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CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Titima Suthiwan, Centre for Language Studies, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

This paper studies voices from local communities in southern Northeast Thailand, on the Thai-Cambodia-Lao borders to preserve and conserve their homeland. Members of these communities wish to use their heritage for identity preservation, as well as to commemorate the complex relationships between the Thai, Khmer, and Lao people. The study focuses on the diversity of culture and heritage in an area for which the Pachit-Oraphim local legend provides a connection between tangible and intangible heritages.

The project’s research methods were interdisciplinary: surveys, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and site visits in three countries in the Mainland Southeast Asia .The study related to anthropology, cultural landscape studies, geography, toponymy, tourism, marketing, conservation, folklore, and cultural mapping.

Five Pachit-Oraphim sub-routes were identified. These are part of an international body of local legends stretching from Phimai, Thailand, to Angkor, Cambodia, to Wat Phu, Champassak, Laos. Altogether, these routes total more than 2500 kilometers and consist of three World Heritage sites and at least 29 other sites related to the route. The designation for the brochure and participatory cultural mapping map as Pachit-Oraphim routes enhances the meaning and knowledge of villages and towns otherwise hidden by urban development. It also assists in highlighting their cross-border connections and common heritages.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Rungsima Kullapat is a research collaborator at the Carolina Asia Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is also a researcher at the National Film Archive (Public Organization), Thailand and the Center for Research on Plurality in the Mekong Region (CERP), Faculty of Humanities, Khon Khaen University.

In 2016, her dissertation “Living Heritage through Literature: The Development of Pachit Oraphim Cultural Routes” received the Award of Excellence from the National Research Council of Thailand. Recently, she was awarded a new research project from National Film Archive to study the feasibility of the restoration and rehabilitation of Sala Chalerm Thani (the oldest wooden movie theater in Nang Loeng, the oldest district in Bangkok). She has designed the rehabilitation of the historic Sala Chalerm Thani as a living museum to provide a retrospective of the last century of the Thai movie industry.

She is a columnist in Thai magazine and newspaper. Her research and writing is focused on cultural heritage across contemporary cultures and the voices of local people.

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