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Border and Identity: Construction of the Thai Community and It¡¦s Challenges

Nominally, Thailand has never been colonized by western imperial states. However, just as Benedict Anderson stated that ¡§it¡¦s borders were colonially determined, therefore, one can see unusually clearly the emergence of a new state-mind within a ¡¥traditional¡¦ structure of political power¡¨. In order to resist the invasion of imperialism, Siam¡¦s rulers bent their attention to build a polity corresponded with the game rule of the Sovereign State System. It required that Siam¡¦s political and cultural boundaries must be overlapping. Then Thainess which was based on the trinitarian mystery of ¡§Nation, Religion, and King¡¨ was created, and became the central value of Thailand¡¦s national identity. During the last one hundred years, Thai rulers impose the Thai nationalism on their people within border. Consequently, there are so many conflicts between the dominant ethnic group and the ethnic minorities while the policy of national assimilation is put into practice by way of national education system, religion, and the mass media. Recently, with the tides of de-territorialization, and de-nationalization, the capability of nation-state as a basic unit of international system is questionable. It¡¦s the best time to rethink the constituents of nation-sate, especially the role of boundary and identity. Undoubtedly, Thailand is the best object of study because of it¡¦s distinctive historical legacy.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0827109-122245
Date27 August 2009
CreatorsHsiao, Wen-hsuan
ContributorsHurng-Yu Chen, Samuel C.Y Ku, Jenn-Jaw Soong, Wen-Chih Lee, Chao-Sen Yao, Pei-Hsiu Chen
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0827109-122245
Rightsnot_available, Copyright information available at source archive

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