Pattana Kitiarsa on Thai boxing

Pattana Kitiarsa, « Of Men and Monks: The Boxing-Buddhism Nexus and the Production of National Manhood in Contemporary Thailand », 02/10/2013, New Mandala

Introduced by Peter Vail, The National University of Singapore.

Dr. Pattana Kitiarsa, Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, pursued a wide range of research interests before his untimely passing in January 2013. Chief among these were transnational labor migration, in particular the lives of Thai migrant construction workers in Singapore. He connected this work to other facets of life in rural northeastern Thailand, the region from which he himself originated. He examined popular Thai cinema, vernacular Buddhism, and maintained an avid interest in Muay Thai, i.e. Thai-style boxing, the national sport ubiquitous among Thailand’s lower classes.

The son of an avid boxer and thus someone exposed to boxing since early childhood, Pattana studied Muay Thai in a way that was at once passionately humanistic and anthropologically informed. He strove to understand the cultural meanings that Muay Thai embodies for rural Thais, in particular how it functions to construct masculinity. He understood the Muay Thai boxer as a key cultural archetype that connects Thai men to other pervasive masculine models–especially monks–and more broadly to the imagined nation at large. Pattana argued that Muay Thai boxing provides a narrative in which poor Thai men can imagine themselves simultaneously as dedicated breadwinners and as national heroes. It is this embodied perspective–boxing and mobility through the eyes of its everyday practitioners–that constitutes the greatest contribution of his work in this area and clearly connects his research on Muay to his other interests in labor migration and popular Buddhism. The paper below, unfinished at the time of his death, was presented in the International Conference on “Mega-Sporting Event in the Age of New Developmentalism: Perspectives from Asia” at the Enyuu Gakusya, Hokkaido University, held on 28-29 July 2012. It represents an early version of ideas and arguments pertaining to Muay Thai that Pattana was formulating and refining, and which he was intent on developing further. With the help of Pattana’s widow Aj Rungnapa Kitiarsa and his long-time collaborator and dear friend Aj Suriya Smutkupt, Michael Montesano prepared this paper for its publication on New Mandala, incorporating material from the notes that Pattana had prepared for his presentation at Hokkaido University.

Lire la suite de l’article sur : http://www.newmandala.org/pattana-kitiarsa-on-thai-boxing/

Of Men and Monks: The Boxing-Buddhism Nexus and the Production of National Manhood in Contemporary Thailand by Pattana Kitiarsa

Abstract

In Thailand, boxers and Buddhist monks share many common characteristics. Most of them started their respective careers as poor young boys from the countryside. Emerging from humble family backgrounds, they are attracted to two different extreme masculine ideals. One is deemed physically violent and deeply involved with masculine contests and worldly activities, while the other offers an ideal path to renunciation of the world and engagement in religious asceticism. How could Thai boxing (muai Thai) and Theravada Buddhism coexist and be widely practiced without significant tension in contemporary Thailand? How and why could Thailand possibly be home to two such seemingly contrasting cultural modes of masculine expression?

In this paper, I argue that boxing and Buddhism are taken by the Thais as parts of a hegemonic cultural nexus, in which they form a basis for everyday gendered ideological practices and social institutions. In and through the boxing-Buddhism nexus, a certain style and a certain sensitivity of Thai national manhood are produced and sustained. Indeed, both Thai boxing and Buddhism have traditionally served as deep-seated foundations of modern Thailand’s national patriarchal models of “nak muai” (fighter/boxer) or “nak leng” (rogue/tough guy) and “nak buat” (priest/monk). Participating, respectively, in a dominant national pastime and following a path of detachment, boxers and monks are two idealized masculine figures, whose lives and works have been narrated in the patriotic language of nation building, especially since the beginning of the twentieth century. At the pinnacles of their respective careers, men in each calling are expected to become national heroes, whose bodies and minds bear the traces of a patriarchal nationalistic ideology at both the individual and national levels.

Lire l’article sur : http://www.newmandala.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Pattana-for-NM-2-Oct-2013.pdf



Citer ce billet
Sophie Hénon (2017, 4 octobre). Pattana Kitiarsa on Thai boxing. Les carnets du CASE. Consulté le 29 mars 2024, à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/m8dt

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