Demographic representation and Thai family values.
10
Issued Date
2007
Resource Type
Language
eng
Rights
Mahidol University
Suggested Citation
Copeland, Mathew (2007). Demographic representation and Thai family values.. Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/35001
Title
Demographic representation and Thai family values.
Author(s)
Other Contributor(s)
Abstract
As a national institution, the “Thai family” is frequently represented in
dichotomous and contradictory terms. Often described as “the basic unit of
society” and a principal means of assuring cultural continuity, family is also
widely held to have undergone a transformation so radical that it is now
virtually unable to perform even the most fundamental of tasks – attending to
the material needs of its weakest members, the very old and the very young,
while producing enough children to meet the economic demands of society as a
whole.
The consensus view, one articulated and affirmed in a range of media reports,
academic studies and policy papers, is that the traditional family unit is in nearterminal
decline, giving rise to a number of closely related social problems.
These concerns have in recent years not only served as a pretext for increased
governmental scrutiny and intervention into the realm of family life; they have
also been a catalyst for the growth of broader family values movement, a public
campaign to strengthen the family unit by actively promoting ‘traditional’
family values and practices.
Of particular interest to me here is the extent to which contemporary
understandings of the “traditional Thai family” – and the crisis conditions into
which it has fallen - are largely a product of demographic – as opposed to
historical, anthropological or ethnographic - representation.
Description
The 3rd International Malaysia-Thailand Conference on Southeast Asian Studies, Mahidol University International College, Thailand. November 29 - December 1, 2007