This paper discusses “Thainess,” prior to the 1990s. Before then, people in what is now Thailand and also nearby, distinguished socially between tai and kha. Whereas tai were literate members of lowland kingdoms that had law codes, professed (local forms of) Buddhism, and sometimes built large architectural structures, the kha were illiterate forest people, had oral codes, mostly were animists, and lived in wooden structures beyond the pale of what the tai considered civilization. Ayutthaya and similar centers were multi-ethnic in nature, with a literate “civilized” elite. These centers only became “Thai” (a kind of back-formation from tai intended to mean “free”) when King Rama VI (r. 1910-24) and other rulers adopted and adapted Western ethnicity-based definitions of nationalism. Applied socially, Thainess negatively impacted the newly defined “Other,” people not ethnically Thai, in forestry, citizenship, and other areas. Thai was not tai at all.

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In this paper, I deal with the group named “the elderly” in the guardian spirit ritual in the Tai-Lue villages in Nan province, Northern Thailand. These groups appeared after the decline of the traditional role of the elderly in the ritual, and are connected with the recent social situation including the national policies towards local cultures and the elderly.
 Village elderly carry out newly invented performances in the ritual as a new culture of the elderly, not transmitted from their ancestors. One can say that the role of the elderly in the ritual has changed from that of “Khon Thao Khon Kae” (an older person who has traditional knowledge) to that of “Phu Sung Ayu” (a person over 60 years of age, who can receive welfare services).
 However these newly invented activities of the elderly in the ritual are voluntarily initiated by them. They have tried to find their own world of activities even in the stream of “welfarization.” They are given a new arena of self-representation and activities, i. e. performing as the Tai-Lue “elderly.” So they are in a sense defined by the state, but they adapt those definitions for their own purposes.

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The Yunnanese of Northern Thailand either came from Yunnan Province in Southwest China or have ancestors originating there. However, despite the heterogeneity of Yunnanese society, people are categorized under one broad ethnic term and labeled as “Ho” or “Chin Ho” in Thai. To understand the specific situation and ethnic identity of one group of Yunnanese today, the Hui Yunnanese, we must first appreciate the historical influences on their migration and interethnic relations during their migration to and settlement in Thailand. This paper outlines the history of first-generation Yunnanese migration since the end of the nineteenth century. Differing sociocultural and political backgrounds of the Han and Hui Yunnanese have led to different migratory patterns and expressions of ethnicity in Thailand.

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The Tribal Research Center/Institute (TRI) was inaugurated in 1965 and dissolved by the Thai government Bureaucratic Reform Act in 2002. This paper discusses the rise and fall of the TRI by showing that the TRI has come from the need of the Thai government, with the support from foreign agencies, to have an “advisory and training” center to deal with “hill tribe problems,” in the context where few ethnic studies institutes and researchers existed. TRI had actively served its mother organizations by providing them necessary information and recommendation for the monitoring, evaluation and improvement of the government and highland development projects, while its resource center and experts had served academic society for many decades. In 2000s, when “hill tribe problems” have diminished: communist operation stopped, opium cultivation reduced and hill tribes were seemingly well integrated into Thai society, the government no longer needed to maintain its focus on the hill tribes and related organizations. The TRI's role was terminated without any proper handing over of its human and other resources to the right institute. Unlike 40 years ago, however, now ethnic studies institutes and especially ethnic own organizations and communities have grown up to take care of their problems, arising from government policy and modernization, by carrying out ethnic studies and development by their own.

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Since the late s, the hill dwelling minority in Thailand have gained visibility amid social movements concerning environmental conservation, community forest rights, and the appeal for citizenship. In this process they have gained a stage and a voice to represent themselves to a considerable degree. The discourse and representation pertaining to the hill-dwellers are becoming an arena of negotiation, where the hill-dwellers themselves are active participants. In this paper, I examine the layers of discourse regarding the Karen which has evolved within the changing socio-political context. Participants in the discourse adopt varied elements of the existing layers of discourse by travelers, missionaries, academics, administrators and NGOs which have all contributed to the stereotype of the Karen as the meek and submissive hill-dwellers. In the latter half of the paper, I take up a case of a recent eco-tourism venture in Chiang Mai Province, and analyze how villagers whose existence has been precarious for decades due to its position on the edge of a National Park have chosen to represent themselves in the venture. Eco-tourism especially provides a pertinent arena for the negotiation of such self/other representation.

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