Wait and the Sky Will Change: Anticipation and Revolution in Northeastern Thailand

Abstract

Wait, and the sky will change its color" is a saying that, in Thai, points toward a future that will erase the unbearable present. But what does it mean to wait? In Northeastern Thailand, I explore this experience of holding the present in tension with an uncertain future via examples drawn from religious upheaval, political revolution, and the lives of migrant workers. Waiting on that which never comes, in this context, is neither nihilism nor escapism, but allows for the opening a space of fantasy-the imaginative horizon that allows a rethinking of the everyday. [anticipation, millenarianism, imagination, waiting, migrant labor, Thailand] RESUMEN "Espere, y el cielo cambiará su color" es un decir que señala un futuro que borrará el presente insufrible. Pero, ¿que significa esperar? En el nororiente de Tailandia, exploro esta experiencia de sostener el presente en tensión con un futuro incierto a través de ejemplos sacados de la turbulencia religiosa, la revolución política y las vidas de los trabajadores migrantes. Esperando lo que nunca llega, en este contexto, no es nihilismo ni escapismo, sino que permite el abrir un espacio de fantasía-el horizonte imaginativo que permite un repensar del día a día-. [anticipación, milenarismo, imaginación, la espera, labor migrante, Tailandia]

The Horizon and the Holy: Re-imaging the Thai Monarchy Following the 2020 Protests

“…42 Despite their public relations success, King Rama IX's hundreds of development projects did not invest a significant portion of GDP nor achieve meaningful development in many areas of high need on the nation's periphery. 43 Our Daddy Always Looks Down on Us points out the hollowness of royal propaganda that consolidated hope for salvation into one person and the tenuousness of a nation stuck together by an individual who is now gone. Prasertsup shows that always looking up to a sky that looks down on you is itself a form of limitation.…”