Northern Thai Youth and “Subcultural Capital” in Chiang Mai City
Abstract
Rapid urbanisation and modernisation in northern Thailand over the last few decades has led to the growing movement of young people from rural villages to the city. Whilst migration has led to increased freedom and independence for young Thais, it has also created a growing sense of displacement and disconnectedness. As the sense of community common to village life is slowly disintegrating, many northern Thai youth are searching for alternative forms of belonging and a definitive sense of self in new urban spaces. Based on 18 months of ethnographic research, this paper explores the emergence of various youth subcultural groups in Chiang Mai and illustrates how these young people construct an identity through symbolic boundaries, consumerism and “subcultural capital”. In particular, it demonstrates how conspicuous globally-influenced youth subcultures, dek inter, attempt to form a ‘modern’ Self through the construction of subcultural boundaries and the categorisation of a rustic ‘backward’ Other, namely dek saep. Thus, this paper aims to show how young northern Thai people, as social actors, develop a sense of belonging and a distinctive youth identity at the intersection of global capitalism and local culture.
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Thailand, edited by Y.-A. Bencha. Nakonpathom: Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, 1992.
Amit, V. “Youth Culture, Anthropology of ”. International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences, (2002): 16657–60.
Baulch, E. “Creating a Scene: Balinese Punk’s Beginnings”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 5 (2002): 153–77.
Barry, H. and A. Schlegel. “Cultural Customs that Influence Sexual Freedom in Adolescence”. Ethnology 25, no. 2 (1986): 151–62.
Bessant, Judith, Howard Sercombe, and Rob Watts. Youth Studies: An Australian Perspective. South Melbourne: Longham, 1998.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984 [1979].
Brake, Michael. Comparative Youth Cultures. London: Routledge, 1985.
Bucholtz, M. “Youth and Cultural Practice”. Annual Review of Anthropology 31 (2002): 525–52.
Caputo, Virginia. “Anthropology’s Silent Others”. In Youth Cultures: A Cross-Cultural
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Caputo, Virginia. “Anthropology’s Silent Others”. In Youth Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Vered A.T. and H. Wulff. London: Routledge, 1995.
Davis, Richard B. Muang Metaphysics: A Study of Northern Thai Myth and Ritual. Bangkok: Pandora, 1984.
Fuchs, Estelle. Youth in a Changing World: A Cross-cultural Perspective on Adolescence. The Hague: Mouton, 1976.
Gray, Jennifer. “The Road to the City: Young Women and Transition in Northern Thailand”. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Macquarie University, 1990.
Hall, Stuart, and Tony Jefferson. Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain. London: Hutchinson, 1976.
Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
Herzfeld, Michael. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York: Routledge, 1996.
James, Allison, and Alan Prout, eds. Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood. London: Falmer Press, 1997.
Kasian Tejapira. “The Postmodernisation of Thainess”. In Cultural Crisis and Social Memory: Modernity and Identity in Thailand and Laos, edited by S. Tanabe and C. Keyes. London: Routledge Curzon, 2002.
Lyttleton, Chris. “Magic Lipstick and Verbal Caress: Doubling Standards in Isan Villages”. In Coming of Age in South and Southeast Asia: Youth, Courtship and Sexuality, edited by L. Manderson and P. Liamputong. Richmond: Curzon, 2002.
Maira, Sunaina, and Elisabeth Soep. “Introduction”. In Youthscapes: The Popular, the National, the Global, edited by S. Maira and E. Soep. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
Maccquarie Concise Dictionary, The. Third Edition. Sydney: Macquarie Library,1998.
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study in Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation. New York: W. Morrow, 1961 [1928].
Mills, Mary Beth. Thai Women in the Global Labour Force: Consuming Desires, Contested Selves. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999.
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Pasuk, Phongpaichit and Chris Baker. Thailand’s Boom and Bust. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Press, 1998.
Powell, Diane. Out West: Perceptions of Sydney’s Western Suburbs. St Leonards, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1993.
Reynolds, Craig J. “Introduction: National Identity and its Defenders”. In National Identity and Its Defenders, edited by C.J. Reynolds. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1991.
Roberston, Roland. Globalisation: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage, 1992.
Schuerkens, U. “The Sociological and Anthropological Study of Globalization and Localization”. Current Sociology 51, nos. 3–4 (2003): 209–22.
Tanabe, Shigeharu, and Charles F. Keyes, eds. Cultural Crisis and Social Memory: Modernity and Identity in Thailand and Laos. London: Routledge Curzon, 2002.
Thai Royal Institute Dictionary. Bangkok: Naamii book Publication ltd, 1999.
Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Oxford: Polity Press, 1995.
Thornton, Sarah. ‘The Social Logic of Subcultural Capital’. In The Subcultures Reader, edited by K. Gelder and S. Thornton. (London: Routledge, 1997.
Warunee, Fongaew. “Gender Socialisation and Female Sexuality in Northern Thailand”. In Coming of Age in South and Southeast Asia: Youth, Courtship and Sexuality, edited by L. Manderson and P. Liamputong. Richmond: Curzon, 2002.
Whiting, Beatrice B., John W.M. Whiting, and Richard Longabaugh. Children of Six Cultures: A Psycho-Cultural Analysis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Whittaker, Andrea. “Water Serpents and Staying by the Fire: Markers of Maturity in a Northeast Thai Village”. In Coming of Age in South and Southeast Asia: Youth, Courtship and Sexuality, edited by L. Manderson and P. Liamputong. Richmond: Curzon, 2002.
Wulff, Helena. “Introducing Youth Culture in Its Own Right: The State of the Art and New Possibilities”. In Youth Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Vered A.-T. and H. Wulff. London: Routledge, 1995.
Yamashita, Shinji, and Jeremy S. Eades. Globalization in Southeast Asia: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003.
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Published
2019-02-14
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COHEN, ANJALEE. 2019. “Northern Thai Youth and ‘Subcultural Capital’ in Chiang Mai City”. Social Sciences Academic Journal, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University 22 (1):55-85. https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/jss/article/view/172546.
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All written articles published on Journal of Social Sciences is its author’s opinion which is not belonged to Social Sciences Faculty, Chiang Mai University or is not in a responsibility of the journal’s editorial committee’s members.
