Thamkulangkool, Piyawat. 2025. Thai contemporary performing arts and audiences: contrasting stakeholders and the gaze towards Thainess. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis]

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Abstract or Description

This investigation uncovered specific constraints that have long affected the development of Thailand’s non-mainstream contemporary performing arts and affect its audiences today. Document research on historical records and policy documents was conducted to complement in-depth interviews with non-mainstream contemporary performing arts stakeholders. Focus groups in Bangkok and regional areas of Thailand contributed the opinions of audiences and non-audiences around the country. The findings reveal complex and evolving relationships between ‘Thainess’ and farang-ness form a prominent part of Thailand’s modern mythscape, a dynamic field of myths filled with contested ideologies of Thainess. These contestations affect contemporary artists and present many challenges to the non-mainstream contemporary performing arts sector while concepts of Thainess are more fluid and flexible in terms of economic consumption. These findings suggest that the practices and processes of the Thai contemporary performing arts have generated a complex matrix of Thainess. Different gazes in art appreciation by audience and non-audience and their various views on Thainess affect their evaluation. These phenomena generated tensions between the state and contemporary performing artists over state funding support. While foreign funding appears to be a boon for Thai non-mainstream contemporary performing artists, it does not provide a reliable long-term sustainable basis. Moreover, much of Thai cultural policy focuses on economic values rather than cultural values. National strategies emphasise economic outcomes and are over-concerned about the state ideology of Thainess, and this creates an imbalance in national policy planning that might generate impediments for performing artists and their audiences.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.25602/GOLD.00039397
Keywords:	Performing arts administration, Cultural policy in Thailand, Theatre gaze, Theatre audience, Thainess, Gaze towards Thainess, Thai contemporary performing arts, Mythscape of Thainess
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Institute for Cultural and Creative Entrepreneurship (ICCE)
Date:	31 July 2025
Item ID:	39397
Date Deposited:	14 Aug 2025 17:23
Last Modified:	14 Aug 2025 17:32
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/39397

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