FIELDTRIP | Eric Haanstad carried out a research field trip in Thailand and Cambodia from July 2011 to January 2012 for the “Decentered Theatrical Performances in Cambodia and Thailand” project

Eric Haanstad’s field research ethnographically explored the symbolic and performative decentralization of nationalized theatrical forms in Thailand and Cambodia. Thailand’s ongoing political bifurcation is manifesting theatrically in two ways: by nationally centralized performances circumscribed by royalist factions, and by decentralized deployments critiquing the key symbols of these performances by oppositional factions. Within the context of culturally related theatrical traditions, Cambodia offers a clear counterpoint where key religious and mythological icons are deployed symbolically in the service of ongoing political consolidation while a transnational donor economy underwrites an emergent arts network still struggling with the consequences of the country’s violent history. Thus, this field research demonstrates the symbolic centralization and decentralization of two radically different, but historically and culturally related, performative traditions in Southeast Asia.  During the beginning of the fieldwork period, he presented a paper, “Bangkok’s Decentralized Spaces of Urban Security and Insecurity,” at the 11th International Conference on Thai Studies sponsored by Mahidol University in July 2011. At the end of the fieldwork period, he also conducted joint survey and interview-based research with Dr. Chulanee Thianthai (Chulalongkorn University) in Bangkok and in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand for a joint research project on conceptualizations of democracy among Thai urban and suburban adolescents.