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Reviewed by:
  • Heritage and Identity in Contemporary Thailand: Memory, Place and Power by Ross King
  • Ploysri Porananond (bio)
Heritage and Identity in Contemporary Thailand: Memory, Place and Power. By Ross King. Singapore: NUS Press, 2017. xiii+319 pp.

Heritage and Identity in Contemporary Thailand is a hard book to review, chiefly because of the difficulty in categorizing it. It is not really a monograph, in spite of Ross King's being credited as the sole author. All of the chapters are in fact based on dissertations and writings by Thai scholars who are acknowledged accordingly at the beginning of each chapter. The chapters not only utilize content provided by selected Thai scholars but also offer their perspectives. It is precisely this collaboration that means that the volume is not simply another outside gaze at Thailand through a Western lens. At the same time, the manuscript is not an edited collection, since it represents a single narrative—that of King. He admits at times going beyond the task of editing the contributions to the book to the point of rewriting some parts. Accordingly, King acutely displays his own awareness of the impossibility of categorizing the book. [End Page 426]

Certainly the book could be criticised for being neither one thing nor the other—neither a collection of thesis excerpts nor a coherent narrative on the selected theme. It is likely therefore to please no one. The aim, however, is not to please but to provoke, even to confront, thereby to render discourse inescapable.

(p. 4)

And the volume has certainly achieved this aim.

The contents of Heritage and Identity in Contemporary Thailand are easier to describe than its nature. The volume makes an important contribution to the fields of cultural heritage and Thai studies, and is certain to attract both scholars and interested readers looking for an in-depth analysis of Thailand. The book explores the establishment of the identity of contemporary Thailand, and consequently of the Thais, through heritage. King employs the term "heritage" in its broadest sense to cover both physical and psychological sites. He argues that there is a memory attached to each example of heritage, and it is precisely this memory that plays a part in building Thailand's identity. Identity is therefore created from the memory attached to a place or site of heritage. Because memory is socially produced, it is inevitably linked to power. Essentially, this book is an adept demonstration of the struggle of powers in Thailand: religious cult, the monarchy, political authorities, and the people. Theirs is a struggle to craft the most foundational element of life, an identity.

The manuscript follows the framework laid down by Pierre Nora's seminal work Les lieux de mémoire (1984, 1986 and 1993), which endeavoured to define the identity of France. It is thus divided into two parts called Lieux de Mémoire and Milieux de Mémoire. Each part contains six chapters, carefully chosen to reflect the diversity of contemporary Thailand. The first part assembles cases in which memory is officially sanctioned in defining the heritage and identity of the monarchy and the nation. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the elite heritage of ancient kingdoms. The juxtaposition of the fictitious heritage of Chiang Saen and the over-documented state of three palaces in Phetburi province provides a clear contrast, though, admittedly, both chapters focus on myth-driven identity. Chapter 4 [End Page 427] highlights the affection in Thai society for the nation and the king. Chapter 5 questions gender identity through the examination of matriarchal society in the old Hariphunchai kingdom. Chapter 6 recounts the tale of a denied heritage at Hellfire Pass in Kanchanaburi province.

The second part of the book, aptly named Milieux de Mémoire, demonstrates the environment of memory in Thailand, a domain in which identity is independent of the reinforcement of officially designated heritage. It focuses on heritage as a part of the Thais' everyday experience. Here, King makes a compelling argument that, in contrast to the example of Nora's France, Thailand is ripe with milieux de mémoire. Chapter 8 uses Bangkok's khlong (canals) to demonstrate enduring meaningful everyday heritage in Thailand. Chapter 9 studies the...

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