Andrew Walker is an anthropologist based in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University. He is currently working on rural modernisation and local politics in northern Thailand.
Andrew Walker is an anthropologist based in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University. He is currently working on rural modernisation and local politics in northern Thailand. He is author (with Tim Forsyth) of Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers: The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand (University of Washington Press, 2008). He also wrote The Legend of the Golden Boat: Regulation, Trade and Traders in the Borderlands of Thailand, Laos, Burma and China (Curzon Press, 1999). His blog, New Mandala, provides anecdote, analysis and new perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia.
Read Andrew Walker’s blog New Mandala.
At the ICAS-AAS conference in Honolulu in March 2011, Andrew agreed that we film an interview with him about Tai Lands and Thailand. Here, he argues for a new understanding of ‘community’ in the Tai/Thai world.
Books by this author
Tai Lands and Thailand
Community and State in Southeast Asia
Studies of the Tai world often treat ‘state’ and ‘community’ as polar opposites: the state produces administrative uniformity and commercialization while community sustains tradition, local knowledge and subsistence economy. Tai Lands and Thailand takes a very different view, aiming to liberate community from its stereotypical associations.