toward the western foothills and institutionalized "Lanna Studies" as an academic field. The mid-century built environment remains largely marginalized in formal heritage frameworks, and yet, this presentation argues that modern educational spaces and 20th-century regionalism are essential and evolving components of Lanna identity and history. |
In-person Panel 4 English |
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Wandee Kasemsukpipat |
Whose Capital Counts in STEM Education? Rethinking Equity through Recognition and Conversion This presentation advances a capital-oriented account of equity in STEM education by challenging a common assumption: that inequity can be explained primarily by how much science-related capital learners possess. We argue that equity also depends on whether learners’ existing cultural, social, linguistic, and experiential resources are recognised as legitimate within STEM learning, and whether these resources can be activated and converted into valued forms of participation, achievement, identity, and future opportunity. Drawing on evidence from Thailand, the presentation shows how learners may enter STEM education with rich knowledge, experiences, relationships, and ways of knowing that carry unequal value within school STEM. Local knowledge, community experience, practical problem-solving, and everyday engagements with science may remain invisible when curricula, pedagogies, and assessments privilege particular forms of knowledge and performance. Building on the science capital perspective, we develop the concepts of capital recognition, activation, and conversion to explain how STEM education differentially values what learners bring. Curriculum shapes which experiences are recognisable as STEM; pedagogy can activate or suppress learners’ resources; and assessment can convert particular forms of capital into recognised competence and subsequent opportunity. We therefore reframe a central question in STEM equity from “Who has sufficient STEM capital?” to “Whose capital counts, under what conditions, and with what consequences?” This shift moves beyond deficit explanations and offers a theoretically grounded perspective for designing STEM environments that expand participation, recognition, identity formation, and future engagement. It positions equity as a property not only of learners’ resources, but of systems that value them. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 3 English |
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Woravoot Kongkaew |
The creation of the musical composition "12 Rituals " for Chamber Orchestra: Integrating the traditions and culture of Northeastern Thailand into contemporary music This creative research examines the composition of 12 Rituals, an original programmatic suite for chamber orchestra that investigates and integrates the ritual practices, spiritual beliefs, and cultural identity of Northeastern Thailand (Isan). Central to this work is the cultural framework of “Heet Sib Song, Khong Sib Si” the traditional twelve-month cycle of merit-making festivals and ethical codes vital to communal life in Isan. The project explores the intersection of music, ritual, and society, offering a practical model for translating intangible regional heritage into contemporary concert music. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 4 (Roundtable) ภาษาไทย |
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Yi Cui |
Reconstructing Inheritance: Tang Chang, Diasporic Hybridity, and Chinese Artistic Knowledge in Modern Thailand Tang Chang (1934–1990) has often been discussed through outsiderhood, Sino-Thai identity, abstraction, and self-taught practice. This paper asks not simply which Chinese traditions influenced him, but how Chinese artistic knowledge became available when access to that tradition was already partial. Here, inheritance refers to the language, artistic knowledge, practices, and cultural memory through which artists relate to the past. A brief comparison is made with Cheong Soo Pieng, one of the Nanyang pioneer artists and one of the clearest early examples of sustained stylistic and cross-media transformation within the group. Cheong carried established artistic training into Southeast Asia and continually reworked it through personal study, exploration, and changing media. Tang Chang followed another route. Born in Thailand, he encountered Chinese language and artistic culture through more partial and indirect forms of access, rebuilding that connection through self-study, copying, translation, asemic calligraphy, and Buddhist and Daoist thought. The paper argues that diasporic hybridity depends not only on cultural encounter but also on how inherited knowledge is carried, interrupted, recovered, and transformed. Tang’s engagement with Chinese thought, including Shitao, is therefore examined as part of this process of recovery rather than as a direct stylistic lineage. The comparison suggests that Chinese artistic tradition entered Southeast Asian modernism through different historical routes: for Cheong, it was carried through migration and transformed through sustained personal learning and exploration; for Tang, it was reconstructed after cultural rupture. |
Virtual Virtual Panel 2 English |
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Yu Tsao |
Becoming Christian: Gendered Dimensions of Religious Conversion among Hmong Women This research aims to explore how Hmong women converts from Shamanism to Christianity have reshaped their identities and the roles they play in kinship, business, and social networks, including clans, local communities, and churches. The research especially aims to address the questions of if and how Christian conversion affords Hmong women greater voice and position in Hmong society when compared to the traditional Hmong kinship system. The research will focus on one Hmong Christian community based in the Midwest in the US, particularly with the cooperation of The First Hmong Alliance Church in Aurora, Illinois, while it planned to be done in urban Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and the surrounding area. I will carry out ethnographic fieldwork in the community during 2025-2026, employing participant observation and semi-structured interviews along with volunteer, snowball, and quota sampling techniques in order to study how Christian conversion has impacted the community, with an emphasis on women’s experiences and perspectives. The research will fill an important gap in the literature on the anthropology of Christianity by making gender and kinship central to the study of Christianity, especially as it has been adopted and practiced by the Hmong women immigrants and the following generations. |
In-person Panel 1 English |
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Yuting Zhou |
Sensing Seed: Embodied Knowledge, Everyday Negotiation, and the Co-production of Seed Legitimacy in Thailand Seed is foundation of agriculture food system and farmers’ livelihood, particularly, for smallholder farmers in regions like southeast Asia. In Thailand, seed legitimacy is a contested site related to value, authority, and practice. Formal expert standards, which align with international intellectual property regimes, always emphasizes laboratory testing, certification standards such as uniformity, stability, and documentation. At the same time, the farmer-developed and community-maintained seeds are widely trusted and exchanged despite they fall outside expert regime. This community system privileges sensory evaluation, ecological adaptation, and relational practices embedded in everyday life. Drawing on more than seven months of multi-sited qualitative research, this study engaged with farming communities, seed networks, seed festivals, NGO practitioners, local officials, and researchers across Thailand. It shows that expert and community legitimacy are not binary systems but are continually contested and negotiated. Seed legitimacy is not produced through legal and regulatory systems alone. It is also enacted through embodied environmental knowledge which is grounded in sensory evaluation, trust networks, and collective practice. Farmers engaged with expert systems through situated negotiations rather than simple resistance or compliance. In this way, knowledge is not only co-produced through discourse and institutional negotiation. It is made through embodied, sensory, and relational practice. This research aims to provide empirical insights into how alternative forms of environmental knowledge negotiate and sometimes transform dominant expert regimes, particularly under conditions of climate change and agrarian transition. Conceptually, the research aims to contribute to discussions in political ecology of knowledge and environmental justice. |
In-person Panel 8 English |
Please send general inquiries to:
Molly Pasley, Ed.D. (mpasley@niu.edu)
Chair, NIU Council on Thai Studies Committee