Peter A. Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622091214
- eISBN:
- 9789882207493
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622091214.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines the history of Siamese/Thai attitudes to the West in relation to the situation of both colonized and other nominally independent societies. Drawing on postcolonial ...
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This chapter examines the history of Siamese/Thai attitudes to the West in relation to the situation of both colonized and other nominally independent societies. Drawing on postcolonial understandings of power, culture, and knowledge, it argues that while Siam/Thailand occupied a subordinate position in the Western-dominated world order, it was never a direct colony. The chapter also argues that the notion of semicolonialism provides an avenue to open a dialogue with postcolonial studies while recognizing the ambiguities of Western power in the Thai context.Less
This chapter examines the history of Siamese/Thai attitudes to the West in relation to the situation of both colonized and other nominally independent societies. Drawing on postcolonial understandings of power, culture, and knowledge, it argues that while Siam/Thailand occupied a subordinate position in the Western-dominated world order, it was never a direct colony. The chapter also argues that the notion of semicolonialism provides an avenue to open a dialogue with postcolonial studies while recognizing the ambiguities of Western power in the Thai context.
Peter A. Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622091214
- eISBN:
- 9789882207493
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622091214.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This concluding chapter discusses postcolonial theories of cultural hybridity to delineate some of the main forms of Siamese/Thai responses to the West. It compares Nestor García Canclini's account ...
More
This concluding chapter discusses postcolonial theories of cultural hybridity to delineate some of the main forms of Siamese/Thai responses to the West. It compares Nestor García Canclini's account of the hybrid mestizaje discourse of Latin American Hispanic elites as a mode of hegemonic rule to the nineteenth-century Siamese elite discourse of siwilai (“civilized”). In contrast, at the international level in which Siam's rulers were subordinate to the West, the chapter draws on Homi Bhabha to read siwilai as a hybrid discourse manifesting Thai elites' subaltern resistance to Western imperialism. Both Bhabha's and García Canclini's different accounts of postcolonial cultural hybridity are needed to explain all these patterns of Thai–Western cultural mixing.Less
This concluding chapter discusses postcolonial theories of cultural hybridity to delineate some of the main forms of Siamese/Thai responses to the West. It compares Nestor García Canclini's account of the hybrid mestizaje discourse of Latin American Hispanic elites as a mode of hegemonic rule to the nineteenth-century Siamese elite discourse of siwilai (“civilized”). In contrast, at the international level in which Siam's rulers were subordinate to the West, the chapter draws on Homi Bhabha to read siwilai as a hybrid discourse manifesting Thai elites' subaltern resistance to Western imperialism. Both Bhabha's and García Canclini's different accounts of postcolonial cultural hybridity are needed to explain all these patterns of Thai–Western cultural mixing.
