:: Background and rationale
The world’s vast area called Southeast Asia, Thailand included, is a region of great ethnic diversities. The languages spoken by the ethnic groups belong to varied language families such as Austroasiatic, Tai, Chinese-Tibetan, Hmong-Yao, and Austronasian . The economies, lifestyles, social and political organizations, beliefs, as well as identities, of these ethnic groups also differ.
Due to the above fact the localities of the ethnic groups have been, for a long period of time -- possibly over 100 years, research fields for academicians of various disciplines including anthropology, history, linguistics, folklore, and so on. But those research pieces, scattered in so many academic institutes, consequently are not easily accessible for new Thai researchers interested in ethnological work and wishing to do more or deeper researches. The obstacles could mean the places where the old research documents are kept, or the inadequate understanding of the languages used in those works.
For the purpose of giving incentives and encouragement to interested academicians in ethnology, and providing them an information source, speedy and convenient, the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, since 2003, has been engaged in a project, the objective of which is to develop the ethnic groups database where systematized research data are available online and can be made use of by interested parties or individuals, following the subjects or topics of their interests, and thus making it easier for them to sum up the essential points necessary for further in-depth studies.
:: Project scope
1. Contents of the ethnic groups research stored in the database The project working team started by studying some other relevant databases including the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) of Yale University where, for over 5 years, ethnographical research compiling had been done before they presently have been stored online. The team has learned that each particular database has its own data analysis objectives and scopes. Therefore, it is essential that our database, similarly, must have our own as well. So our objective is to provide our users with preliminary background knowledge of each ethnological research so that if they desire to read any particular original work, it would be possible to search for and to read it independently3 , thus further researches could be done more quickly so. The Project Committee therefore, renders the service of having text analysts for a number of subject categories as follows :
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Subject Categories |
Explanation |
1. |
Text Analyst |
Give name – last name of text analyst |
2. |
Subject |
Give key words of overall essentials of research pieces, books, or articles, in sequence of importance : ethnic groups, main issues, secondary issues, provinces/regions |
3. |
Author |
Give name of author, or editor, as appears in books or articles. Documents in Thai – give first name - last name of writer (followed by title conferred by the King, ranks, positions); English documents – give last name, middle name, first name |
4. |
Title |
Title of work (if in other languages, not in Thai – give title in the language used in that work, followed by its Thai translation. If in English, no translation is needed). |
5. |
Document Type |
Give document type (books, articles, research reports, dissertations) |
6. |
Total Pages |
Give number of pages or excerpts |
7. |
Source |
Source of articles/researches Give name of book/magazine, as is in a bibliography (book title, “article title”, publisher, publishing place, number of pages) |
8. |
Year |
Year of publication |
9. |
Location of Document |
Location where papers/research works/articles are found or stored. (Photocopies of papers/articles are marked as from the Centre). |
10. |
Focus |
Summarized focuses of research study |
11. |
Theoretical Issues |
Proposal or concept presented in the study Affiliations of different academic phenomena |
12. |
Ethnic Group(s) in the Study |
Name ethnic group(s) that is/are the main objective(s) in the study |
13. |
Language and Linguistic Affiliation |
Explain and give information on language systems and family categorization in the study |
14. |
Community Site and Environment |
Research location. Give name of community/tambon/ amphur/province/country/continent (Mark latitudes and longitudes if mentioned in the study) |
15. |
Study Period |
Duration of study time (Also state time duration of each field work data collection) |
16. |
History of the Group and Community |
General background of the community in the study
1. Historical study – give dates related to community history
2. Community study – indicate time duration of the study
3. Study involving 1 and 2 above – give information on both |
17. |
Settlement Pattern |
Give information on settlement pattern, housing pattern, of the community in the study |
18. |
Demography (population number and structure, migration, birth and death) |
Give demographic statistics (population density/birth rate and mortality rate/population number). Give data levels, if there are. |
19. |
Economy (natural resources, resource utilization, technology, production, exchange, and consumption |
Give information on production system, economic exchange and consumption in the study |
20. |
Social Organization (marriage, family structure types, kinship including descent groups, other kinds of grouping such as client-patron relationship, classes, interested groups and socialization |
Give information on social structure in the study |
21. |
Political Organization (power structure and relations, leadership, factions, conflicts, relationship to state, social control, laws) |
Give information on political and administrative structures in the study |
22. |
Belief Systems (beliefs, values, ideology, religious rites and practices) |
Give details on religions, religious rites, beliefs |
23. |
Education and Socialization |
Give details on education, knowledge perpetuation, and affiliation with social reformation |
24. |
Health and Medicine (sanity, beliefs related to health and healing) |
Explain public health and disease treatment systems (local wisdom in medicine) in the study |
25. |
Folklore (myths, legends, stories and play) |
Give information on words of mouth, tales, legends, in the study |
26. |
Arts and Crafts (architecture, clothing, literature, andicrafts, songs, dances, etc.) |
Give information on architecture, performing arts, handicrafts, clothing, costumes, in the study |
27. |
Ethnicity (ethnic identity, identification, ethnic maintenance, boundaries and relation) |
Give details of ethnic relations with other ethnic groups, or of ethnic maintenance Give specifications of ethnic groups’ names of unequal relation significance |
28. |
Socio-Cultural Change |
Explain socio-cultural changes |
29. |
Other issue |
Explain main issues or emphases in the study |
30. |
Abstract |
Summarize main points in the study |
31. |
Map & illustrate |
Give names of maps and illustrations in the study |
32. |
Date of Report |
Give date the report is submitted for contents accuracy and completion check |
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2. Ethnic groups and boundaries to be summarized and stored in the database This database, in the long run, is supposed to cover overall Thai and Southeast Asia ethnic groups. However, at the present preliminary stage the emphasis is mainly on the ethnic works done in Thailand only. Our next objective is to expand the work scope in compiling all ethnic researches of other Southeast Asian countries. The Project, moreover, has defined very broadly the meaning of ethnic groups, thus making it applicable for many types of ethnic works. This is due to the fact that the meaning of ethnic groups has changed over the years. For example, the term “ethnic groups” in anthropology, during the decades of 1947-1967, was used to refer to the groups that were different from the other groups culturally. This type of categorization, a materialistic one, was done by anthropologists who were interested in human and cultural subjects. But in the later 70’s, the meaning of “ethnic groups” emphasized the awareness in categorization based on cultural differences determined by the ethnic members themselves of each particular group. This explains why ethnic groups researches of different times each reflected different meanings, and which is true even in the present time. The fact that the Project makes use of the broader meanings has made it possible for our database boundary to cover all ethnic groups characterized by themselves or by the others to be different culturally from the other groups. But at this early stage the framework and the boundaries still have to be narrowed down by compiling only the subjects on those ethnic groups regarded as the “minorities” in Thailand. There have not yet been researches on the Thai groups in the Central, the North, the Northeast, and the South of the country. Excluded also are the works on the “overseas” Chinese in Thailand, as some other academic institutes such as the Asian Studies Institute of Chulalongkorn University have shown interest and already collected some data on these people.
3. Types of data The project implementation involves 3 types of data as follows :
1. Contents (according to Subject Categories)
2. Illustrations on the cultures of the ethnic groups, including
- clothing
- housing
- traditions and religious rites
- tools and utensils
3. Maps
4. Text Analyst
Opportunities to work with us are given to interested researchers, B.A. and M.A. students, as well as people in general by getting to know the details and the direction of the project as well as by practicing ethnological summarization. On the 10th of June2003, thirty-two people participated in the first training. A month later on the 9th of June, the second training was held for further practice and the review of subject categorization.
So far until August 2011, there have been 183 text analysts from various walks of life such as students, public officers, private employees, and people in general. At present, more text analysts are still welcome to work with us. So if you are interested in ethnology, tribal people or ethnic minorities and good at summing up essential main ideas or like to develop ethnology studies, we really appreciate your working with us.
Work with Us
The project gives incentive and encouragement to those who interested in summing up and analyzing given ethnological works, such as textbooks, theses, researches and articles, both written in Thai and foreign languages, such as English, Japanese, French and Vietnamese, to be stored online. Essential main points are to be summarized in Thai according to 32 subject categories. (Please study the categorization and suggestion for text analysts)
Submission – Proofreading – Editing – Online Storage
Summarized works will be proof-read and edited after submission by experienced researchers in ethnology. In case editing is needed, the work will be returned to the analyst to be edited based on comments given. Only the edited versions will be stored online.
Consideration
To protect and respect the intellectual property rights of the author, please do not copy and paste the information from the original work. Also please make sure to write the summary in your own words and cite a page or pages from which the contents are taken. The name of the text analyst will appear on each summarized work as reference.
Agreement
The Thailand and Southeast Asia Ethnic Groups Research Database has been created to provide our users with preliminary background knowledge of each ethnological research and to facilitate the studies of ethnological research work for interested academicians, researchers, students and people in general. Important research works are carefully chosen for ethnological summary thus making it more easily accessible. In case you would like to copy the information from the database, please kindly add a proper citation on your work.
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