UC Irvine

This is an ethnography of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand. It is about life along the river and its canals, the culture of water in a modern metropolis. More broadly, this is a study of the relationship between memory and landscape. Waterways, at the time of writing, are still an important part of Bangkok's urban infrastructure. I use waterways to explore collective memory. What meanings are found in waterways? How do waterways connect people and places? How do waterways connect past, present, and future? I examine stories, images, and senses of a collective past. Memory and landscape are often entangled with national myths and ideologies, but Bangkok's waterways can also allow us to see the nation in new perspectives. Some of the prominent themes discussed in this ethnography are: stories of national origin; continuity, change, and the landscape of loss; forgotten violence and the experience of landscape; heart-spirit and notions of collective trajectory; and the place of Islam in Bangkok and the Thai nation. This ethnography is based on 16 months of fieldwork in Thailand, mostly during 2012 and 2013.