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Moving Emotions in Thai Political Life: They Tie as Well as Tear; They Pull as Well as Push

Sat, March 18, 3:00 to 5:00pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: Mezzanine, Willow Centre

Abstract

This paper examines political unrest over recent decades to show us how much emotions and their relation to ethical obligations are governing Thai political life. For example, despite attempts to stop voting, the election on Feb, 2, 2014 showed nearly 90% of polling stations operated normally and voter turnout was almost 50% of 43 million eligible voters in Thailand What lies inside these numbers is emotions: hope, anger, happiness, rage, grievance, frustration, to name a few. The actions of emotions appeared in various forms, such as mob clashes, posting on social media, the divide within family, friends, the forms of silence and forms of realignment that take place among people who have different political stances. The more we realise how much emotions matter in politics, the more ignored, distorted or even excluded they are within the political sphere by various groups of people, no matter what their political standpoint is. And it leads me to a related question that I address - what is missed in a study of Thai politics based on depoliticised emotional dimensions and practice in relation to ethical claims?

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