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Recovering Khmer ethnic identity from the Thai national past : = An ethnography of the localism movement in Surin Province.

Record Type:	Language materials, manuscript : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Recovering Khmer ethnic identity from the Thai national past :/
Reminder of title:	An ethnography of the localism movement in Surin Province.
Author:	Denes, Alexandra.
Description:	1 online resource (477 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International68-07A.
Subject:	Cultural anthropology. -
Online resource:	click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9780542788758

Recovering Khmer ethnic identity from the Thai national past : = An ethnography of the localism movement in Surin Province.
Denes, Alexandra.

Recovering Khmer ethnic identity from the Thai national past :An ethnography of the localism movement in Surin Province. - 1 online resource (477 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Cornell University, 2006.

Includes bibliographical references

This ethnography examines the state-led localism movement and the revival of ethnic Khmer identity in Thailand's Surin Province. Focusing on the intersections of official history and collective memory, I demonstrate how the state's selective co-optations of collective memory under the auspices of localism (phumpanya thongthin) have served to encompass the ethnic Khmer minority within the Thai nation. By collective memory, I mean not only oral narratives, but also embodied practices of identity construction, including cults of the ancestors, mediumship rites, and folk genres of music and dance. I examine how the state's involvement in the study of Khmer cultural heritage has transformed these practices, reconfiguring them into markers of national belonging. I begin by tracing Thai-Khmer relations from the Angkorian era to the present, to illustrate that Thailand's claims to the Khmer past are grounded in precolonial practices of appropriation and encompassment, wherein the symbolic capital of a vanquished court became part of the identity of the victor. I argue that in spite of the impetus to purify its national identity in the modern era, Thailand's elites nonetheless retained their claims on the Khmer past via what I call "the imperial imaginary," which invokes Thais to remember their nation as it was prior to the territorial losses to Western colonial regimes. The second issue of this thesis pertains to how the imperial imaginary serves as a frame for the post-Cold War revival of ethnic Khmer identity. While official recognition of the nation's many loci of cultural difference may have finally eclipsed the hegemony of cultural and linguistic unity, I maintain that the state's valorization of Khmer ethnicity under the aegis of localism is structurally mediated by a different hegemonic vision of the national past---one which casts the ethnic Khmer as the bearers of ancient Khmer heritage who re-enact a tributary form of loyalty to the central Thai court. My thesis argues that the ethnic Khmers' willingness to signify Khmer antiquity stems from two inter-related factors: a desire to be seen by the state; and a wish to overcome the stigma of being ethnically Khmer during the Cold War era.

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2024

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9780542788758Subjects--Topical Terms:

1179959
Cultural anthropology.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Cultural revivalismIndex Terms--Genre/Form:

554714
Electronic books.

Recovering Khmer ethnic identity from the Thai national past : = An ethnography of the localism movement in Surin Province.
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520 $a This ethnography examines the state-led localism movement and the revival of ethnic Khmer identity in Thailand's Surin Province. Focusing on the intersections of official history and collective memory, I demonstrate how the state's selective co-optations of collective memory under the auspices of localism (phumpanya thongthin) have served to encompass the ethnic Khmer minority within the Thai nation. By collective memory, I mean not only oral narratives, but also embodied practices of identity construction, including cults of the ancestors, mediumship rites, and folk genres of music and dance. I examine how the state's involvement in the study of Khmer cultural heritage has transformed these practices, reconfiguring them into markers of national belonging. I begin by tracing Thai-Khmer relations from the Angkorian era to the present, to illustrate that Thailand's claims to the Khmer past are grounded in precolonial practices of appropriation and encompassment, wherein the symbolic capital of a vanquished court became part of the identity of the victor. I argue that in spite of the impetus to purify its national identity in the modern era, Thailand's elites nonetheless retained their claims on the Khmer past via what I call "the imperial imaginary," which invokes Thais to remember their nation as it was prior to the territorial losses to Western colonial regimes. The second issue of this thesis pertains to how the imperial imaginary serves as a frame for the post-Cold War revival of ethnic Khmer identity. While official recognition of the nation's many loci of cultural difference may have finally eclipsed the hegemony of cultural and linguistic unity, I maintain that the state's valorization of Khmer ethnicity under the aegis of localism is structurally mediated by a different hegemonic vision of the national past---one which casts the ethnic Khmer as the bearers of ancient Khmer heritage who re-enact a tributary form of loyalty to the central Thai court. My thesis argues that the ethnic Khmers' willingness to signify Khmer antiquity stems from two inter-related factors: a desire to be seen by the state; and a wish to overcome the stigma of being ethnically Khmer during the Cold War era.
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