The Good Men of Suan Kularb: Network Politics at an Elite Thai School
Thursday, February 8, 2024 12:20pm to 1:30pm
About this Event
Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave
Gatty Lecture Series
Join us for a talk by Daniel Whitehouse, (ERSC postdoctoral fellow based at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS), who will discuss network politics at an elite Thai school.
This Gatty Lecture will take place at the The Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave. Lunch will be served. For questions, contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.
About the Talk
Scholars posit that Thai politics is dominated by opaque and unaccountable networks that work to frustrate democracy and maintain control of a ‘parallel’ or ‘deep state’. The late King Bhumibol, suggests McCargo, sat atop an enigmatic and powerful ‘network monarchy’ that retained loyal proxies through strategic placement. Some of these elite networks have a strong dynastic component; Nishizaki shows relations of kin and marriage are important structuring features. In this seminar, I introduce ‘network institutions’ as a critical site of study to understand how these important relations of power are forged and maintained in contemporary Thailand. I show that many of these cliques centre around a handful of understudied ‘network institutions’—elite secondary schools and military academies that prepare young men for power via induction into a close-knit fraternal community.
I take as a case study Suan Kularb Wittayalai, Thailand’s oldest state-administered secondary school and alma mater to seven prime ministers. Drawing on extensive archival analysis, life histories, and twelve months fieldwork at Suan Kularb, I explore the processes by which the school maintains elite syndicates that operate across the military, bureaucracy, and commerce. Specifically, I propose that Suan Kulap’s network politics are not merely an expression of traditional patronage models. Rather, such relations are consciously facilitated by the school through the elaboration of an idiosyncratic and unusually ritualized institutional culture, much of which utilizes colonial pedagogic practices introduced by a succession of former British headmasters. Such technologies—which include novel mechanisms of surveillance, invented tradition, and disciplinary practices— integrate with local epistemic practices to generate life-long sentiments of obligation and collective exceptionalism. This, in turn, underpins the political culture and distribution of power in contemporary Thailand.
I take as a case study Suan Kularb Wittayalai, Thailand’s oldest state-administered secondary school and alma mater to seven prime ministers. Drawing on extensive archival analysis, life histories, and twelve months fieldwork at Suan Kularb, I explore the processes by which the school maintains elite syndicates that operate across the military, bureaucracy, and commerce. Specifically, I propose that Suan Kulap’s network politics are not merely an expression of traditional patronage models. Rather, such relations are consciously facilitated by the school through the elaboration of an idiosyncratic and unusually ritualized institutional culture, much of which utilizes colonial pedagogic practices introduced by a succession of former British headmasters. Such technologies—which include novel mechanisms of surveillance, invented tradition, and disciplinary practices— integrate with local epistemic practices to generate life-long sentiments of obligation and collective exceptionalism. This, in turn, underpins the political culture and distribution of power in contemporary Thailand.
About the Speaker
Daniel Whitehouse is a ERSC postdoctoral fellow based at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS. His research is concerned with the cultural legacy of colonialism in Thailand, the anthropology of elites, and institutional ethnography. His is currently writing Learning to Govern, an historical ethnography of Suan Kulap Wittiyalai, the so-called ‘Eton of Thailand’. Before studying his PhD at Durham University, Daniel worked as a broadcast journalist at Voice TV, a Thai language news channel based in Bangkok.
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