The Thai-language book by Ratthanaporn you cite (One Hundred Years of Village Communities in the North) in fact came from a big research project under the overall supervision of Chatthip. Funded by Thailand Research Fund (TRF), it’s called “The Economy of Thai Village Communities Project” and lasted between 2000 and 2003. Some 27 professors and students took part in the project, including Dr.Chris Baker, who wrote a report providing an overall assessment of village communites, the rest of the papers cover village communities in all the regions of Thailand.
The fact is : without Chatthip’s ideologically- and politcally-oriented scholarly work, that dated back some 30 years ago, this whole intellectual current of studying the Economic History in general and Village Communities Economy in particular, of which Ratthanaporn’s work is clearly a part, wouldn’t have come into being (or wouldn’t have been as strong as it is).
How can my self-identification be wrong?! Why can I not be both Tai and Chinese, particularly if my family social memory suggests that I am? And who are ‘most people in Thailand (like, how many millions are you talking about?)’ and what do you mean when you say that they know the difference between a Chinese and a Tai ‘when they meet one’ (is it immediately obvious or is there some sort of special check they have to perform on me at the meeting)? What does pff123 stand for? Was it a random decision to identify as pff123 (rattled off the keyboard in the interests of anonymity) or does it indicate something more meaningful about how you choose to identity yourself? (Don’t ask why I call myself Todger). If, over the course of a while, you come to find that some sort of durable meaning (a practice, a language, a clothing type, a musical influence, a shared social memory) is invested by you or others (perhaps against your will) in the identification ‘pff123’ will it not then cease to be a random, perhaps contradictory identification, much like ‘being’ an ethnic Chinese identifying as Tai? Ethnicity is not a ‘choice’ but it is socially constructed and vulnerable to change even while it is popularly seen as essential and racially primordial. To question the notion that Thailand is 97 percent Tai is also to question the notion that it is x percent any other ethnic category. Ethnic primordialism is produced by the population census (and the map, and the museum).
Congratulations for coming this far !
Let’s hope by the time the next anniversary, or will it be the one after that, or even, the one after that, or just sometime in the future, progress has been made, in this wonderfully frustrating of countries?
And what, one may ask, is progress?
I guess, that’s what makes NM so importnat
Keep up the good work !
The work of Thai economic historian Dr. Ratanaporn Sethakul of Payap University has really been neglected.
I found her work far more valuable for the Northern Thai part of the economic history course I taught at Mae Fah Luang University three years ago. Unlike many others her work is heavy on the facts, light on the ideology. The following works are invaluable:
Thai language:
– Economic History of the Village Communities in the Northern Part of Thailand(1899-1999) Bangkok: Sangsan, 2003.
– Economic and Cultural History of the Chiang Mai-Lamphoon Basin, research project supported by the Thailand Research Fund, 2006.
English language:
Ratanaporn Sethakul. 1989. “Political, Social, and Economic Changes in the Northern States of Thailand Resulting from the Chiang Mai Treaties of 1874 and 1883.” Ph. D. dissertation, Northern Illinois University. 415 pp. [supervised by Constance Wilson]
… in the country’s rural heartland the deep anger … still burns brightly…
“There are no institutions we can rely on,” said Phongsri Panlert, a fruit seller…
“Most of the institutions have double standards,” she said…
Last month, about two dozen residents pulled on the red shirts that identify them as government opponents and climbed into the backs of pickups for the eight-hour journey to Bangkok to protest what they see as their disenfranchisement.
The anger that has been brewing for years was given a focal point late last year, when a combination of court action and demonstrations by middle-class Bangkok activists brought down a government that had been the choice of the rural poor.
… in the countryside, discontent persists.
I guess this was pointed out because it is a foreign newspaper.
foreign reporters somehow find time and means to travel to rural areas and interview the farmers.
although of course there is nothing much extraordinary special said in this article, very general things – but nowadays even that much can’t be seen in Thai MSM, only some BS propaganda.
in contrast to those foreign reporters, local Thai media do not bother at all going to villages and interview the “stupid buffalo ” peasants (about 2 weeks I heard one of reporters on Nation channel made such a remark about protesters at GH) – instead Thai media publish PROPAGANDA article like the one quoted here , that farmers must practice the “sufficiency economy”.
add to that propagandist articles – the ISOC adds on TV, and now also announced “registration” for comunity radio station – aka “proper control“ by NTC …
all that not helps disenfranchisement of farmers and poor people, but instead worsens it.
therefore I don’t see any signs that the anti-establishment movement will stop or even lessen as long as this sh1t goes on and on.
I have always recommended foreigners to open/read NM if they want to know more about Thaland. Of course they can buy the two English newspapers if they are hungry and want to find a food restaurant. As for political news, the two newspapers are hopeless.
If I’m understanding her point, it is that a lot of BS writing exists that assumes Thailand is 97% ethnically Tai, and that Thailand has, with certain “Special Guidance”, brought all good things to pass by their own will, efforts, and ingenuity. This myth is false on many levels, and she seems to be checking if either of the mentioned books acknowledge this reality.
If my reading is correct, then, Susie, based on their writing here and other articles I have read, Walker, etc. do not accept the Myth that Thailand is all Tai, nor that the Tai and their leaders can do no wrong- the propaganda of what you call “Axis forces” Rather, they tend to argue the opposite.
My apologies if I am misunderstanding your point of view.
Todger- no, you cannot be both Tai and “ethnic Chinese”, as the former almost always refers to ethnicity (when written without the ‘h’). You can identify as such, but your self-identification would be wrong, and in Thailand, most people seem to know the difference between a Tai and a Chinese when they meet one.
Finally, Susie- the answer to your final question (which is a fair question to ask) is provided in the second-to-last paragraph of Reynold’s review.
I know the analogy is not perfect, but do think a side-by-side look at the Iranian and Thai systems can be instructive, especially right now. This quote from the NY Times could almost describe Thailand without much modification (particularly if one takes a more expansive view of what is treated as religion here):
Under Iran’s dual system of government, with civil and religious institutions, the supreme leader can usually operate in the shadows, while elected officials serve as the public face of Iranian governance and policy.
Umm, questions for Susie Wong:
Why is it questionable methodologically to ask what the term ‘Tai’ actually means as a contested term for specific people in the specific social situations identified in this book instead of attempting to prove its existence as some kind of quantitative fact or absolute truth (although no idea what kind) by attempting a full population census? What does Susie Wong understand the term ‘Tai” to mean? Couldn’t someone be ‘ethnic Chinese’, a fascist military dictator, and also ‘identify’ as Tai?
Does Susie Wong have any information or can she recommend any published work about the transfer of agricultural technology from the US to Thailand during the Cold War and why does it matter that this book did not mention it?
How does Susie Wong define someone as having ‘sufficient authority’ on a subject? How does someone attain ‘sufficient authority’ and if someone does not have ‘sufficient authority’ on a subject what implications does this have for their writing? Does Susie Wong have ‘sufficient authority’ and how is she demonstrating it?
Was there a great East Asian alternative to the ‘Axis Force’ of World War Two and what scholarly legacy of the region has it left us with to learn from?
Does Susie Wong have any examples of the ‘universal standard level of scholarly work’ that she urges us to upgrade to?
The title is ambiguous because the word “thailand” has its own history in relation to Phibulsongkram’s side with the Axis Forces Japan during the World War II. Thus, this has made the title enigmatic with equivocal phrasing.
Several people mentioned the 15 June rumour to me but the only commonality we came to was that we reard about it on New Mandala!! A self-perpetuating one that was, and a dead end.
Well, it you want to talk numerology, we can add up the numerals of the clue: 15 +06 + 2005 = 19; add these together and we get 10, reduced to 1.
Add to this the numerals of the year of the same date given in the clue: 2009 reduces to 11, which reduces to 2. Then add the 1 from the original clue and we get …..3 – again.
[…] commentator still regularly writing under same name – Bangkok Pundit (back in pre-coup September 2006).┬ An honourable mention goes to Aiontay with a comment a few days […]
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Review of Chatthip
reply to jonfernquest #4
The Thai-language book by Ratthanaporn you cite (One Hundred Years of Village Communities in the North) in fact came from a big research project under the overall supervision of Chatthip. Funded by Thailand Research Fund (TRF), it’s called “The Economy of Thai Village Communities Project” and lasted between 2000 and 2003. Some 27 professors and students took part in the project, including Dr.Chris Baker, who wrote a report providing an overall assessment of village communites, the rest of the papers cover village communities in all the regions of Thailand.
The fact is : without Chatthip’s ideologically- and politcally-oriented scholarly work, that dated back some 30 years ago, this whole intellectual current of studying the Economic History in general and Village Communities Economy in particular, of which Ratthanaporn’s work is clearly a part, wouldn’t have come into being (or wouldn’t have been as strong as it is).
New Mandala turns 3
Happy Birthday New Mandala! May there be many more years of Southeast Asia analysis on this site.
Review of Chatthip
How can my self-identification be wrong?! Why can I not be both Tai and Chinese, particularly if my family social memory suggests that I am? And who are ‘most people in Thailand (like, how many millions are you talking about?)’ and what do you mean when you say that they know the difference between a Chinese and a Tai ‘when they meet one’ (is it immediately obvious or is there some sort of special check they have to perform on me at the meeting)? What does pff123 stand for? Was it a random decision to identify as pff123 (rattled off the keyboard in the interests of anonymity) or does it indicate something more meaningful about how you choose to identity yourself? (Don’t ask why I call myself Todger). If, over the course of a while, you come to find that some sort of durable meaning (a practice, a language, a clothing type, a musical influence, a shared social memory) is invested by you or others (perhaps against your will) in the identification ‘pff123’ will it not then cease to be a random, perhaps contradictory identification, much like ‘being’ an ethnic Chinese identifying as Tai? Ethnicity is not a ‘choice’ but it is socially constructed and vulnerable to change even while it is popularly seen as essential and racially primordial. To question the notion that Thailand is 97 percent Tai is also to question the notion that it is x percent any other ethnic category. Ethnic primordialism is produced by the population census (and the map, and the museum).
New Mandala turns 3
Congratulations for coming this far !
Let’s hope by the time the next anniversary, or will it be the one after that, or even, the one after that, or just sometime in the future, progress has been made, in this wonderfully frustrating of countries?
And what, one may ask, is progress?
I guess, that’s what makes NM so importnat
Keep up the good work !
Review of Chatthip
The work of Thai economic historian Dr. Ratanaporn Sethakul of Payap University has really been neglected.
I found her work far more valuable for the Northern Thai part of the economic history course I taught at Mae Fah Luang University three years ago. Unlike many others her work is heavy on the facts, light on the ideology. The following works are invaluable:
Thai language:
– Economic History of the Village Communities in the Northern Part of Thailand(1899-1999) Bangkok: Sangsan, 2003.
– Economic and Cultural History of the Chiang Mai-Lamphoon Basin, research project supported by the Thailand Research Fund, 2006.
English language:
Ratanaporn Sethakul. 1989. “Political, Social, and Economic Changes in the Northern States of Thailand Resulting from the Chiang Mai Treaties of 1874 and 1883.” Ph. D. dissertation, Northern Illinois University. 415 pp. [supervised by Constance Wilson]
http://researchers.in.th/profile/ratanaporn
Sufficiency brilliance
there is an interesting article on WP today :
I guess this was pointed out because it is a foreign newspaper.
foreign reporters somehow find time and means to travel to rural areas and interview the farmers.
although of course there is nothing much extraordinary special said in this article, very general things – but nowadays even that much can’t be seen in Thai MSM, only some BS propaganda.
in contrast to those foreign reporters, local Thai media do not bother at all going to villages and interview the “stupid buffalo ” peasants (about 2 weeks I heard one of reporters on Nation channel made such a remark about protesters at GH) – instead Thai media publish PROPAGANDA article like the one quoted here , that farmers must practice the “sufficiency economy”.
add to that propagandist articles – the ISOC adds on TV, and now also announced “registration” for comunity radio station – aka “proper control“ by NTC …
all that not helps disenfranchisement of farmers and poor people, but instead worsens it.
therefore I don’t see any signs that the anti-establishment movement will stop or even lessen as long as this sh1t goes on and on.
New Mandala turns 3
Happy birthday, NM !
I have always recommended foreigners to open/read NM if they want to know more about Thaland. Of course they can buy the two English newspapers if they are hungry and want to find a food restaurant. As for political news, the two newspapers are hopeless.
Review of Chatthip
If I’m understanding her point, it is that a lot of BS writing exists that assumes Thailand is 97% ethnically Tai, and that Thailand has, with certain “Special Guidance”, brought all good things to pass by their own will, efforts, and ingenuity. This myth is false on many levels, and she seems to be checking if either of the mentioned books acknowledge this reality.
If my reading is correct, then, Susie, based on their writing here and other articles I have read, Walker, etc. do not accept the Myth that Thailand is all Tai, nor that the Tai and their leaders can do no wrong- the propaganda of what you call “Axis forces” Rather, they tend to argue the opposite.
My apologies if I am misunderstanding your point of view.
Todger- no, you cannot be both Tai and “ethnic Chinese”, as the former almost always refers to ethnicity (when written without the ‘h’). You can identify as such, but your self-identification would be wrong, and in Thailand, most people seem to know the difference between a Tai and a Chinese when they meet one.
Finally, Susie- the answer to your final question (which is a fair question to ask) is provided in the second-to-last paragraph of Reynold’s review.
Thai political and social analysis unleashed
I know the analogy is not perfect, but do think a side-by-side look at the Iranian and Thai systems can be instructive, especially right now. This quote from the NY Times could almost describe Thailand without much modification (particularly if one takes a more expansive view of what is treated as religion here):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/world/middleeast/16iran.html?_r=1&hpw
New Mandala turns 3
Happy anniversary, NM!
New Mandala turns 3
I have noted that June 15th is often a day on which the royalty give themselves promotion.
Review of Chatthip
Umm, questions for Susie Wong:
Why is it questionable methodologically to ask what the term ‘Tai’ actually means as a contested term for specific people in the specific social situations identified in this book instead of attempting to prove its existence as some kind of quantitative fact or absolute truth (although no idea what kind) by attempting a full population census? What does Susie Wong understand the term ‘Tai” to mean? Couldn’t someone be ‘ethnic Chinese’, a fascist military dictator, and also ‘identify’ as Tai?
Does Susie Wong have any information or can she recommend any published work about the transfer of agricultural technology from the US to Thailand during the Cold War and why does it matter that this book did not mention it?
How does Susie Wong define someone as having ‘sufficient authority’ on a subject? How does someone attain ‘sufficient authority’ and if someone does not have ‘sufficient authority’ on a subject what implications does this have for their writing? Does Susie Wong have ‘sufficient authority’ and how is she demonstrating it?
Was there a great East Asian alternative to the ‘Axis Force’ of World War Two and what scholarly legacy of the region has it left us with to learn from?
Does Susie Wong have any examples of the ‘universal standard level of scholarly work’ that she urges us to upgrade to?
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Tai Lands and Thailand
The title is ambiguous because the word “thailand” has its own history in relation to Phibulsongkram’s side with the Axis Forces Japan during the World War II. Thus, this has made the title enigmatic with equivocal phrasing.
New Mandala turns 3
Several people mentioned the 15 June rumour to me but the only commonality we came to was that we reard about it on New Mandala!! A self-perpetuating one that was, and a dead end.
Well, it you want to talk numerology, we can add up the numerals of the clue: 15 +06 + 2005 = 19; add these together and we get 10, reduced to 1.
Add to this the numerals of the year of the same date given in the clue: 2009 reduces to 11, which reduces to 2. Then add the 1 from the original clue and we get …..3 – again.
Now that’s what I call magic 😉
But what about the rumour?? Happy birthday NM.
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