Offerings: Food Traditions of Older Thai Women at Songkran

Abstract

It is deep within our hearts that we have to do this." Such words reflect the potency of subjective and social meaning of food occupations for older Thai women at Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year. This paper presents the Thai findings from a multi-site research project exploring older women's experiences of food occupations at Songkran in Chiang Mai, Thailand; and Christmas in Auckland, New Zealand, and Kentucky, USA. Narrative data for this study were collected through focus group interviews with 33 Thai women aged 60 years or over as the women talked about planning, preparing, and offering food at Songkran. The women's stories reveal the centrality of carrying on ritualistic food traditions in Chiang Mai society. They must know and follow the ancient ways and recipes taught by mothers and grandmothers as they prepare themselves and the foods for going to the temple where they offer food to the monks and their deceased ancestors. Happiness comes from earning merit, doing the jobs themselves and knowing they contribute to a good and generous Thai society. Their ways are the traditional ways. Doing and passing on food occupations to their daughters and granddaughters will "serve the good traditions forever." The findings from this study contribute to the occupational science literature through documenting food occupations and their meanings for older women within one cultural group. The multi-site nature of the project contributes to understandings of occupation that transcend cultural boundaries.

An examination of the pairing between narrative and occupational science

“…Within occupational science narrative data can range from addressing the lifespan of one individual (30,40) to brief incidents recounted by many individuals (67,68). For instance, life stories refer to information that can either cover an entire lifetime or pertain to specific aspects or periods within a lifetime (69)(70)(71)(72).…”

“…In this analytic strategy, stories are commonly analyzed to extract themes, which provide insight into realms of meaning. In some instances, thematic analysis can be undertaken systematically in a way that allows multiple researchers to analyze the same data and consistently extract similar themes (43,67,73,80).…”

Exploring ‘wicked problems’ from an occupational perspective: The case of turf cutting in rural Ireland

“…Participants in the study learned how to perform the occupation of saving turf from their parents and grandparents, and expressed a strong desire to share this leaning with their own (future) children in the same way. Wright-St Clair, Bunrayong, Vittayakorn, Rattakorn and Hocking, (2004) suggested that the transmission of particular ways of knowing and doing occupation between generations contributes to a generational consciousness, which in turn enhances collective ancestral identity. The sense of generational consciousness adds a further depth of meaning to performing an occupation, since in doing what has always been done participants are honouring the memory of their ancestors and ensuring continuity of an occupational heritage into the future.…”

Activity as a tool in language training for immigrants and refugees

“…In one empirical study Schisler Connor & Polatajko (15) studied refugees and transformations in their everyday lives, while another study by Hocking et al (10,16) concerned cultural knowledge and everyday activities. In a refugee camp in Austria, Steindl et al (12) looked at how females handled the transformation in participation in everyday activities.…”