Red Journeys: Inside the Thai Red-Shirt Movement

by Claudio Sopranzetti

Red Journeys is a firsthand account of the emergence and expansion of the red-shirt protests in Bangkok that took place in 2010. It traces the origins of the protest, focusing on the unique voices, stories, and motives of those who participated in the movement.

Based upon hundreds of interviews and weeks spent alongside the red shirts in the middle of the protest, Sopranzetti vividly depicts daily life in the heart of the its personalities, routines, rumors, and organization. As the peaceful occupation descended into violence and neared its tragic end, he describes the final moments of the protest when red shirts faced off with the Thai military.

Styled engagingly between ethnography and daily blog, Red Journeys offers an unprecedented analysis of the biggest social movement in Thailand to date and highlights the discrepancies between the "official" media portrayal of the protest and the reality on the ground.

137 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2012

About the author

Claudio was born in a small town in Central Italy. He received his BA from University of Rome in 2005 in Anthropology and Linguistics. After working for NGOs in Kenya and traveling around West Africa and Southeast Asia, he begun a PhD in Social Anthropology at Harvard University writing and researching about urban development, social movements, and history in Thailand, Cambodia, and Venezuela. In 2012 he published his first book, Red Journey: Inside the Thai Red-Shirt Movement with Silkworm Book and Washington University Press. In 2013, Claudio received his PhD in 2013. Currently he is based in Oxford University where he is a fellow of All Souls College, a research associate at the Future of Cities Center, and lectures at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology.