Alexander Horstmann & Anusorn Unno
Editors’ Introduction– At the Margins of the Siamese Kingdom: Violent Conflict in Southern Thailand
The Thai or Siamese kingdom has always understood itself as a homogeneous imagined national community, in which the Siamese in the Center of Ayutthaya and Bangkok have gradually expanded to the frontiers in the North, Northeast and the South and have, in the rulers understanding, civilising the wild and barbarian peoples living at the edge of the nation. Peoples living in Southern Thailand were divided between Buddhists in upper Southern Thailand until Songkhla, while Muslims tended to dominate the lower part of Southern Thailand, beginning in Pattani. The city of Nakhorn Sri Thammarat used to be the central military garrison, from which the Siamese kingdom expanded towards the lower South, only to be stopped by the British. In Southern Thailand, the Thai Buddhist civilisation met with the Malay Muslim civilisation in the Malay peninsula, marginalising the indigenous people from the coastal regions and the islands, living in the maritime worlds of the oceans. In the lower South, Malay Muslim local elites [...]
