| Abstract |
Drawing on qualitative research conducted in Khon Kaen, a city in northeastern Thailand, this paper aims to examine the construction and contestation of meanings involving a local epic known as “Sinsai” that has been recently introduced as part of the required curriculum in Khon Kaen Municipal (KKM) schools. In order to comply with Thai state educational development policy, the tale of Sinsai was selected by the KKM administrative board to represent local values in connection with the regional economic, political, and socio-economic context. As Sinsai has been adapted and transformed into a form of “local knowledge,” the story has been reformulated to mold students’ perceptions and thinking about its content, and the protagonist has been co-opted to represent an ideal identity that students should strive to achieve. The adoption of the KKM version of the narrative as a required item in the curriculum requires the unavoidable participation of teachers in constructing a discursive practice or a technology of power that strives to instill a particular set of meanings embedded in the knowledge produced and determined by the KKM.
Despite their crucial role—as determined by the KKM—to perform as surrogates to instill in their pupils the local knowledge produced by the KKM about the story of Sinsai, some teachers resist—not only on the grounds that it may mislead students to accept a manufactured discourse about the beauty of the local, but may also hinder their learning, which is evaluated by national key performance indicators. This contestation between local and national “truths” has led certain teachers to ignore KKM directives or to try to circumvent them. The practice of resistance reflects the paradoxical nature of power, that, after being mobilized, it is constantly fluctuating and never remains as the domain of one group but is always shifting, depending on who is mobilizing it and to what ends.
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Publication
Journal Publication
ไทย