Uneasy Military Encounters: The Imperial Politics of Counterinsurgency in Southern Thailand

Ruth Streicher

Published by Cornell University Press 2022

Uneasy Military Encounters

The Imperial Politics of Counterinsurgency in Southern Thailand

Ruth Streicher

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501751356

Overview
Contents

About this book

Uneasy Military Encounters presents a historically and theoretically grounded political ethnography of the Thai military's counterinsurgency practices in the southern borderland, home to the greater part of the Malay-Muslim minority. Ruth Streicher argues that counterinsurgency practices mark the southern population as the racialized, religious, and gendered other of the Thai, which contributes to producing Thailand as an imperial formation: a state formation based on essentialized difference between the Thai and their others.

Through a genealogical approach, Uneasy Military Encounters addresses broad conceptual questions of imperial politics in a non-Western context: How can we understand imperial policing in a country that was never colonized? How is "Islam" constructed in a state that is officially secular and promotes Buddhist tolerance? What are the (historical) dynamics of imperial patriarchy in a context internationally known for its gender pluralism? The resulting ethnography excavates the imperial politics of concrete encounters between the military and the southern population in the ongoing conflict in southern Thailand.

Author / Editor information

Ruth Streicher is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Heidelberg.

Reviews

Craig J. Reynolds, Australian National University:

In her sophisticated and refreshing book Ruth Streicher shows how and why imperial Thailand governs the Deep South with methods that perpetuate the conflict they are intended to resolve. Counterinsurgency, an unconventional form of war, mobilizes Islam in positive terms in order to police the population.

Michael Jerryson, Youngstown State, author of Buddhist Fury:

Ruth Streicher has provided an incredibly rich ethnography, weaving together gender, race, and military activities to expose different layers of Thai/Siamese imperialism. Uneasy Military Encounters is an impressive book that possessess exceptional merit.

Richard A. Ruth, US Naval Academy, author of In Buddah's Company:

Uneasy Military Encounters is a strong, innovative, and valuable book. It offers many important contributions to the study of Thailand's southern insurgency. Streicher's arguments are persuasive and well supported. She deftly conveys the complex—and often tragic—consequences of this conflict.

Streicher's [Uneasy Military Encounters] provides a significant contribution to our knowledge of the military's counterinsurgency operations in southern Thailand.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Note on Transliteration and Referencing Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: Policing the Imperial Formation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 Policing History: A Military Handbook on the Southern Provinces Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
Chapter 2 Checkpoints: Racialized Practices of Suspicion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
Chapter 3 The New Path to Peace: Disciplining Religious Subjects Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Chapter 4 Guarding the Daughter: Patriarchal Compromise and Military Sisterhood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
Conclusion: Happiness and Military Rule Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 186
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 9
- Images: 9
- Other: 9 b&w halftones
Keywords: Southern Thailand; the three southern border provinces; Patani; Counterinsurgency; Imperial Formation; Race; Religion; Gender; Islam

eBook

Published: October 15, 2020
ISBN: 9781501751356