Rethinking Thailand's Southern Violence

by Duncan McCargo (Editor)

Since January 2004, the three Muslim-dominated provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat in the Thai south have been ablaze with political violence. Early incidents such as the bloody storming of the historic Kru-Ze mosque and the deaths of 78 Tak Bai protestors at the hands of the army made global headlines. But most of the subsequent events have gone largely unnoticed despite a terrible catalogue of "daily killings". The Thaksin Shinawatra government's persistent mishandling of the southern violence was a key factor behind the September 2006 military coup d'etat, the biggest political upheaval in Thailand since the early 1990s.



This collection by Thai and international scholars examines the reasons behind the growing unrest in south Thailand from a variety of perspectives. The contributors reject the simplistic mantras of "terrorism experts" and call for more nuanced, subtle and critical readings of history and monuments, the ambiguous role of Thaksin Shinawatra government, alternative theories and explanations for the violence, the salience of political Islam, voices of ordinary people in Pattani and the misleading paradigms of the insecurity industry.This book will change the way the southern Thailand conflict is understood.



Contributors Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Ukrist Pathmanand, Srisompob Jitpiromsri, Duncan McCargo, Panyasak Sobhonvasu, Wattana Sungunnasil, May Tan-Mullins and Michael Connors.

170 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2007

About the author

Duncan McCargo is a professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds specializing in Thailand and Asia-related topics. He holds three degrees from the University of London: a First in English (Royal Holloway 1986); then an MA in Area Studies (Southeast Asia) (1990), and a PhD in Politics (1993) (the later two from the School of Oriental and African Studies). He has also taught at Queen's University Belfast, and at Kobe Gakuin University, Japan. In 2006-07, he was a visiting senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and he served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Universiti Utara Malaysia in September 2011. McCargo is a Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University and also an Associate Fellow of the New-York-based Asia Society.