Thanks to Chut for pointing out that the deadline for submitting paper and panel proposals to the 10th International Conference on Thai Studies has been extended to 15 June 2007. So it will be quite a wait to see how liberal the organisers are in accepting panel and paper proposals which stray into sensitive areas.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Jon Fernquest // Apr 27, 2007 at 5:11 pm
A cool feature on the conference website would be blogs where potential paper writers could float trial abstracts for papers and get feedback from other bloggers and blog readers, wait, me thinks that’s what this blog is or could be.
One of the common failings of some conferences that I’ve watched from a distance is the complete and utter disconnectedness of the paper themes/topics.
Over time the published articles in a discippline define the questions that people working in that discipline address, but this is a slow process, not very well adapted to the quickly developing issues in Thai politics nowadays, these have to be addressed in real time and blogs are the best publishing vehicle for doing this.
2 Andrew Walker // Apr 27, 2007 at 11:22 pm
New Mandala would be very happy to feature proposed paper or panel abstracts for the ICTS conference. Feel free to submit them as a comment to this post or email them to me at andrew.walker@anu.edu.au
3 Thongchai // Apr 28, 2007 at 1:30 am
To all who asked if there any progress about panels,
I heard that several proposals/papers were submitted. But I don’t know the number or details. I am working on 2-3 panels (plus one more that features an exciting new subject all by younger Thai scholars, but nothing to do with the current situation). I have not submitted them yet, but will try to do so ASAP.
I also learned during my last visit to Thailand that the organisers are working very hard but there are too few of them for the conference of this scale. Many people told me that their emails to the organisers on logistical and other matters that are non-political have not got response either. Believe it or not, this sounds very Thammasat as I know it.
4 Jon Fernquest // Apr 28, 2007 at 2:15 pm
This passage by Chang Noi on Anek Laothamatas captured my imagination:
“In the murk stirred up by Thaksin and the generals, prophets have a place. Usually we don’t think of political scientists as prophets, but Anek Laothamatas fits the bill. Just over a decade ago, he asked a question which clicked with middle-class anxiety over the drift of Thai politics. How come the rural majority selects governments at the ballot box, and the urban minority throws them out by protest and scandalization, resulting in chronic instability? His answer was that the rural electorate was trussed up by the patronage of local bosses. The solution was to tighten up rules to keep the bad guys out of parliament, and get rural issues onto the agendas of political parties. This was not just political science but prophesy. The first solution inspired the 1997 Constitution (chief drafter Bowornsak acknowledged Anek’s influence), and the second solution inspired the activists who compiled Thaksin’s rural programme for the 2001 election.”
Compare modern Thailand with the balanced constitution of Venice in the 16th and 17th centuries which was a historical example that seems “almost invented to demonstrate the strengths of functionalism.” The unusual stability of this constitution featured a monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic element. Of course there is also what is known as the “myth of venice” because conflict rather than consensus often drove change. The phrase “equilibrium of antagonisms” also seems to conjure up Thai politics. There seem to be a lot of analogies that can be made been contemporary Thai politlcs and the Venetian balanced constitution, but it is probably more than a conference paper.
5 Jon Fernquest // Apr 28, 2007 at 4:45 pm
One major problem in writing about the present day Thai constitution (meant in a broader sense of the actual system of conventions in operation, not a drafted official document) is the high level of opaqueness to it all. Even if you wanted to write anything more more than a formulaic appreciative history or description you couldn’t because there is no data, information or sources to really work with, it is all shrouded in mystery. For example: 1. the author of the book “The Revolutionary King” did have access to the palace and did observe things there and did reveal them, but the book is banned. The book is shoddily written, almost like a novel in places, so lacks value as a historical source, perhaps that is why it was banned, or perhaps it is because the book takes jabs at members of the elite sometimes, 2. as for Thais who commit lese majeste the details of what they did are never revealed officially.
I would even go so far as to say, that this silence bespeaks of a desire to limit even appreciative discourse to very narrowly defined forms of expression, as evidenced in the boiler plate appreciative language you find on so many websites, at least in English, perhaps an extension of the Rajasab [Royal Speech] notion? (This of course is not uniquely Thai, there is an extreme formulaic element to Burmese public discourse too, in the evening news and newspaper for instance)
In the absence of any real information, of course, what you get is a lot of unpublishable rumour, usually only half approximating the truth. Anyway, I experienced it first hand at the university I worked at. When the Wife of the Crown Prince was rumoured to be about to attend there, there were also rumours that there was to be an oath of allegiance taken by all staff. And there was anticipations of traffic jams getting into the university, the closing of the office buidlings with armed soldiers telling you to leave. And then during actual ceremonies jockying for position among different elements of Thai society. For example, in one incident during a royal reception the Thai Ajaans were told to get up and move to make room for army and police, but the foreign Ajaans could stay which caused a lot of embarrassment on both sides, coming down as a non-negotiable order, what else was there to do for both sides the foreign and the Thai Ajaans to express their displeasure afterwards. Anyway, I hope these little notes don’t in themselves commit any crime, because I truly do respect and admire His Majesty the King.
6 Tosakan // Apr 29, 2007 at 3:18 am
John wrote-
>>I would even go so far as to say, that this silence bespeaks of a desire to limit even appreciative discourse to very narrowly defined forms of expression
In the absence of any real information, of course, what you get is a lot of unpublishable rumour, usually only half approximating the truth.
Anyway, I hope these little notes don’t in themselves commit any crime, because I truly do respect and admire His Majesty the King.
7 nganadeeleg // Apr 30, 2007 at 9:41 am
Some more potential topics have arisen over the last week, including:
- Who is really behind the push for Buddhism to be named the state religion in the new constitution, and what is the motive?
- What impact can foreign lobbyists have on thai politics?
Lucky the deadline has been extended - more potential topics sure to come up over the next month or so.
8 Pig Latin // Apr 30, 2007 at 11:40 am
nganadeeleg, surely–
“who is really behind the push for Buddhism to be named the state religion in the new constitution and what is the motive?”
..is too accusatory for it to pass in Thailand as academic discussion?? I mean, nobody is on trial yet! haha. Perhaps it would be better as a conspiracy dvd.
This conference will be about how subtly one can insult as many metropolitan people as possible without directly saying anything at all.
Maybe a good topic for the conference would be why there should be more Thai academic streams dedicated to the study of English people. That way even foreign lobbyist’s get a grating!
9 Pig Latin // Apr 30, 2007 at 12:02 pm
During the French revolution, the enlightenment in Versailles wasn’t full of people who had written papers suggesting that lobbing off heads was as morally bankrupt as the royalists themselves. This happened afterwards. Clearly I think that there is not enough hindsight to be able to have an effective political conference. However Thongchai noted that there was an interesting topic by young scholars not anything to do with the present situation… maybe more discussions on this level would make the conference worthwhile. I’m not saying that political issues should be ignored, more that one should be realistic about repression.
10 nganadeeleg // Apr 30, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Pig Latin said: “Maybe a good topic for the conference would be why there should be more Thai academic streams dedicated to the study of English people. That way even foreign lobbyist’s get a grating!”
Sounds good - it even fits in with the ‘Transnationalized World’ theme.
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