Re-writing history, re-inscribing the city: Thailand and delusions of democracy
Ross King
Environment and Planning C, 2023, vol. 41, issue 7, 1391-1406
Abstract:
Cities carry traces of their pasts; they also carry traces of imagined pasts, inscribed on them by authoritarian regimes to suppress other imaginings. Bangkok in the early 20th century displayed the signification of a Buddhist royalty and imagined origins, subsequently suppressed with the imposition of new emblems of democracy following a 1932 overthrow of monarchical absolutism. Democracy was to be signified as founded in the common people. In the 21st century, a military junta dressed in the clothes of a pseudo-democracy re-writes the emblems of democracy, now to signify that democracy is not based in the people but, rather, is the gift of a benevolent monarch. The subverting of democracy is to be read from the monuments of the city, which highlight the specific strategies that the authoritarian state invokes in re-writing the national history.
Keywords: Monarchical-military state; illusory democracy; architectural representation; constructed memory; Bangkok (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:41:y:2023:i:7:p:1391-1406
DOI: 10.1177/23996544231184348
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