Racial categorization brought into being, following Thongchai's geo neologism, the "people-body', the Thai. the us and the 'them' would be a constant internal tension of Thai identity, for this was nothing other than for this was the imposition of a centralized identity over a disparate population. The Thai' was a call to unity, while a recognition that people were not sufficiently Thai and had to be made so, was a call disciplinary work on the for people-body
Two significant things may be said of the myth of origins relating to the Thai nation and its people. in standard history and classroom teachings of it, the ethno-base of the nation is uniformly presented as based on a southern migration from China by the many Thai-speaking people. Yet these diverse peoples become subsumed under a central Thai identity constructed in Bangkok. This historical origin became the discursive basis on which central Thai chauvinism worked to marginalize other ethnic groups 35 The year 1939 marked the pinnacle of this project when Phibun Songkram changed the name of Siam, a part of his strategy to reclaim parts of Laos. E. Bruce Reynolds explains the relevance of this move: ostensibly Thailand represented a more accurate translation of the Thai term "Muang Thai, but it was well understood that the change reflected an aspiration to bring all neighboring peoples ethnically related to the Thai under Bangkok's rule. In the expansive view of Phibun's chief ideologue, Luang Wichitwatakan, these included not only the Lao, the Shans, and the T'ai peoples in southwestern China, but the Cambodia as well. 36