In recent years, a number of online outlets aligned with the right has emerged in Thai politics. Though it is often assumed that such actors are merely an extension of the Thai state propaganda apparatus, as the moniker “IO (short for Information Operation)” implies, closer inspection of their contents suggests a more complicated picture. Employing the morphological approach of ideological analysis, this article argues that the Thai Online Right articulates a decidedly conservative worldview, upholding a social order centred around the monarchy, and opposing particular instigators of change, similar to more traditional Thai conservatives. The concepts and ideas they deploy to bolster these core ideas, however, seem to emphasise more materialistic and personalised elements, as well as draw from more contemporaneous “Western” right-wing conspiracy theories, making their conservative expression a strange blend of the old and the new. The findings have implications to the study of conservatisms, both in the Thai context and comparatively.

This article brings film/media theory into Southeast Asian research through a revisionist queer approach. It contains two goals: addressing some recent developments about queer imag(in)ing in Thai media whilst reappraising the fundamental question of spectatorship via screen theory. Taking into account the more general issue of media specificity and the particular textual device of identity/gender-switch in several recent Thai television serials, we propose the notion of wer viewership: a mode of viewing practice that features viewer-text interaction through the perceptual-cognitive processes, and is characterised by wer/excessive aesthetics, multiple meanings, and diverse pleasures. Resonant with camp reading, wer viewership underlines how the viewer actively makes sense of the ambiguities about gender, particularly those along the extra-/diegetic interface. We use Thai soap opera Shadow of Love to illuminate the wer/excessive aesthetics rendered through its identity/gender play bordering on the extra-/diegetic divide, and the enhanced pleasures and meanings thus available to its extradiegetic active viewers. We stress, though, the expanded queer imag(in)ing in Shadow is not of total free interpretation, but is animated in relation to both the evolving discourses about gender/sexuality in Thailand, and the popularising homoerotic Boys Love (BL) media across Asia in recent years.

Space as a domain of economic and security competition between great powers has risen to become an arena of active statecraft for middle powers in the twenty-first century. It has set a high-stake stage for not only continuing struggles for catch-up industrialization of late developers but also offering opportunities to capture commercial gains of technological breakthroughs and globalization of markets. We examine these challenges for Taiwan and Thailand, surveying major trends in the emerging space industry and exploring four analytical perspectives on how government-business relations shape adaptive national industrial policies in high-technology sectors with proliferating end-users. We argue that the Asian developmental state model is evolving in response to specific challenges of a global supply chain for commercial space activities dominated by leading space firms and government regulatory actions in the United States. Significant differences in Taiwan’s and Thailand’s space and industrial policy approaches will likely create divergent technological trajectories and reinforce current constraints on improving national security. The longer-term prospect for middle spacepowers remains contingent on the space race between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

The genus Tanqua Blanchard, 1904, infests reptiles, particularly those inhabiting aquatic environments. This study examined a population of rainbow water snakes, Enhydris enhydris (Schneider, 1799), collected from southern Thailand. Adult nematodes consistent with Tanqua were found in the stomach. Various morphometric, meristic and qualitative morphological variables, including size, ratios, distances, cephalic appearance, the number of caudal papillae and other features, serve to distinguish the specimens from other species within the genus. In particular, Tanqua anomala and Tanqua diadema, which closely resemble our Tanqua specimens, can be differentiated by key diagnostic characteristics such as a retractable head, the distance from the anterior end to the cervical sac, the relative positions of caudal papillae and excretory pore, and the length of the uterus. Molecular analysis (COI and 18s rRNA genes) confirmed its status as a species of Tanqua, genetically distinct from Tanqua tiara, and matching the genetic sequence found in larvae of Tanqua sp. from a snakehead fish species from Bangladesh. Tanqua siamensis sp. nov. is described, supported by morphological traits, microscopic illustrations and genetic information. This study reports the first evidence of a caudal papillary pair in females. This species causes significant lesions on the stomach wall of the snake host, raising possible issues for snakes held in captivity regarding food hygiene and parasite protection.

Calls for the restitution and repatriation of cultural objects continue to escalate. High-profile cases such as the Parthenon Frieze and the Benin Bronzes dominate international news cycles and provoke fierce debate; however, less attention has been paid to items that are quietly returned and to the potential positive outcomes for the institutions on both sides. This article discusses three Southeast Asian case studies to address this lacuna and urges institutions to become more proactive in their engagement with restitution and repatriation claims.

This paper examines the habitus of contemporary Thailand based on the concepts developed by Pierre Bourdieu and their operationalisation to Thai society developed by Boike Rehbein's principles, which explain how contemporary habitus is linked to social inequality and mobilisation participation. Thailand has two key social structures: precapitalist and capitalist. Both create and reproduce different types of habitus. The paper used a mixed-methods research approach to analyse social inequality and challenges in Thailand since 2019. Data collection was conducted during the years between 2021 and 2022 from 400 surveys and fifteen qualitative interviews. The paper proposes eight habitus types rooted in Thai social structures with seven characteristics for explaining contemporary Thai society. The pre-capitalist structure generates the following habitus types: subsistential, traditionalist, and powerful (phuyai). The capitalist structure generates the following types: desperate, individualist, aspirant, and content creator. Between these two structures is the conformist. All habitus types share some characteristics. Authoritarianism is the fundamental trait of the predominant habitus types in Thai society, which are interconnected with social structures, thereby reflecting the consequences of social inequality and mobilisations. The demographic most affected by social inequality is the desperate group, but a more significant habitus for mobilisation participation is that of content creator, which is considerably small now but is likely to increase. Traditionalist and conformist groups are less likely to protest and, to a lesser degree, this is true of the subsistential and powerful types. Moreover, rationales of being affected by social inequality and reacting differently are distinct characteristics of each type, and socio-economic positions interplayed with social media influences.

This article conducts an analytical review of the works of three prominent Thai comparative law professors: Professor Preedee Kasemsup, Professor Phijaisakdi Horayangkura and Professor Sanunkorn Sotthibandhu. Although influential in Thailand, their works are mostly in Thai and therefore have received little academic attention outside the kingdom. The authors argue that the works of these scholars have the potential to shine new light on comparative law theory and bring voices from the Global South to add fresh perspectives and contexts to a discipline dominated by scholars from the Global North. Moreover, this examination highlights the challenges that comparative law faces in freeing itself from this hegemony when using internally developed concepts and modes of questioning.

The existing literature on the relationship between political parties and social movements draws mainly from European cases, and has rarely captured the kinds of relationships that may exist in other parts of the world. This article addresses the gap by shedding light on the dynamics of party–movement relationships in Thailand. We examine the connections between two Thai political parties and a variety of protest movements. Our analysis demonstrates that Thailand's Move Forward Party and its predecessor the Future Forward Party can be classified as movement parties, but that they operated differently. While Future Forward was a clandestine movement party, concealing its origins in grassroots activism, Move Forward later revealed its activist roots and underwent a transformation from a clandestine to a fully fledged movement party. This change was triggered by two emerging conditions: the rise of student-led mass movements and collective demands for radical change that had been ignored by other political parties.

Religion and trans studies are a relatively new domain of study, one which surrounds subjects gendered and sexed as (religiously) “Other,” and in the articulation of such voices in a public space. In this paper we employ a case study of a transgendered monastic teacher named Khun Mae Tritrinn in northern Thailand to highlight a case of gendered religious “Othering,” and the construction of the third-way religiosity in the context of traditional hetero-patriarchal Buddhist monasticism. We refer to this thematic domain in the context of an emergent third-way religiosity; theorising in an experiential knowing of transgender subjects, which emerges from their trans-other lives. In the case study we show by resisting the gender binary of Buddhist monasticism how a particular transgendered person seeks a third-way monastic alternative; how she established her own hermitage and religious community, and manages the relationship between discourse and institutions that act upon and through her. The ethnographic focus sheds light on historical moments and voices that have been referred to elsewhere as forms of “subjugated knowledge” (Foucault 1980; Hartman 2000). However, despite being subject to religious Othering, recent trans-other identities have gained an increasingly de-subjugated and respected third-space alternative; an intelligibility and opening beyond a heteronormative binarism. It is argued that religious “thirding” creates a turning point for those seeking alternative spiritual bases, and as a salvific epistemology in an engaged religiosity and praxis.

In addition to the well-known differences among the four dengue serotypes, intra-serotypic antigenic diversity has been proposed to play a role in viral evolution and epidemic fluctuation. A replacement of genotype II by genotype III of dengue virus serotype 3 (DENV3) occurred in Thailand during 2007–2014, raising questions about the role of intra-serotypic antigenic differences in this genotype shift. We characterized the antigenic difference of DENV3 of genotypes II and III in Thailand, utilizing a neutralizing antibody assay with DENV3 vaccine sera and monotypic DENV3 sera. Although there was significant antigenic diversity among the DENV3, it did not clearly associate with the genotype. Our data therefore do not support the role of intra-serotypic antigenic difference in the genotype replacement. Amino acid alignment showed that eight positions are potentially associated with diversity between distinct antigenic subgroups. Most of these amino acids were found in envelope domain II. Some positions (aa81, aa124, and aa172) were located on the surface of virus particles, probably involving the neutralization sensitivity. Notably, the strains of both genotypes II and III showed clear antigenic differences from the vaccine genotype I strain. Whether this differencewill affect vaccine efficacy requires further studies.

Conventional wisdom has it that street protests are typically driven by rage due to grievances perceived to inflict on a group. This emotive atmosphere can shape protest methods to be vandalistic to the point where armed attacks against targeted opponents are justified. This paper suggests that rage-influenced struggle can be counterproductive as it obstructs a movement from building a coalition board enough to challenge the ruling elites it opposes. This paper argues that carnivalization of protests can prevent this setback in two directions. First, it potentially transforms protesters’ collective emotion from rage to cheerfulness. This effect may lessen a possibility where protesters project violent revenge on those thought to represent the ruling elites. Second, while helping protesters to address sources of their grievances, carnivalesque protests create a “friendly” image that may convince a public audience outside the movement to support its cause. In assessing a political process of carnivalesque protests, this paper bases its analysis on an account of protest actions by Thailand's Red Sunday group emerging after the 2010 crackdown.

The fertility of soils with respect to K+ and NH4+ is often difficult to measure, but is essential for achieving effective agronomic practices. This problem is especially important in the Vertisols of Thailand. The purpose of the study reported here was to characterize the composition and layer-charge behavior of Thai Vertisols in order to understand better their K+ and NH4+ fertility. Topsoil and subsoil clay of 12 representative highly smectitic Vertisols from Thailand were studied. Interlayer swelling of smectite with alkylammonium cations, cation exchange capacity (CEC), and chemical composition were determined. These data and the re-expansion on glycerol treatment of Li-saturated, heated smectite demonstrated that high-charge, Fe-rich beidellite is the major clay mineral in these soils. The beidellite has a heterogeneous layer-charge distribution as measured by the alkylammonium method, with mean values ranging from 0.43 to 0.62 charges per half unit cell. The layer charge determined by CEC and structural formula methods for some almost pure smectites is smaller (0.32–0.54) and greater (0.46–0.69), respectively, than determined by the alkylammonium method. The structural formulae of beidellite confirm that the layer charge originates mostly in the tetrahedral sheet.

Gender pluralism has become a rich scholarly topic in Southeast Asia, especially with the rise of LGBT mobilisations across the region in the past decade. Transgender ritual specialists dominate the field of study, with a growing body of literature on Southeast Asian queer expressive cultures. However, queer performances in several classical performing arts are often excluded from the scholarship due to the field's association with the “traditional”. In this article, I address this scholarly gap by examining the social lives of queer men in Thai classical string music. I focus on a strategy called kep aakaan or “keeping condition” in which the musicians in question carefully articulate and disarticulate their femininity to render their gender nonconformity ambiguous under the heteronormative gaze. Using ethnographic methods to investigate the lived experience of queer male musicians on and off the stage, I show that “keeping condition” is not just about managing the display of queer potential but is also closely intertwined with morality and citizenship. Drawing on the ideas of tacit subjects and contextual sensitivities, I argue that “keeping condition” exposes the fluidity in which queer musicking bodies move between queerness and heteronormativity in ways that are more reconciliatory than confrontational. By focusing on the complicities of queerness and heteronormativity, I argue that non-normative classical performing arts can be a productive site for critical gender, sexuality, and queer studies in Southeast Asia, cutting through the “traditional” and “modern” divide that looms large in the region.