Journal of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University

Editorial: The Horizon of Localism in the Smoke of War and PM 2.5

Pinyapan Potjanalawan — 2026-06-26

Book Review: Justice Beneath the Iceberg: Political Economics of Building the Rule of Law in Thai Society

Wasan Pounpunwong — 2026-06-26

Honorary Belt, Birth Scripts, and Miscellaneous Records: Between “History” and “Memory” of Commoner Family Rinya, the Medicine Master

Manawat Promrat — 2026-06-26

This article explores the relationship between history and memory through the lens of family heirlooms belonging to the "Rinya" family, the author’s commoner family recognized as medicine master’s for at least four generations. By examining three primary artifacts—an honorary belt, birth scripts, and ancestral miscellaneous records—this study aims to: 1) analyze the social and cultural meanings and implications underlying these family heirlooms, and 2) explore the boundaries between "memory" and "history" as mediated through these objects.

The findings reveal that: (1) the birth scripts serve as crucial artifacts for asserting social status and defining individual identity as a new member of society within Lanna culture, a practice common across all families. Conversely, the honorary belt and ancestral miscellaneous records reflect the transmission of specialized social status within a lineage possessing expert knowledge, specifically the "healing" skill used to treat individual and communal anomalies. (2) The Rinya family heirlooms illustrate the blurred boundaries between memory and history on at least two levels: between private family memory and communal history, and between communal memory and Lanna history during significant political transitions throughout the 25th Buddhist Century. These include the invasion of Chao Fa Kolan, the Kruba Sriwichai movement, World War II, and the Thai Cultural Mandates.

Ultimately, while these artifacts highlight the fluidity between memory and history, it is these commoner heirlooms that serve as vital evidence in completing the historical narratives of Lanna and Thailand. They open new discursive spaces for the possibility of "history from below" within the Thai context.

From Local Sound to Cultural Commodity: The Representation and Commodification of Lanna Music through Gramophone Records, 1917–1957

สงกรานต์ สมจันทร์ — 2026-06-26

This research aims to investigate the historical development of sound recording technology and its impact on Lanna musical culture between 1917 and 1957. This period marks a crucial transition from an oral tradition to a commercial recorded format. Employing qualitative research methods, the study analyzes historical data from archival shellac records and primary source documents.

The findings reveal that the introduction of recording technology into the Lanna musical landscape initiated a process of commodification, transforming music from its traditional ritualistic functions into a product with exchange value within a capitalist system. This process led local musicians, particularly Saw artists, to encounter a state of standardization as they adapted to technological constraints and the aesthetic preferences of the central market. Furthermore, phonograph records served as a mechanism for constructing the representation of "Lanna-ness"—a curated and idealized identity characterized by exoticism and mystery to satisfy the nostalgic desires of middle-class consumers. This study argues that phonograph records were not merely tools for preservation but were arenas for the collision and negotiation of cultural meanings under the influence of the state and the culture industry during Thailand's era of modernization.

Visible Death: The Hasdiling as Semiotic Technology in Lanna Funerary Ritual

Yathaweemintr Peuchthonglang — 2026-06-26

A giant bird with an elephant's trunk, rising above rooftops in a cremation ground — the Hasdiling does not merely appear in Lanna funerary practice. It works. This article pursues the question of how it works, rather than what it means, tracing the object's function as a semiotic technology that engineers the perceptual conditions under which communities can witness death without being undone by it. Drawing on secondary interpretive ethnographic analysis of longitudinal fieldwork conducted across seven Northern Thai provinces (2016–2020), the study re-reads an existing body of richly documented ethnographic material through the intersecting lenses of religious semiotics, material religion studies, and phenomenological theories of spatial perception.

The argument is not that earlier scholarship misread Hasdiling, but that it asked of the object a different kind of question — one concerned with symbolic meaning rather than social mechanism. The findings demonstrate that the Hasdiling operates through the convergence of three structuring dimensions: the horizon as a perceptual infrastructure that frames death as passage rather than termination; vertical sociality as a spatial grammar through which moral hierarchy is made visible and physically felt; and ritual temporality anchored to the post-Lent season, which positions death within a communal rhythm of readiness and renewal. None of these dimensions work alone. Their convergence is what transforms the cremation ground into a managed moral event.

The article proposes the concept of Ritual Visibility of Death — the argument that funerary practice does not conceal death but carefully engineers the conditions under which it can appear in public: with order, with dignity, and without destroying those who witness it. This concept is developed through two complementary theoretical propositions: vertical sociality in religious materiality, which accounts for how height and spatial arrangement render moral hierarchy perceptible to the senses; and horizon as religious-social infrastructure, which explains how death comes to be experienced as movement rather than ending. Brought into dialogue with Philippe Ariès, Birgit Meyer, Webb Keane, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the Lanna case demonstrates how locally grounded ethnography can generate transferable theoretical insight — and why the question of how societies make death visible remains an undertheorized problem in the sociology of religion.

Parallel Voting Behavior: From the Move Forward Party’s Victory in the General Election to the People’s Party’s Defeat in the Provincial Administrative Organization Election

Nuttakorn Vititanon — 2026-06-26

Academic literature on electoral behavior in Thailand has traditionally focused on national-level elections, largely through the influential “Two Democracies” thesis, which has generated sustained scholarly debate. Although studies of local elections have gradually increased, national and local electoral politics are still often examined separately. This separation limits our understanding of political dynamics that are closely interconnected across electoral levels, especially in recent years as political parties have become increasingly involved in local politics, most notably the Move Forward Party and its current successor, the People’s Party.

However, a comparison between the results of the 14 May 2023 general election and the Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO) chief executive elections held during 2024–2025 reveals a significant discrepancy. In several provinces where the Move Forward Party won all or most parliamentary seats, the party failed to achieve comparable success in local elections. This raises an important question of why electoral outcomes at the national and local levels diverge despite the relatively short time interval between the two electoral cycles.

This article aims to provide a comparative analysis of national and local election outcomes in Thailand. Drawing on a preliminary synthesis of existing Thai scholarship, it argues that electoral behavior differs between “national politics” and “local politics” because each level operates under distinct political dynamics and institutional conditions that shape voters’ decision-making in largely parallel ways. Voters tend to apply different sets of consideration across electoral levels: local elections are more likely to be determined by candidate-centered evaluations, whereas national elections are more strongly influenced by party-centered dynamics.

In addition, insights from the international literature suggest several mechanisms underlying these differences, including: (1) varying perceptions of the importance of elections at different levels, (2) differences in voters’ decision-making criteria, (3) variations in electoral systems and rules, and (4) the effects of political cycles and temporal context. The article seeks to encourage more in-depth, area-based research on this issue and calls for integrative studies employing the analytical framework proposed herein.

Entrepreneurial Networking: Tractor and combine harvester in Thung Kula Rong Hai

Thitiya Lao-An — 2026-06-26

This article on the networking of tractor and combine harvester entrepreneurs in the Thung Kula Rong Hai region aims to challenge mainstream studies that primarily explain rural entrepreneurship from a business management perspective focused on market mechanisms and financial profit. A literature review reveals that while studies on the transition of farmers to entrepreneurship exist, they lack an explanation of the dynamics of complex informal economic networks or new market spaces. This article therefore seeks to present entrepreneurs in these new market spaces as social actors who integrate traditional kinship relationships with modern economic mechanisms.

The research findings indicate that during the 1990s and 2000s, policies promoting cash crops were a driving factor in the adoption of technology to replace manual labor. During this period, villagers began accumulating experience and becoming job brokers, utilizing social mechanisms known as “Tao,” which involves building trust through kinship systems or clinging to their group to create networks for finding work in plowing and harvesting. Later, during the 2000s and 2010s, government guaranteed rice price policies and access to credit accelerated capital accumulation and led to their full-fledged status as agricultural machinery entrepreneurs. Within their groups, they manage their markets using a non-overlapping system (or no overlapping territories), dividing areas of influence to control competition, while maintaining flexibility through cross-group alliances to manage resources.

The “Lottery Capital”: Unsettled Localism of Wang Saphung District, Loei Province, 1990-2010

Nopphon Kaengjampa — 2026-06-26

This article examines the formation of the “Lottery Capital” identity, referring to the city of lottery vendors in Wang Saphung District, Loei Province, and its power relations with other existing local identities. The study draws on data from interviews with lottery entrepreneurs, supplemented by research documents, newspaper articles, and social media sources. The findings indicate that this local identity emerged alongside the expansion of lottery entrepreneur in the 2000s. Owing to their close involvement in the lottery trade, residents of Wang Saphung have implicitly incorporated the notion of a lottery entrepreneur city into their social identity. However, this identity has been neglected by government agencies and local authorities, which instead prioritize tourism and moral narratives that conflict with the perception of lotteries as a vice. At the same time, the group of lottery entrepreneurs associated with this identity movement lacks cohesion due to their diverse backgrounds and objectives. Moreover, public engagement remains largely symbolic and has been unable to produce tangible change. Consequently, the distinctiveness of the lottery-based economy has yet to establish itself as a stable local identity or function as an effective tool for negotiating and protecting local interests.

Patani’s Contemporary Political History, Student Movements, and the 1975 Pattani Central Mosque Demonstration

Wan Ihsan Tuwaesidek — 2026-06-26

This article aims to examine Patani’s contemporary political history by analyzing the 1975 demonstration at the Pattani Central Mosque as a significant milestone reflecting the transition from “elite politics” to “mass politics.” It points out that the boundaries of knowledge regarding Patani/the southern border provinces after 1909 remain limited, despite this being a period marked by tensions between the Thai state and Malay society due to centralization policies, state nationalist policies characterized as internal colonialism, and the suppression of leaders such as Haji Sulong. These conditions led the conflict to diverge into two paths: armed underground struggle and nonviolent demands within a democratic framework.

The article argues that the student movement known as the “Selatan Group” emerged as a new actor that transformed the paradigm of struggle. Its primary role was to integrate democratic consciousness with Patani Malay nationalist consciousness through a nonviolent ideology grounded in a distinct identity separated from both the underground movements and the state’s communist discourse trap. Furthermore, the article analyzes the relocation of the demonstration to the Central Mosque of Pattani as a sharp spatial strategy that established the mosque as a “space of exception” functioning as a cultural stronghold for bargaining power. Through the collective action of the masses, the demonstration transformed the Patani Malays from “victims” into historical agents capable of shaping their own history and became a prototype for subsequent Patani mass politics.

Economic Pursuits of Local Rulers and Officials in the Northern Provinces of the Late Traditional Siamese State

Nattaphong Sakulleaw — 2026-06-26

This article examines the economic exploitation by local rulers and officials in the northern provinces during the late Siamese traditional state period, approximately the 24th to early 25th Buddhist centuries. Economic expansion during this period transformed the northern provinces from "border areas" to "trading hubs," leading to more complex economic and social relationships. This was due to the influx of diverse groups engaged in economic activities, including local Siamese merchants, Chinese merchants, tax collectors, foreign merchants, and those under foreign jurisdiction. However, in this context, local rulers and officials in the northern provinces, entrenched in the traditional local governance system through kinship networks and patronage, abused their power and influence to pursue economic gain by unethical means. These rulers and officials thus became obstacles to the smooth economic and social lives of other groups. Such behavior undermined the legitimacy of the traditional provincial governance system, both for the people of the northern provinces and the Siamese court, thus opening the door for more economically and socially conducive forms of governance to take over through administrative reforms that began in the mid-25th Buddhist century.