Cultural diversity in Thailand is generally represented by the Thai government in regional terms. Thailand is officially divided into central Thailand, northern Thailand, northeastern Thailand, and southern Thailand. Among the peoples of these four regions there is great linguistic and cultural diversity, but the official rhetoric has been that they are all "Thai"-where "Thai" is an ethnically and culturally loaded term. Indeed, from the turn of the century the Thai government has firmly discouraged use of the ethnic labels "Lao," "Khmer," "Malay," for Thailand's peoples in favor of the one category "Thai."
With the growth of regional tertiary education in recent decades a renewed interest has emerged in the history, language, literature, and culture of Thailand's varied regions. Much of this work gives a different perspective to the dominant discourse of Thai history and Thai culture as expressed by the bureaucracy, the military, and nationalistic scholars. For example, in 1996 the International Thai Studies Conference was held in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, in commemoration of the city's 700th anniversary. The conference included panels on the history of "Lanna" (the old kingdom of which Chiang Mai was the capital) and the culture of the Yuan people of the region, with little reference to the official narratives of Thai history or to the usual Bangkok-centric notion of Thai identity.
Cultural diversity in Thailand is generally represented by the Thai government in regional terms. Thailand is officially divided into central Thailand, northern Thailand, northeastern Thailand, and southern Thailand. Among the peoples of these four regions there is great linguistic and cultural diversity, but the official rhetoric has been that they are all "Thai"-where "Thai" is an ethnically and culturally loaded term. Indeed, from the turn of the century the Thai government has firmly discouraged use of the ethnic labels "Lao," "Khmer," "Malay," for Thailand's peoples in favor of the one category "Thai."With the growth of regional tertiary education in recent decades a renewed interest has emerged in the history, language, literature, and culture of Thailand's varied regions. Much of this work gives a different perspective to the dominant discourse of Thai history and Thai culture as expressed by the bureaucracy, the military, and nationalistic scholars. For example, in 1996 the International Thai Studies Conference was held in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, in commemoration of the city's 700th anniversary. The conference included panels on the history of "Lanna" (the old kingdom of which Chiang Mai was the capital) and the culture of the Yuan people of the region, with little reference to the official narratives of Thai history or to the usual Bangkok-centric notion of Thai identity.
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