The Performative State: Semicoloniality and the Tyranny of Images in Modern Thailand

Peter Jackson, Senior Fellow in Thai History, RSPAS, Australian National University

In a recent study I have drawn on accounts of modern Thai culture by anthropologists such as Rosalind Morris and Penny Van Esterik to describe the empirical form, epistemological character, and theoretical importance of the local form of power that I call the "Thai regime of images". This regime is marked by an emphasis on performance and surface appearances and is structured by a tightly monitored divide between public and private contexts of speech and action. Previous accounts of the Thai regime of images have been largely ahistorical, presenting the phenomenon as something of a traditional cultural given. In this study I trace the history of this regime of power/knowledge and show that rather than being "traditional" it took its present form as part of Siam's responses to the challenges posed by the encroachment of the Western powers in the 19th century. While drawing on elements of the premodern Siamese "theatre state', as a modern form of power the regime of images came into being as a product of the distinctive character of Siam's semicolonial relations with the West. Non-colonised Siam did not need to wage a war of independence to expel foreign colonisers. Nevertheless, to preserve national autonomy a new form of local power was called into being. The contemporary regime of images emerges from this strategic mobilization of local power for the dual purposes preserving Siamese independence in the international arena and entrenching the authority of local ruling elites over the country's population.

Dr. Peter A. Jackson is Senior Fellow in Thai History in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. Dr Jackson specialises in the cultural history of modern Thailand and his main research interests are the histories of religion, gender, sexuality, and globalisation in Thailand. His books include Buddhism, Legitimation and Conflict: The Political Functions of Urban Thai Buddhism (Singapore, 1989); Dear Uncle Go: Male Homosexuality in Thailand (Bangkok, 1995); Buddhadasa: Theravada Buddhism and Modernist Reform in Thailand (Chiang Mai, 2003), Genders and Sexualities in Modern Thailand (co-edited with Nerida Cook, Chiang Mai 1999); and Multicultural Queer: Australian Narratives (co-edited with Gerard Sullivan, New York 1999). His current projects include a history of Thailand's homosexual and transgender cultures; the impact of globalising capitalism on Thai religion in the 1990s; and the history of Thai perceptions of the West since the reign of King Mongkut in the mid-19th century. (For Dr Jackson's full academic profile see: http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/jackp_pah.html) In 2001 Peter Jackson co-founded AsiaPacifiQueer (http://apq.anu.edu.au/), an Australia-based network of scholars and postgraduate students researching homosexuality and transgenderism in Asia. AsiaPacifiQueer has organised several conferences in Australia. In collaboration with the Office of Human Rights Studies at Mahidol University in Bangkok, AsiaPacifiQueer is currently organizing the international conference "Sexualities, Genders and Rights in Asia: The First International Conference of Asian Queer Studies". To be held in Bangkok from 8 to 10 July 2005, this will be the first international conference to profile gay, lesbian, and transgender studies across the Asian region. (For conference details see: http://bangkok2005.anu.edu.au/)

For current Yale SEAS Seminars and Events schedule, see: http://www.yale.edu/seas/Seminars.htm