Papers by Peter A Jackson
Same-Sex Sexual Experience in Thailand
Routledge eBooks, Nov 25, 2020
South East Asia Research, 2025
Thai religious and ritual life is diverse and dynamic, drawing on a wide range of influences incl... more Thai religious and ritual life is diverse and dynamic, drawing on a wide range of influences including Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, Brahmanism and spirit cults. A notable feature of Thai religiosity is its productivity, with a continual increase in the number of new spiritual figures at the centre of devotional cults that often have no direct precedents in established forms of ritual. I describe the processes that support the expansion of the Thai religious pantheon, as new spirits and gods emerge alongside established supernatural figures. I explore the question of how founders and followers of devotional cults authorize the worship of novel deities, spirits, and Buddha images. Drawing on origin narratives from followers of new ritual movements, I argue that both lay and monastic access to the field of oneiric space, extraordinary experiences that include meditation visions, dreams and possession trance, is central to notions of spiritual authority in Thailand and is an important source of the ongoing proliferation of religious and ritual diversity in the country.
A Panoply of Roles: Sexual and Gender Diversity in Contemporary Thailand
Routledge eBooks, Nov 25, 2020
A Panoply of Roles: Sexual and Gender Diversity in Contemporary Thailand Peter A. Jackson Gerard ... more A Panoply of Roles: Sexual and Gender Diversity in Contemporary Thailand Peter A. Jackson Gerard Sullivan INTRODUCTION This book presents a series of case studies of contemporary forms of male and female homosexuality and transgenderism in Thailand. The studies ...
Thai Semicolonial Hybridities: Bhabha and García Canclini in Dialogue on Power and Cultural Blending
Asian Studies Review, Jun 1, 2008
... one of the most systematic treatments of cultural hybridity, grounded in Latin American polit... more ... one of the most systematic treatments of cultural hybridity, grounded in Latin American politics and culture ... it is related to projects of political and cultural hegemony in multi-ethnic post-colonial ... This key difference means that, while hybridity is one of the most widely used ideas in ...
Southeast Asia. Modern times in Southeast Asia, 1920s–1970s Edited by Susie Protschky and Tom Van Den Berge Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. 214. Illustrations, Bibliography, Index
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Apr 6, 2022
Reflections on Critical New Area Studies – in Conversation with Prof. Dr. Peter Jackson: Interview
Prof. Dr. Peter A. Jackson (Australian National University) has written extensively on modern Tha... more Prof. Dr. Peter A. Jackson (Australian National University) has written extensively on modern Thai cultural history with special interests in religion, sexuality, and critical theoretical approaches to mainland Southeast Asian cultural history. He currently holds an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant for the project “Religion, Ritual and Health in Thai Gay and Transgender Communities”. His article “South East Asian Area Studies beyond Anglo-America: Geopolitical Transitions, the Neoliberal Academy and Spatialized Regimes of Knowledge”, published 2019 in South East Asia Research 27(1), pp. 49–73, was the starting point for this interview on his reflections on New Area Studies.
New Editor's Message: TheAsian Studies Reviewin the 21st Century
Asian Studies Review, Mar 1, 2010
Since the Asian Studies Review was first published some decades ago, the study of Asia has been d... more Since the Asian Studies Review was first published some decades ago, the study of Asia has been dramatically transformed. The area studies model of the immediate post-World War II era, whose intellectual rise was paralleled by the establishment of numerous centres of Asian studies in North America and Australia, has been critiqued politically for reflecting American hegemonic interests and challenged theoretically as failing to capture the diverse border-crossing phenomena that characterise globalisation. While in recent years some Asian area studies centres in the West have been radically reduced in size or in some cases closed down, others have opened in increasingly well-funded universities across Asia. The economic rise of East, Southeast and South Asia, and the growing cultural, social and political interpenetration and interdependency of ‘‘East’’ and ‘‘West’’, has also seen studies of Asia move from the margins to the academic mainstream. As the academies of many postcolonial Asian societies have matured, articulate Asian voices have spoken with increasing clarity and authority in directing the intellectual agenda of Asian studies. This is true not only on matters of ‘‘fact’’ but perhaps more importantly in defining the theoretical parameters of analysis and critique. Internationally, entirely new fields of critical intellectual endeavour have emerged, from gender and sexuality studies, to postcolonial studies, diasporic studies, cultural studies, and cinema and media studies. All of these emerging disciplinary fields have had a major impact on studies of Asia, both in the West and across the Asian region. In this fluid geopolitical and intellectual environment the role of the Asian Studies Review has evolved rapidly. From a platform for predominantly area studies academics teaching and conducting research at Australian universities, under recent past editors Kam Louie and Maila Stivens the journal has been internationalised. The articles in any given issue of the Review are now more likely to hail from authors based in Asia and Europe than they are to come from academics attached to Australian universities. In a highly competitive publishing market with a proliferation of journals dealing with matters Asian, Kam and Maila have helped guide the journal in finding its intellectual niche and in making its distinctive contribution to the field. In broad terms the Asian Studies Review is concerned with the cultures, societies, politics and histories of modern Asia. Our journal is a platform for studies that chart the outlines of contemporary and emerging trends in the region and for critical engagement with the conceptual and theoretical frameworks that are called upon in this endeavour. Asian Studies Review March 2010, Vol. 34, pp. 1–2
Thailand's Theory of Monarchy: The Vessantara Jātaka and the Idea of the Perfect Man
Sojourn, Mar 30, 2018
Bangkok's Early Twenty-First-Century Queer Boom
Hong Kong University Press eBooks, Mar 1, 2011
This chapter compares the boom in Bangkok queer cultures over the past decade with the sense of d... more This chapter compares the boom in Bangkok queer cultures over the past decade with the sense of decline in some Western lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) scenes. It also examines the political, cultural, technological, and transnational forces that likewise contributed to the rapid expansion of queer markets in early twenty-first-century Bangkok
Thai research on male homosexuality and transgenderism and the cultural limits of Foucaultian analysis
PubMed, Jul 1, 1997
... and transgenderism, with attitudes varying con-siderably between socioeconomic classes, rural... more ... and transgenderism, with attitudes varying con-siderably between socioeconomic classes, rural and urban residents, eth ... cent) dealt with kathoeysz.nd 156 (75.5 percent) dealt with male homo?sexuality (rak-ruam-phet chai, gay), while only 13 (6 percent) dealt exclusively with ...
The Ambiguous Allure of the West
Thaïlande Contemporaine
South East Asia Research, Jun 1, 2012
She has published widely on issues of gendered difference, sexuality, modern literature and cinem... more She has published widely on issues of gendered difference, sexuality, modern literature and cinema in Thailand as well as the comparative literature of Southeast Asia. She is co-founder of the SOAS Centre for Gender Studies and editor of South East Asia Research. Her forthcoming books include an edited collection on new directions and frames of analysis in Thai literature. Two further volumes, evolving from the Ambiguous Allure of the West international research project funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council, refer to the cultural relationship between Thailand and the West in terms of literary and cinematic developments: they are Roots of Comparison: Thai Literature and the West, and The Rise of New Thai Cinema.
Why I'm a Foucauldian
Sojourn, 2006
The differences between Mr Curaming and myself can begin to be seen more clearly if we avoid the ... more The differences between Mr Curaming and myself can begin to be seen more clearly if we avoid the generic term “poststructuralism” and instead focus on the work of the theorists that he and I, respectively, draw upon. In my recent work on religion, gender, and sexuality in Thailand, and in the articles that Mr Curaming critiques, I have been interested in developing Michel Foucault’s ideas on the productivity of power and historical ruptures in forms of discourse to understand modern Thai cultural history. In contrast, Mr Curaming’s main interest is the work of Jacques Derrida. While both Foucault and Derrida are commonly called poststructuralists, this label obscures important differences between their approaches and overlooks the fact that the two men fell out over theoretical issues. Many of the errors that Mr Curaming says that he finds in my work emerge from the fact that he draws upon his understanding of Derrida in order to critique my understanding of Foucault. The supposed faults that Mr Curaming outlines in fact mirror issues that Foucault and Derrida failed to agree on. I do not suggest that my work is errorfree or that I have understood Foucault’s ideas perfectly. However, Mr Curaming’s critique does not so much reflect the particular failings of my studies as it replays general tensions within the variegated body of poststructuralist thought. Foucault insisted that it is possible to analyse the power structures that underpin a body of discourse, and given that the pattern of power in any historical situation has a characteristic form then the discourses produced under that regime will also have specifiable
South East Asian Area Studies beyond Anglo-America: geopolitical transitions, the neoliberal academy and spatialized regimes of knowledge
South East Asia Research, Jan 2, 2019
ABSTRACT Critical theorists and scholars in Asian cultural studies have challenged the political ... more ABSTRACT Critical theorists and scholars in Asian cultural studies have challenged the political legitimacy and analytical validity of the cross-disciplinary enterprise of Area Studies. Area Studies has been critiqued as emerging from and reflecting imperialist and Cold War-era political agendas; as being overly empirical and disinterested in or even resistant to critical theoretical methods; and as being an outdated form of knowledge that reflects a pre-globalization era defined by the geopolitics of the nation state. I challenge these three criticisms of Area Studies in light of the fact that, contrary to predictions, spatiality has not been erased but rather has been reformulated in the context of globalization. Critiques of Area Studies fail to address dramatic changes in global knowledge production underway as a result of the geopolitical rise of East, South East and South Asia, and overlook the ways the neoliberal re-disciplining of the academy is entrenching Eurocentric forms of knowledge. I argue for the validity and importance of a theoretically engaged project of critical Area Studies in an era when neoliberal managerialism and metrification of research and teaching are casting a conservative pall over the international academy by intensifying the spatialization of knowledge under early twenty-first-century globalization.
First Queer Voices from Thailand
This is a fully revised and substantially expanded edition of Peter Jackson's highly regarded... more This is a fully revised and substantially expanded edition of Peter Jackson's highly regarded pioneering study of an Asian gay culture, Male Homosexuality in Thailand (1989). The hero of Jackson's fascinating narrative is "Uncle Go", which was the pen name of a popular magazine editor who, despite being avowedly heterosexual, was tolerant of all sexual practices and whose "agony uncle" columns in the 1970s provided unique spaces in the national press for Thailand's gays, lesbians, and transgendered (kathoeys) to speak for themselves in the public domain. By allowing the voices of alternative sexualities to be heard, Uncle Go emerged as Thailand's first champion of gender equality and sexual rights. Peter Jackson translates and analyzes selected correspondence published in Uncle Go's advice columns, preserving and presenting important primary sources. In this new edition, Jackson has expanded his coverage to include not only letters from Thai gay men but also those from lesbians and trans people, thus capturing the full diversity of Thailand's modern queer cultures at a key moment in their historical development when new understandings of sexual identities were first communicated to the wider community.
Semicoloniality, Translation and Excess in Thai Cultural Studies
South East Asia Research, Mar 1, 2005
... I have elsewhere summarized the work of some of the key figures who have introduced post-stru... more ... I have elsewhere summarized the work of some of the key figures who have introduced post-structuralist approaches in Thai studies since the mid-1990s (Jackson, 2004d ... In describing his own analytical project in his history of early twen-tieth century Thai Marxism, Kasian ...
Royal Spirits, Chinese Gods, and Magic Monks: Thailand's Boom-Time Religions of Prosperity
South East Asia Research, Nov 1, 1999
During the economic boom of the 1980s and 1990s, Thailand saw the emergence of a diverse range of... more During the economic boom of the 1980s and 1990s, Thailand saw the emergence of a diverse range of ‘prosperity religions’, popular movements that emphasize the acquisition of wealth as much as salva...
The Thai Regime of Images*
Sojourn, Oct 1, 2004
This study analyses the empirical character and logical form of modes of Thai power, which the au... more This study analyses the empirical character and logical form of modes of Thai power, which the author calls the Thai regime of images. The regime of images is an internally differentiated form of power that exerts systematically different types of policing and control over actions and discourse in the private and public spheres, respectively. Under this regime, actions performed and statements uttered in the public (satharana) domain are more stringently monitored than identical actions and utterances restricted to domains that may be no less visible but which are culturally labelled as private (suan tua). When statements or representations do not conform with idealized forms, and are perceived as disrupting, "the image of smooth calm" (phap-phot haeng khwam-sa-ngop-riap-roi), then both formal (legal) and informal (cultural) modes of power may be mobilized to expel the unwanted representations from the public domain. This regime of power/knowledge has epistemological implications, determining what can and cannot be articulated as public knowledge in Thailand.
Situating Sexualities: Queer Representation in Taiwanese Fiction, Film and Public Culture. Fran Martin
China Journal, 2007
Situating Sexualities: Queer Representation in Taiwanese Fiction, Film and Public Culture, by Fra... more Situating Sexualities: Queer Representation in Taiwanese Fiction, Film and Public Culture, by Fran Martin. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004. xii + 358 pp. HK$295.00/US$39.50 (hardcover). Fran Martin's Situating Sexualities traces the history of homosexuality in the emergence of Taiwanese modernity and provides an excellent account of the impact of shifts in political and economic power on cultural understandings of gender and sexuality. Martin achieves a rare balance in studying both male and female homosexuality as elements of broader patterns of same-sex representation and cultural formation, and reveals the rich potential of historically and politically informed cultural studies analysis of Asian literatures, cinemas and popular cultures. Situating Sexualities is much more than a history of homosexuality. Through detailed analyses of recent novels and cinema, Martin also describes how the recent history of Taiwan-its anxious relationship to the PRC, recent democratization and rapid economic globalization-has been lived and imagined by the island's inhabitants. Chapter 1 considers Pai Hsien-yung's novel Crystal Boys, which Martin describes as the first modem Chinese novel to make homosexuality its subject. The novel became an iconic representation of homosexuality in 1980s Taiwan. Martin focuses on the "dehomosexualisation" of this important novel by critics who interpret its narrative of a banished homosexual son as a political allegory of Taiwan's historical exile from the homeland of Chineseness on the mainland. Chapter 2 summarizes the efflorescence of critical social movements, including the tongzhi movement, after the lifting of martial law in 1987, and considers the policies of Chen Shui-bian, then Democratic Progressive Party mayor of Taipei City Government and subsequently first non-KMT president of the Republic of China on Taiwan. Focusing on Taipei's New Park, the site of national memorials as well as a homosexual cruising ground, Martin describes the intersection of political and sexual cultures in the closing years of the 20th century. These opening chapters reveal how Taiwanese politics-caught between rival efforts to assert an autonomous national identity and the claims of Taiwan as a site of authentic Chineseness-provides a powerful metaphor for the relation of the island's homosexual minorities to the dominant heterosexual culture. There are queer resonances between tongzhi sexual identity and Taiwanese nationalist imaginings, with the tongzhi's dissident relation to heteronormativity coming to symbolize the uncertain place of the Taiwanese national subject in the geo-polity of greater China. Chen Shui-bian's taking up of tongzhi as a sign of Taipei's global modernity in the 1990s can be understood in this context, where some heterosexual Taiwanese detected echoes of their own stories in the tongzhi homosexual culture that emerged in that decade. In Chapter 3, Martin uses Ang Lee's 1993 film The Wedding Banquet as a lens to focus on 1990s queer Taiwan, interpreting this film as marking "the triumphant entry of the 'Chineseness' of Taiwan into a global present, where 'tolerance of homosexuality' works as a marker of a newly liberal, democratic state" (p. 143). She also interprets Lee's internationally acclaimed film as staging "a kind of postcolonial cultural clash between two regimes of sexuality: broadly, a 'Chinese familial' regime, and a regime of'American gay identity'", (p. 143). The first wave of Asian cultural studies in the early 1990s was often marked by well-intentioned but naive attempts to "apply" Western critical theory which reproduced Eurocentric conceptions in the name of critiquing empiricist area studies. Situating Sexualities is part of an important corrective move that responds to these excesses by localizing and refashioning poststructuralism in historical, discursive/linguistic and cultural contexts. Martin asks the crucial question of whether the ideas of the Western queer theorists she engages-Foucault, Butler, Kosofksy-Sedgwick and others-map adequately the cultural and discursive terrains of sexuality and gender in Taiwan. …
Uploads
Papers by Peter A Jackson