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The Magistrate is the Muse: Law and Visual Economy in Bangkok

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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Governmentality is a spatial formation negotiated within historically-constituted political landscapes. In Bangkok, this spatialization of power is manifested in the militarization of urban life and the protocols of security procedure, but also in anti-government protests and an increasingly politicized visual culture. The memory and meaning of the city’s streets exist as an overlooked legibility that challenges the visual strategies of government control. Monuments, travel routes, and other public sites of national recognition now compete in an extended urban arena of images, such as literature and cinema, which re-stage governmentality and the material contours of Thailand’s contemporary political disagreements outside of its institutional norms. I read this intersection between governing and image circulation through the development of a visual economy in Bangkok and depict how different communities—including a bureaucratized military and a populist political party, but also writers and filmmakers—intervene in its circulation. Each group zooms in on key spaces of the city in the attempt to speak to changing forms of governmentality.

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Notes

  1. Foucault opines, “it is true that the law refers to a norm… the problem that I am trying to mark out is how techniques of normalization develop from and below a system of law, in its margins and maybe even against it” [13, p. 84]. Elsewhere he remarks that while discipline is regulatory, securitization requires “letting things take their course” [13, p. 64]. Alan Hunt spatializes this Foucauldian reading of governmentality through an emphasis on the way norms fill the open-endedness of law. Individuals are invited to freely act in “good faith as to what the rules require: such a rule stipulates a normative criteria without specifying the particular conduct that would constitute a breach of the requirement.” [12, p. 72] See Hunt [12].

  2. The coup announcement always entails a high degree of massaging the message whereby a popular public persona delivers the news. Other 2006 television announcers included Prapart Sakuntanak, a Major-General who had announced two prior military coups, and Akom Mokaranond who made his first announcement in 1957. The public relations shift toward a former beauty contestant the changing face of patriarchy. See Promyamyai, Thanaporn. “Announcing coups bring fame to Thai TV anchors: 18th putsch since 1932.” Agence France-Press. Sep. 29 2006. Lexis Nexis. Web. Apr. 13 2013.

  3. Thailand Announcement. 19 Sep. 2006. Web. 25 Dec. 2008. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w-p-diBdKU>.

  4. Bhumiprabhas et al [4].

  5. See Tepwongsirirat [26].

  6. See Boyd [5].

  7. Barnes [3].

  8. The Issara Latphrao is “the tallest condominium” in the area, according to its website domain, which is named after the “I am Issara” slogan. In a protest like manner, these campaigns occupied spaces of the New City on weekends in 2007 in the attempt to register lingering shoppers. [Chan Issara Development Public Company Limited. http://www.charnissara.co.th] In the summer of 2011, Sansiri placed their ad campaign alongside Skytrain platforms. [http://www.sansiri.com].

  9. “Punishments for not standing during the royal anthem.” Prachatai.com. [Thailand] 25 Apr. 2008. <http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/617>. Web.

  10. For a recent application of the lèse majèsté criminal code, see Yimprasert [2010].

  11. See Giles Ji Ungpakorn [2007]. “The elite do not care much for either public healthcare or public transport. They can pass through traffic jams with police escorts, unlike public ambulances responding to emergencies [15].”

  12. Thaksin’s Thailand. [SBS Dateline]. Dir. Ginny Stein. Journeyman Pictures, 2005. DVD.

  13. Murdoch, Gillian. “Q + A: T-shirt politics. Thailand’s color-coded agitators.” Reuters.com. 13 Apr. 2009. <http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USTRE53C0TF20090413>. Web.

  14. Kurlantzick, Joshua. “Red v. Yellow.” London Review of Books Vol 32 No. 6 (25 March), 2010. <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n06/joshua-kurlantzick/red-v-yellow/print>. Web.

  15. “[N]ormal life has returned to the capital, with traffic able to move through areas blocked off by police after the explosions.” See “Thai PM blames rivals for blasts” BBC News. 1 Jan. 2007. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6222013.stm>. Web. 5 Jun. 2011.

  16. “Thailand hails welcome victory at Cannes film festival.” The Independent (via Agence France-Presse) 24 May 2010. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/thailand-hails-welcome-victory-at-cannes-film-festival-1981465.html. May 24 2010. Web.

  17. Ibid.

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  1. Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii Hilo, 200 W. Kawili St., Hilo, HI, 96720, USA

    Noah Viernes

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  1. Noah Viernes
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Viernes, N. The Magistrate is the Muse: Law and Visual Economy in Bangkok. Int J Semiot Law 27, 27–46 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-013-9318-9

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