The cult of Phaya Narin Songkhram: Spirit mediums and shifting sociocultural boundaries in northeastern Thailand

Introduction Boundaries manifest themselves in various ways, and exist in a multitude of forms. Some are marked by fences or walls that physically restrict passage; others are unrecognisable without knowledge of local sociocultural 'markers'. Sometimes the most restrictive boundaries remain physically unmarked, while others that are more easily discernible may actually be quite porous. Some boundaries exist as indicators of difference, but may not physically obstruct passage. Some are sharp and seemingly unmoving; others are varyingly fuzzy, broad, contested, and conditional. Boundaries have various meanings and consequences for groups and individuals, and these meanings are constantly changing through contestation, negotiation, struggle, accommodation, and shifting circumstances. Some are recent creations; others have existed much longer, even for generations. Some apply to most people or everyone; others are only relevant to particular groups or individuals, including certain minorities. All change in intensity over time, some become more meaningful; others less so. (1) Today, human geographers--and those in related disciplines--tend to think of places and identity as mutually constituted but also variously interactive. Both are constructed through discourse and practice, (2) but are also contested in multitudes of ways. As Robert Kaiser and Elena Nikiforova have explained, one of the main values of this tendency amongst scholars has been to ensure that both place and identity are not thought of in essentialised or reified ways. (3) Similarly, there has also long been a tendency to think of borderlands or other kinds of boundaries as less rigid configurations. This is the analytical lens that I adopt in this research; I see boundaries as multiple, complicated, and variable. The district of Chatturat in northeast Thailand and its surrounding area present an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the ways in which particular sociocultural boundaries have been produced and reproduced through the practices, discourses, and symbolism of spirit mediums. My understanding generally coincides with Henri Lefebvre's, which is that space is continually produced, altering power relations along the way. (4) I have also observed that the role of spirit mediums is changing, thus leading to shifts in the meanings and significance of boundaries, in this case diminishing their political nature significantly, but increasing their links to leisure and pleasure, or as local people say, having 'fun' (muan in Lao). In this article I consider some shifting meanings of particular sociocultural boundaries, the construction of which are deeply rooted in history and are based on political struggles, ethnic and linguistic differences, symbolic materiality, and cultural performance. I am interested in the region near the largely unmarked boundaries between those who are culturally and linguistically linked to being ethnic 'Lao'--even if today they are much more likely to identify as being 'Thai' or 'Thai Isan' (from northeastern Thailand)--and those who have historically identified themselves as ethnically and culturally 'Thai Khorat', 'central Thai', or simply 'Thai'. In particular, I examine the ways spirit mediums have been and are implicated in political and historical tensions that exist between the 'Lao' and the 'Thai' in a particular 'border region' embedded within a modern nation-state/kingdom, and how these tensions arise culturally and spatially. I also want to suggest ways in which the meanings of medium-centred spirit cults are changing in relation to this sociocultural yet intimate political boundary, (5) and demonstrate how complex identity politics have emerged. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] This study is partially focused on a group of older women who are spirit mediums living in Chatturat district, in the southern part of Chaiyaphum Province, northeastern Thailand (Fig. 1 and Fig. …