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Archiving State Violence in Thailand

Fri, March 17, 10:30am to 12:30pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: Mezzanine, Birchwood Ballroom

Abstract

The formation of collections in national archives and other state document repositories is always imbued with politics. This is particularly the case with respect to materials about state violence, whose presence is linked to the regime in power and whether or not a transition that includes the opening of state archives has taken place. This relationship is not formulaic, however, and the range of possible materials present reflects the intersections among collections, knowledge production, and state violence. This paper examines these intersections through an analysis of the National Archives of Thailand (NAT). Across years of coups and dictatorship since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand has never undergone a transition to democracy. Military, police, and other officials have never faced prosecution for mass violence and accountability in individual cases is rare. This does not mean that there is no evidence of state violence in the NAT, but that it is present as absence, contradiction, and the occasionally obvious. Drawing on research in the NAT and other state repositories, this paper first develops a framework for parsing the meaning of what is archived in states which have not undergone transitions, or only undergone partial transitions, to democracy. Second, informed by comparative political and archival transformations in post-authoritarian regimes, this paper concludes by speculating on what changes in the NAT may occur when there is a transition to a democratic regime, and vice versa, what kinds of transformations in the NAT might aid in the process.

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