Hierarchy and diversity in thailand’s changing political landscape

Abstract

© 2019, Yonsei Institute for English Studies. All rights reserved. This essay offers a critical reassessment of cultural diversity in Thailand, a concept that has had different meanings at different times in the country’s modern political history. From the time the country sought to modernize its political system and during the period of state-building and militarization after World War II up until the 1980s, Bangkok-centered political development reinforced hierarchical norms and promoted a nationalist ideology that both celebrated diversity and limited the ways in which the country’s minorities could be members of this Thai polity. By the 1990s and early 2000s, a period of democratization set in when minorities became more vocal in representing themselves than they had been able to do in the past. The historic 1997 Constitution gave legal recognition to the demands to play a role in the management of their cultural heritage. Drawing attention to the discursive and policy interventions on the one hand and community-level strategies for dealing with the Thai state on the other, the paper profiles two minority communities which deployed the language of hierarchy as well as rights to advocate for their interests. The concluding section outlines the conservative retrenchment Thailand is undergoing as a result of protracted military rule. Throughout, the essay argues that cultural diversity has little meaning in politically repressive conditions.