The Violence of the Ties That Bind: Kinship, Gender and Monarchy in Thailand

Abstract

It is nearly two decades since the 2006 coup ushered in a period of prolonged civil strife between pro-democracy and pro-royalist groups in Thailand. During this time, Thailand has remained under the control of the military, no matter which type of government, elected or appointed, governs the country. Meanwhile, an upsurge in lese majesty charges targeting pro-democracy advocates occurred as King Bhumibol's reign came to an end and his son ascended the throne in 2016, further entrenching the power of the royalist camp. The increase in litigation reflects the workings of a dynastic state rather than the constitutional regime that supposedly governs Thailand. My thesis explores this incomplete transition from absolutism to constitutional monarchy from the start of King Bhumibol's seven-decade reign in 1948 until the period of recent political strife in 2020, four years after his death, in which student-led protests demand reform of the monarchy. I examine how what I call the 'monarchy alignment' works as a dominant political formation that draws together all Thai citizens under one overarching framework - we all live together in the Father's house - no matter whether they agree or disagree with an absolutist political regime and its evocation of a dynastic state. Central to my argument is the conceptual notion of an ethical obligation structured by a pervasive heteronormative filial tie. Under the governance of this ethical solicitation, the Thai nation-state is reimagined as the 'Father's house' and all Thai are induced to act as King Bhumibol's children. I demonstrate how this heteronormative ethic and its obligation to love and be grateful to the 'Father' works as a technique of power operating outside formal political institutions and regulates Thai political life. I show how the monarchy alignment is transforming practices of governing both at the national and individual level by reimagining a sense of self to be something that feels like belonging to King Bhumibol as the beloved Father of all Thais. In so doing, my arguments highlight how the monarchy alignment governs Thai citizens through this filial tie reaching deeply into a subjective level of perception and appreciation and affecting actions in ways that are "coextensive with every social relationship" (Foucault 1994: 345). My thesis uses the lens of gendered ethics to uncover important connections where public politicised activities in Thailand - such as massing in royalist mobs, calling for coups, dissolving political parties - depend fundamentally on the idealised private and intimate relationship between the Father and his children.We see how a country that claims itself as a democracy can render ordinary Thai citizens to the status of subordinate and dispensable as it evokes something that feels likes a dynastic state in a way that has been glossed over by commonplace perceptions of the Thai constitutional monarchy. I suggest that the new mass protests with their demands for monarchical reform signal the decline of the filial ethic as a technique of power and that the notion of self as being someone's child is becoming unravelled. The recent mass protests preface the possibility of new ethical obligations and changing politicised definitions of what is right or wrong and who is good or bad within Thai society. In turn this signals that ethical obligations are dynamic rather than static and new political and social relationships can potentially be established through shifts in the notion of self for both nation and its citizens. The direction of this movement and its fields of possibility are still nascent but as my thesis concludes, there is hope for a more robust democracy. Show more