1993 APT1 Conference : Identity, tradition and change

government along with various cultural institutions have deployed the inner/outer split for the sake of maintaining a traditional identity passed down by their ancestors. Ironically, as the infrastructure of Thai society deteriorates--five-hour traffic jams, mushrooming of empty skyscrapers, pollution, deceases, crime, poverty--the desire to hang on to materialistic values lingers while simultaneously there is lamentation for the 'true self'--the inner/traditional/spiritual sense of being. Thus in Eastern context and in particular 'Third World' nationalism, Thailand is forced between 'being herself' and 'becoming NIC' . The constraints have resulted in the resistance to the common notion that the West leads and the East follows in an eternal game of catch-up where Thailand's identity seems to be in dissonance with herself. Therefore, the invention of nation- religion-monarchy triad is promoted to the point of fabrication in order to disseminate the idea of homogeneity, cultural heritage, and sprit of Thai-ness. Placed within a strictly nationalist framework, selfhood within a specific cultural world is conceived as a fiction. The fashioned, fictional self is located with reference to its culture which has power to control identity and authorized to represent and interpret. Thus the 'Third World' plays itself against the 'First World' and vice versa. But cultural difference is no longer a stable exotic otherness. Binary juxtaposition of 'local' and 4