Papers

• The Art of Peaceful Resistance in Northern Siam: Khruba Srivijai (1878-1939) Rexamined Tanet Charoenmuang Chiang Mai University

  Khruba Srivijai, considered the most respected monk of Lanna, Northern Siam, exhibited a most thoughtful and challenging resistance against the growing power of the Siamese centralized state during the period of the 1870s and 1950s including even the famous 1932 Democratic Revolution in the country. The forms and art of resistance chosen during his time occurred during the period of complicated events: dealing with colonialism, a great bureaucratic reform, growth of an absolute monarchy, nationwide peasant revolts, World War I and growing influence from the west including a democratic revolution. The spirited monk was detained 3 times in three decades. The forms of resistance varied and the art deepened. The respect for the monk has never died down despite his departure. However, his ideals, forms and art of struggle have remained little examined.

• Ghosts haunted Thai Politics: Memories and Consequences Malinee Khumsupa Chiang Mai University

  Memory is politics when it replays counter-memory retrospectively by now. State mechanisms, violence, and laws are the consequences of ghosts haunted Thai Politics. To examine collective memory guided state violence and promulgation laws and polarization. The paper studies counter-memory emerged as the ghosts haunted state in terms of interference of peace and security. Ghosts which mean social figures engaging with an act of the imagination (Spooner-Lockyer and Kilroy-Marac, 2021). Unsettle memory or traumatic history probably interpret like ghost or repetition of haunted past. Through the lens of hauntology of Jacques Derrida’s specters of Marx (1993) and Pierre Nora, Between Memory and History (1989). Focusing on the traces and site of memories. The paper found four significant ghosts haunted Thai state as following. The first is Communist ghost which emerged because of the fear of communism since issuing Anti-Communist Act of 1933. Following to the Cold war the peak of communist insurgency leading to the second ghost of the 6 October 1976 massacre. The cruel of massacre severely dehumanized and murdered victims. The third ghost emerged from Thaksin regime which challenged ultra conservative royalist and necessarily to eliminate. The final living ghost at the present is the consequences of memories affected young generation. They utilize new styles of flash mob and legacy of the trauma memories circulates online of viral, tweets, clips, meme, or films. The constructing networks of resistance continuing to haunt Thai state with no fear significantly by now.

Abstract