Community Movement and Media: Assemblages in Northern Thailand

When: 12pm to 1pm (AEDT), Thursday 6 March, 2025
Where: Meeting room 708, Jane Foss Russell Building, University of Sydney 
Online: via Zoom

Delicious Thai lunch provided for those attending in person!

Register by 5pm Tuesday 4 March, 2025.

Abstract

Since the 2006 military coup, Thailand has experienced turmoil that has divided the nation. After the military-led government took power in 2014, demonstrations have continued throughout the pandemic, and political conflicts have deepened and fragmented. In the process, new movements have emerged, such as a new generation of student movements, urban street demonstrations, and community radio in rural areas, utilizing the new media of social network, which are not limited to the traditional theory of organized social movements based on homogeneous identities, but are created by diverse entities.
This talk will focus on the new political dynamics that are giving rise to alternative forms of community movement made up of diverse individuals. How do diverse individuals come together with non-human elements such as the media to form alternative community movement ?　I will also explore the broader question of how the concept of community could be rethought in contemporary Thai society.

To approach this question, two ethnographic studies in northern Thailand are shown. One is a movement centered on community radio in the 2010s, and the other is a movement centered on social media in the 2020s. The latter research just began last year and is ongoing, but both are composed of a variety of different entities and are forming into community movements with media as an important component. Rather than the traditional concept of a community as a homogeneous entity with clear boundaries and a well-organized structure, I would like to focus the concept of assemblages as community movements constituted of a variety of human and non-human components such as the media.

Speaker

Prof. Ryo Takagi is a visiting fellow at ANU and a professor at Kanagawa University in Japan, specializing in cultural anthropology and Thai studies. He is researching contemporary Thai political dynamics from the perspective of community movements, particularly in Chiang Mai, focusing on everyday practices through media such as community radio and social networks. His recent published book chapter is ‘Reassembling the Community of Voice: Community Radio in Northern Thailand’ in Nishii, Ryoko and Shigeharu Tanabe (eds.), Community Movements in Southeast Asia: An Anthropological Perspective of Assemblages (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2022).