Thai Globalization through Postcolonial Lens

Abstract

Over the last two decades Thailand has witnessed a rapid globalizing of its culture, economy and society. This presentation deals with some of the cultural and representational aspects of this process from a post colonial perspective. In particular, it pays attention to the impact of the dissemination of stereotypical racialized concepts of modernity and civilization in the Thai body politic and cultural economy and the way in which Thai scholars have addressed this. The second sub-theme of the presentation is a critique of the work of Kasian Tejapira and Craig Reynolds in terms of their handling of the postcolonial question as it relates to the nature of cultural globalization in Thailand. It suggests that while Kasian overlooks the postcolonial question altogether,Reynolds sets up a spurious dichotomy in trying to make sense of postcolonial scholarship and the representational politics of luk kruengs in Thai society. The presentation ends by calling for the racialized politics of representation at work in the Thai cultural economy to be given more attention in Thai scholarship.