Abstract Alone among the kingdoms of Southeast Asia, Siam famously avoided colonization in the second half of the nineteenth century. Despite this, however, historians tend to regard this period as one of “Westernization.” Yet within Siamese society a process of economic transformation had already begun prior to European encroachment in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As this process accelerated during the Age of Empire, Siam’s courtly class took on a more bourgeois character in such areas as dress, manners, speech, social and gender relations, religious belief, and courtly ritual. What is commonly understood as “Westernization” should thus better be understood as the bourgeoisification of Siamese society in which the Siamese were active agents.

This chapter argues that as the European powers moved into South, East, and Southeast Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Thai kingdom, while remaining formally independent, was drawn into the diplomatic and economic orbit of the British Empire. One of the effects of this shift was that the old courtly styles of conduct were challenged by new bourgeois ideals of how to behave. This led to the emergence of the concept of the phu di, the gentleperson. The key aspect of the concept of the phu di was that one did not have to have been born into a noble family in order to perform good behaviour. The Thai court promoted the new ideal especially in what would become Thailand’s most famous manners manual, Qualities of a Gentleman (the manual continues to be published today). The chapter outlines how the Thai gentleperson ought to behave. The chapter also argues that from this period there were intense debates about what constituted good conduct, which was a reflection of the growing political tensions between the aristocracy and Western-educated civil and military government officials.

analysis in describing the rise of Islamic conservatism in Indonesia. It presents the main issues that are of concern to the observers of religious political movements and Islamic identity in Indonesia. Although this book cannot be considered to be a suitable work for undergraduate students, it is, in fact, ideal for graduate students and certainly scholars of Islamic studies, politics, sociology and anthropology.

Manners have long been a central concern of Thai society. Kings, aristocrats, prime ministers, monks, army generals, politicians, poets, novelists, journalists, and teachers have produced a large corpus of literature that sets out models of appropriate behaviour. These include such things as how to stand, walk, sit, pay homage, prostrate oneself in the presence of high-status people, sleep, eat, manage bodily functions, dress, pay respect to superiors, deal with inferiors, socialize, and play. These modes of conduct have been taught or enforced by families, monasteries, court society, and, in the twentieth century, the state, through the education system, the bureaucracy, and the mass media. In this innovative new social history, based on Thai manners and etiquette manuals dating from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, Patrick Jory presents the first ever history of manners in Thailand and challenges the idea of Western influence as the determinant of change in ideals of conduct.

This chapter introduces the history of manners in Thailand, linking it to the sociological concept of habitus or 'second nature': how historical experience leaves its imprint on the way people speak, act, and think. It surveys the sociological literature about habitus, discussing in particular detail the work of Norbert Elias, including his famous study of the history of manners in Western Europe, The Civilizing Process. The chapter argues that Elias’s concept of a civilizing process may be adapted to the Thai context to better understand how manners in Thailand have evolved. It proposes that the history of manners in Thailand may be divided into four periods: the age of colonialism and absolutism (the second half of the nineteenth century); the age of revolution (the first half of the twentieth century); the age of reaction (the post-World War II period); and the age of democracy and development (since roughly the 1970s). The chapter also discusses the related concepts of civility and civilization.

When considering the fortunes of the Thai monarchy in the age of empire, scholarly attention tends to focus on Siam’s relations with the European colonial powers, especially Britain and France. But prior to the coming of the colonial powers to East Asia, Siam, along with mainland Southeast Asia’s other monarchies, was a tributary state of an older, powerful empire: China. Among the most important effects of the European colonial penetration of Southeast Asia was to draw Siam out of the economic and geopolitical orbit of the Chinese empire. The historic 1855 Bowring Treaty, which granted the British Empire most favoured nation status, marks the beginning of Siam’s integration into a global economy dominated by the Europeans. Yet despite this, Siam’s rulers continued to be concerned about the country’s relationship with China. This article considers the nature of Siam’s tributary relationship with China and how this relationship changed in the era of European imperialism. It argues that contrary to Sinocentric views of the tributary system, for much of its history Siam was the main driver and beneficiary of this relationship.

This chapter examines debates about manners and civility in the first half of the twentieth century. Tensions between aristocrats and Western-educated civil and military government officials culminated in the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932. This period saw an outpouring of works about politeness and manners targeting the bureaucratic elite and the emerging middle class. Thai statesmen devoted a remarkable amount of attention to what they perceived to be the problem of manners and morals. Leading political figures on all sides of politics wrote about the subject. The model of ideal conduct that the absolute monarchy had developed for bureaucrats in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a hybrid between the palace courtier and the English gentleman, began to be challenged by new and more diverse conceptualizations of social relations, pushed by supporters of a more progressive political order. Yet the new rules for how to behave were resisted by supporters of the old aristocratic order. Some of them attempted to salvage what was left of the old courtly ways in books and novels and their own etiquette manuals.

This chapter looks at the history of prostration in Thailand. The practice appears to have been adopted from the Angkorean Empire of the Khmers and was used at the Kingdom of Ayutthaya. It examines the modes of etiquette that were required in royal audiences for both Thais and foreign visitors. The chapter argues that by the nineteenth century Europeans regarded such practices as slavish and 'uncivilized'. This led, in 1873, to the young new king, Chulalongkorn, issuing a famous edict abolishing the custom of prostration and replacing it with European modes of paying respect such as bowing. But while in public functions involving Europeans the new modes of paying respect were observed, privately the custom of prostration before one’s superiors continued with little change.

This chapter examines two competing ideals about appropriate conduct for women: the lady of the court and the bourgeois woman. Interaction between courtly and bourgeois ideals of femininity had been taking place for centuries. Until the early twentieth century, courtly ideals of femininity continued to hold sway at the upper level of Thai society, although they were tempered by the rising influence of a bourgeois view of the world due to economic transformation. The declining social position of the aristocracy in the early decades of the twentieth century, culminating in the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932, dealt a blow to courtly conceptions of behaviour for women while helping to elevate the bourgeois housewife as the new ideal of exemplary feminine conduct. The chapter also highlights the very influential role that many elite women played in the twentieth century in writing about manners, including in the new literary genre of novels of manners. The chapter examines the works of numerous well-known women writers on manners.

ABSTRACT Since the beginning of Thailand’s protracted political crisis in 2005, the country has experienced a conservative political turn centered on the monarchy. One of the regions where this turn has been most pronounced has been in southern Thailand. Studies of the south have tended to focus on the border provinces, its Malay Muslim community, and a long-running separatist movement. The more populous parts of the upper south with a Thai-Buddhist majority have been largely overlooked. In recent decades the south’s old Buddhist heartland has witnessed a high level of cultural and religious dynamism. This region has given birth to an influential new academic field of southern Thai studies and a distinctive southern Thai literature. These factors have contributed to the hardening of a southern Thai Buddhist identity. Politicians and activists from the south have played a prominent role in Thailand’s on-going political crisis. This article explores the rise of conservative radicalism in southern Thailand’s Buddhist heartland with reference to the roles of southern academics, writers, poets, activists, and politicians over the last half century. It offers a regional case study of the roots of Thailand’s political crisis as well as the rise of Buddhist radicalism in Southeast Asia.