(Anti-)nationalization processes in Thailand

Image

Through a compilation of four research articles, Gaber’s thesis investigates everyday life nationalization processes in Thailand in relation to expressions of power and resistance. The thesis examines how individuals sustain and challenge the performance of the Thai nation through social practices, and analyses how the informants describe everyday forms of power and resistance about the nation in conflicting narratives around the Khao Phra Wihan temple.

Gaber uses material from fieldwork in Thailand and focus on subjective experiences through a phenomenological research position. To analyse individuals’ participation in nationalization from a power/resistance perspective, Gaber combines social constructivist theory on everyday nationalism with the theory on everyday resistance.

The research contributes with theoretical and empirical insights to studies of nationalism with the concept of ‘affective self-nationalization’ and ‘nationalist everyday resistance’. Moreover, the thesis also contributes to resistance studies and the theorization of ‘everyday resistance’ through the conceptualizations of nationalist everyday resistance, online everyday resistance, evasive everyday resistance, re-categorative everyday resistance, and re-imaginative everyday resistance. Gaber’s thesis also provides new empirical insights to Thai studies concerning nationalization and the Khao Phra Wihan temple.