New Mandala

The recent discussion here on New Mandala about elephant tusks reminded me of the work of Sarinda Singh, a former PhD student at the ANU (and now at the University of Queensland). Her PhD thesis dealt with the complex relationship forests and state power in Laos. One chapter focussed specifically on the symbolism of elephants. [...]

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Readers may be keen to know that Thailand’s Royal Institute is organising a conference with the theme “National Language Policy: Language Diversity for National Unity”.  Among many other topics it hopes to include material on “Language policy and socio-economic theory (with special emphasis on the Self-Sufficiency Economic Theory of His Majesty King Bhumibol of Thailand)”.Â
According [...]

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This academic jamboree takes place every three years. All the usual subjects were on the agenda - Buddhism, weaving, democracy, the history of Ayutthaya, agrarian relations, and Thai arts. But there was also something new and different. Three panels were devoted to discussion of the monarchy. Another two focused on the sufficiency economy. And more [...]

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For various reasons I didn’t get to Day 3 of the Thai Studies Conference. So I will use this post to open up a general forum for comments, evaluation, critique, suggestions and reports in relation to the conference.

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Here is the full text of a Reuters report on the discussion of The King Never Smiles at the International Conference on Thai Studies.
Banned royal book stirs rare debate in Thailand
Fri Jan 11, 2008 10:19am IST
By Ed Cropley
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s banning of a rare “warts and all” biography of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej only stokes interest [...]

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Day 2 of the International Conference on Thai Studies here in Bangkok featured the keenly anticipated panels on the Thai monarchy. The first panel discussed some of the monarchy’s key supporting institutions - the abundantly rich Crown Property Bureau, the politically influential Privy Council, and the symbolically potent cult of King Chulalongkorn. The second panel [...]

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It has been a long day, so here is just a quick report on day 1 of the Thai Studies Conference. The openning by Princess Sirindhorn was brief and to the point. Plenty of sitting, standing, sitting and standing, presentation of gifts and various suited officials crawling around on stage. Her opening address was formal and [...]

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On Wednesday I will be attending the International Conference of Thai Studies being held at Thammasat University in Bangkok. I attend the conference with considerable mixed feelings. Many readers may be aware that in March 2007 New Mandala raised the issue of a boycott of the conference.  In that post we reproduced the following statement from [...]

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Some of New Mandala readers and contributors may be familiar with an article by Grant Evans entitled “Transformation of Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, PRC” and included in the book Where China meets Southeast Asia (ISEAS, 2000). In that article, Evans referred to various tourist projects planned to be carried out in Jinghong, the capital of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous [...]

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For those of you interested in the Thai love affair with the Lue of Sipsongpanna, here is another addition to the T(h)ai studies bookshelf. Yuan thi yungthong (Visit peacock-land): Sipsongpanna by Suphin Ritphen. It is an account of a three week visit to Sipsonpanna in 2006. There are plenty of pictures (but in black and white). ISBN: [...]

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