Cultural Crisis and Social Memory: Modernity and Identity in Thailand and Laos

The authors of this volume seek to contribute to the study of the ways in which the remembrance of the past is situated in wider contexts that are influenced by the politics of the present. These contexts range from the politics of the nation, situated in regional and global milieux, to the practices of everyday life in the localities where people actually live. The main focus of the book is on the practices and politics found in the rapidly transforming social and cultural realities of Thailand and Laos. Both countries, particularly in the decades since the 1970s, have been undergoing radical social and economic changes. Whilst Thailand has travelled down the road to industrialisation, neighbouring Laos experienced a communist revolution in 1975 and only since the late 1980s has it been attempting, under the guidance of the communist party, to follow a reformist path to development. Increasingly influenced by globalised economic and social institutions, both countries, however, have come to face crises that have made people insecure in the present and anxious about the future.