UC San Diego

This thesis consists of a prospectus and two bibliographies for a research project that seeks to explore how memories of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami may be documented or perceived in the southern Thai provinces of Phuket, Krabi, and Phang Nga in the present. This research project centers the event of the tsunami to examine the immediate impact of the disaster in the region on its residents as well as its tourists. Additionally, I address the potential effects of the tsunami’s “long shadow,” which I define as the twenty-year period after the tsunami that extends up until 2024. Exploratory fieldwork in these provinces during the summer of 2022 shape this project. This prospectus also contains a literature review that contextualizes haunting and ghostliness across disciplines such as anthropology, history and Thai studies as well as the literature on tourism, tsunami responses, and disaster management in the region. I discuss the relations between haunting and memory work that have been explored in scholarly literature, and describe the emergence of analytical frameworks shaped by notions of haunting and spectrality. Finally, I conclude this prospectus by offering a discussion of my research methods, timeline, and budget for the project.