REBUILDING LANNA: CONSTRUCTING AND CONSUMING THE PAST IN URBAN NORTHERN THAILAND A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School Of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Andrew Alan Johnson May 2010 ©2010 Andrew Alan Johnson REBUILDING LANNA: CONSTRUCTING AND CONSUMING THE PAST IN URBAN NORTHERN THAILAND Andrew Alan Johnson, Ph. D. Cornell University 2010 This dissertation is an ethnographic study of the perspective and treatment of the city as a space imbued with charismatic power in Northern Thailand. Reviving the city through channeling and re-imagining the perceived past prosperity of the city of Chiang Mai in the wake of the economic crash of 1997 became a matter of concern for architects, activists, city planners, and spirit mediums: each group respectively sought to control the negative effects of the economic downturn through reconstructing a latent potential within the city with explicit reference to Chiang Mai‟s “Lanna” past (approximately the 13th-19th centuries CE). The various methods ranged from the attempts to redesign public space using models of urban design adapted from the Lanna period to the efforts of spirit medium devotees, who sought to stave off misfortune through reviving the literal guardian spirits of Lanna. However, such attempts at rebuilding both the physical as well as the spiritual integrity of the city carried with them the uncanny trace of misfortune made manifest in the ruins of pre-1997 buildings. These ruins stood alongside the shells of new high- rise construction, providing an unwelcome resemblance that put a pall on the hope placed on the new buildings. Both sites, both newly constructed and abandoned, became sources of stories of ghosts and violent crime. I explore how ruins and failures of the past constantly stain and conflict with visions of the future, while at the same time this sense of “pastness” animates present-day images of the auspicious that drives urban planning in Chiang Mai. Ultimately, I argue that the increase in attempts to “rebuild Lanna” as well as the increase in anxiety about a perceived decline in urban charisma can be traced to an atomized urban population and economically and politically uncertain times. As the future blossoming of a Lanna renaissance grows more and more in doubt, stories of ghosts inhabiting the shells of new high-rise construction grow alongside calls to define, edit, and revitalize the image of the past in Thailand‟s urban north. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Andrew Johnson was born and raised around Norfolk, Virginia. He began studying ecology and archaeology, earing a B.S. from the College of William & Mary in Virginia before moving to Washington, D.C. At George Washington University, he received an M.A. in Development Anthropology in 2002 and fell in love with cities somewhere along the way. After staying to work as a research assistant at GWU‟s Discourse Lab for a year and a short stint as a volunteer in Chiang Mai, he began his studies in Ithaca and received his Ph.D. from Cornell in 2010. iii For Daena iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I must begin by thanking my dissertation committee from Cornell University and elsewhere: Dominic Boyer, Michael Herzfeld, Tamara Loos and Andrew Willford. While Dominic Boyer‟s fieldwork is half a world away from Southeast Asia, his help has been invaluable. During Dominic‟s proseminar at Cornell, he introduced me to the works of Georg Simmel, unbeknownst to him framing some of my theoretical interests in urban anthropology. Beyond the classroom, Dominic has continually fielded my questions about the writing process as well as guiding me through the long and difficult process of academic job hunting. Additionally, the influence of a Europeanist anthropologist has pushed me to continually look for points of comparison with anthropological work from other areas. Michael Herzfeld, from Harvard University, has been able to provide a great deal of help and support despite being continually travelling between countries, cities and continents. While I use his writing on Bangkok and Rome here, it is his omnivorous appetite for consuming and commenting on texts (including multiple drafts of this dissertation) that have proved vital to my work, as have his invectives to produce “thick description.” I am deeply indebted to Michael for the numerous excellent conversations that we have had over airport espresso, the best Isaan food to be had in Bangkok, and Beer Chaang. While Dominic and Michael advocated for a comparativist perspective within the archive of anthropology, Tamara Loos pushed me to cross disciplinary boundaries within the field of Thai studies. She also continually worked to have me base my conclusions firmly on the historical and cultural conditions of Thailand and she required me, as she requires all of her students, to fully engage with Thai-language v scholarship and sources, taking full advantage of the Echols collection of Southeast Asian texts in Cornell‟s libraries. Andrew Willford was a source of inspiration as he helped me to see some of the phenomena that I describe here in a philosophical and psychological (rather than simply culturological) light. I credit him with anxiety‟s central place in this work as well as my focus on the uncanny. At George Washington University, I would like to thank Joel Kuipers for being a mentor as well as a supervisor. Through working with Joel at GWU‟s Discourse Lab, I got to see what the process of fieldwork looked like both while it was underway and during analysis. I am also quite happy to have Joel as a fellow Southeast Asianist, and look forward to engaging with his work on a professional level in the future. Others at Cornell had a hand in helping to push this dissertation along, especially those faculty and staff at Cornell‟s Southeast Asia Program. I would like to thank in particular my Thai instructor Ngampit Jagacinski for years of instruction and som tam. In addition, at SEAP I would like to thank Gregory Green, Anne Blackburn, Magnus Fiskesjo, Thak Chaloemthirana and Eric Tagliocozzo for encouragement and advice, Wendy Treat for help in logistics, and SEAP alums Jane Ferguson, Erik Harms and Tyrell Haberkorn. Additionally, my fellow students were vital in helping me to keep my sanity through the writing process. I would like to thank David Rojas for many conversations about theory and the fate of the world over glasses of scotch, as well as Chika Watanabe and Saiba Varma for impromptu dance parties. In addition, Jane Ferguson, Pittyawat (“Joe”) Pittyaporn, Michael and Tanya Bobick, and Ivan Small all provided valuable friendship and advice both in lonely Ithaca and abroad. At the Kahin Center, Claudine Ang, Pamela Corey, Trais Pearson, Lawrence Chua, and Samson Lim help to make a supportive community of scholars and friends. vi In Thailand, I had a number of professors whose help was invaluable. I would like to thank Jiraporn Wittayasakpan, Duangchan Charoenmeuang, Jamaree Chiengthong, and Chayan Vaddhanaphuti at Chiang Mai University; Chokanan Waanichloetthanasaan at Mae Jo University; and Paritta Chalermpow Koanantakool at the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre in Bangkok. I would also like to thank the staff at Plank Rich, especially Sakchai Thongphanchan and Phi Tui, Pat Sriaroon, Sureerat Sombatkiri, Phi Nok, and Nong Aong for their advice, help, and friendship as I did my dissertation field research and afterwards. My parents, Robert and Jean Johnson, were supportive and understanding during my long absences and too-many missed holidays, and they were always ready to meet me at airports from Chiang Mai to Helsinki to New York. Additionally, my parents-in-law, Kimihiro and Reiko Funahashi, were generous with their help and support during the fieldwork period and gave me a wonderful base of operations midway between the field and home. Finally, I cannot forget the tireless support of my wife, Daena Funahashi, who has worked over multiple drafts of this and other papers and been my inseparable companion and partner during this time, and without whom I cannot imagine how I could have completed this work and emerged intact. Her constant presence, love, and support have been what have kept me going for the past seven years. The ethnographic research for this dissertation in 2006 and 2007 was generously supported by a Fulbright-Hays dissertation research fellowship from the United States Department of Education. I also acknowledge the support of a pre- dissertation travel grant to Thailand in June-August 2005 and a post-dissertation travel grant to Thailand and Laos in December 2009 from the Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University. Finally, I am grateful to the Southeast Asia vii Program at Cornell for a summer write-up fellowship during 2009 and for providing me with office space in the Kahin Center upon my return from the field. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH iii DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v TABLE OF CONTENTS ix LIST OF FIGURES xii INTRODUCTION: THE NEW CITY 1 The City 7 Charismatic Center 9 Lanna in Historical Perspective 11 Destruction and Re-Creation 14 Research Methods 21 Overview of the Text 23 CHAPTER ONE: SITUATING THE CITY 27 The Old City 30 The Premodern Suburbs 32 The Modern City 34 CHAPTER TWO: TROPES OF PROGRESS, CULTURE, AND NATIONAL BELONGING 42 Watthanatham and Culture 42 A History of Watthanatham 43 Watthanatham in the present 45 Nationalism and Watthanatham in Chiang Mai 53 Chiang Mai and Thai-ness 63 Thainess