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Inscribing Siam: The state of documentary and spatial practices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2019

SING SUWANNAKIJ  and
SØREN IVARSSON
SING SUWANNAKIJ
Affiliation:
Department of History, Chiang Mai University Email: [email protected]
SØREN IVARSSON
Affiliation:
Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The administrative (Chakri) reforms in Siam which took place around the turn of the twentieth century are probably one of the most studied topics in the history of Thailand. This period is usually described as the time when the royal elite worked to create a Siamese nation-state under the guidance of the absolute monarchy. This transformation encompassed both territorial integration and administrative centralization. Here we offer a new perspective on this transformative period through an analysis of changing documentary and spatial practices in Siam from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, which were one of the most crucial, intrinsic dynamics of state formation. The emphasis is on the mundane practices of documentation—among other spatial-material practices and processes—that produce the effect that the state exists. We show how this new paper regime articulated a standardization of written official documents, the birth of the file as a technology to deal with the avalanche of documents circulating between sections of the burgeoning administration, and the spatial organization that created the office—fields where officials produced and stored documents according to specific regulations. We exemplify this new regime of documentary practices in Bangkok and beyond, with special reference to the paper and spatial works of the provincial gendarmerie.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 5 , September 2020 , pp. 1596 - 1630
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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27 Kawaguchi, ‘Document use’. In fact, many historical studies claim that the ‘Early Rattanakosin’ period (1782–1851) saw a surge in Bangkok's assertion of power over various outlying areas, especially concentrated in the hands of Bunnag aristocrats. See, for example, Seksan Prasertkul, ‘The transformation of the Thai state and economic change (1855–1945)’, PhD thesis, Cornell University, 1989; M. R. Rujaya Abhakorn, ‘Ratburi, an inner province: Local government and central politics in Siam’, PhD thesis, Cornell University, 1984; Auamporn Sornsuwan, ‘The Chinese in the Thai political elite's perception, 1895–1932’, Master's thesis, Chulalongkorn University, 2005. Yet, in this article, we examine what exactly this ‘power’ was, or, more precisely, the mechanisms/processes that made it posible to exercise this power. From the aforementioned and other studies, Saichol Sattayanurak suggests a number of these mechanisms: the alliance between the Bunnags and the rich Chinese families, especially the taxfarmers, in the cities and towns; the shifting balance of favour and disfavour by the Bunnags over the conflicts of the latter groups, as well as wars waged by Bangkok against rebellious vassalages. With thanks to Saichol Sattayanurak, personal communication, 2 March 2017. The fact that we learn about these processes through the documentary uses of bai bok, supha akson, and santra is precisely the point we are making. There was indeed a war against Kedah in the south in 1839, for instance, but we learn about this mainly from Chotmai het luang udom sombat [The dispatches of Luang Udom Sombat], Phim Thai, Bangkok, 1915, which, if anything, emphasizes the materiality of power: the dispatches supplied the Bunnag nobleman who was leading an army down south with the ‘tunnel vision’ of what was said and decided in the palace in Bangkok. When, to where, and how many cannonballs should be fired depended equally on what was carried in the dispatches as much as it did on many other factors.

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30 Damrong Rajanubhab, Thesaphiban [Provincial Administration], Rung Rueang Tham, Bangkok, 1955, p. 17.

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32 Ibid.

33 The title, also known as the Front Palace, refers to a position second only to the monarch. It was usually given to a king's brother or son, and usually designated them as heir presumptive. The position can be dated back to the Ayutthaya period (conventionally, 1351–1767) and was abolished in 1855 as the new title of crown prince was preferred.

34 NA R4.1 Ko/8, ‘The royal letters and various proclamations’.

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36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

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46 So-called for its dye from the khoi tree (streblus asper).

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60 Ibid., p. 13. Damrong was not the first nobleman to go to the office and receive a salary. According to him, Prince Devawongse, the minister of foreign affairs, was the first one to do ‘like the lesser officers’: ibid., p. 22. Fees could be levied directly from the population on various occasions and in different areas, such as a taking fee from tax-farming, a trading post, exemption for corvée labour, or from seeing through an affair.

61 Ibid., p. 23.

62 Ibid., p. 17.

63 Ibid., pp. 9–11.

64 Ibid., pp. 12–13.

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68 Maruphong, Siriphat, Kan truat lae chat ratchakan nai monthon krung kao lae monthon pachinburi [The Inspection and the Organization of Government in Monthon Ayutthaya and Monthon Prachinburi], Rong Phim Rueang Tham, Bangkok, 1972, pp. 56–57Google Scholar.

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72 Williams, C., Police Control Systems in Britain, 1775–1975. From Parish Constable to National Computer, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2014CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In his seminal study of the formation of the police and changing notions of crime in Thailand, Samson Lim also shows how information about crime and criminals changes from an oral- to paper-based mode of production. He notes how the new documentary practice of writing, and later typing, turned knowledge into a ‘modern’ knowledge. See Lim, Siam's New Detectives.

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74 See, for example, the descriptions of gendarme stations in Hosseus, C. C., Through King Chulalongkorn's Kingdom (1904–1906). The First Botanical Exploratrion of Northern Thailand, White Lotus, Bangkok, 2001 [1912]Google Scholar.

75 If nothing else is indicated, then the following section is based on NA R6 N 4.1/157, ‘Kho bangkhap rabiap kan tamruat phra nakhon ban lae tamruat phuthon [Regulation for police and provincial gendarmes], 1918’, and an account published by one of the Danish officers serving in the gendarmerie: Seidenfaden, E., Det Kongelige Siamesiske Provinsgendarmeri Og Dets Danske Officerer [The Royal Siamese Gendarmerie and its Danish Officers], Poul Kristensens Forlag, København, 1999Google Scholar.

76 According to Seidenfaden, all gendarme stations had the same outline. Their size may have differed, but they always had the same spatial plan. Ibid., p. 150.

77 NA R6 M 10/3, ‘Phraya Maha Ammat, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Interior, to the King, 23 March 1915’, pp. 30–31.

78 See NA R6 M 10/2, ‘Prince Kamrob's inspection reports from various Monthon to the Gendarmerie Division, 1914–1915’. The file contains nine reports.

79 Feldman, Governing Gaza, pp. 14–20.

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81 Quoted in Maruphong, Kan truat, p. 7 (Preface).

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