The Cultural Identity Construction of Temples for Tourism

Puttharak Prabnok
Additional contact information
Puttharak Prabnok: Department of Humanity, Faculty of Humanity and Social Science, Khon Kaen University, Thailand

European Journal of Social Sciences Education and Research Articles, 2020, vol. 7

Abstract: This study presents Buddhist temples’ cultural identify construction to serve a tourism purpose in Thailand. Qualitative data were collected by in-depth interviews with 20 key informants who represented the temples and the tourism organizations. Research findings: The Buddhist temples, which are considered to be the main religious organization, had changed their role to fit the new social trend. In the past, temples were the heart of community lifestyles and the center of religious activity practice. In this present time, however, Buddhist temples become religious tourist places. Carrying such new role, it appears that temples have been trying to establish five cultural identifies with the aim to best serve the tourism. Those five cultural identities are increasing cultural capital value, capturing the tourists’ faith through the presentation of respected monk or abbot, combining Buddhist beliefs to the local faiths, setting up the temple’ tourism landmark, and building a unique tradition of the temple and the community.

Keywords: Cultural Identity Consturciton; Buddhist temples; Religious tourism; Cultural Capital Value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://brucol.be/index.php/ejser/article/view/6647 (text/html)
https://brucol.be/files/articles/ejser_v7_i3_20/Prabnok.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eur:ejserj:193

DOI: 10.26417/ejser.v5i2.p19-26

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Journal of Social Sciences Education and Research Articles from Revistia Research and Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Revistia Research and Publishing ().