The (re)production of Sino-Thai legacies as ordinary heritage in contemporary Bangkok
Résumé :
Abstract
Bangkok’s old town has undergone profound transformations in recent decades, shaped by large-scale redevelopment, transport expansion, and rising land values. These changes have led to the demolition of historic areas and the displacement of communities. At the same time, public debates and civic mobilizations have drawn attention to the conservation of ordinary urban heritage, questioning the limits of official definitions. This local shift has been reinforced by international discourse, which has encouraged broader understandings of heritage beyond monuments. Within this national and international context, diverse local communities are increasingly engaged in projects related to ordinary heritage, contributing to renewed approaches to heritage practices. Sino-Thai communities, long central to the history and commerce of Bangkok’s old town, provide a distinctive terrain for examining these dynamics. This research focuses on Samphanthawong and the surrounding areas, analyzing heritage practices across multiple scales, including Chinese temples, shophouses, and community-led cultural initiatives undertaken by residents, associations, and religious institutions.
The research examines how Sino-Thai legacies have been historically formed and represented, how they have been selectively recognized or marginalized within official heritage policies, and how communities mobilize them in response to redevelopment pressures. The analysis is oriented towards three areas of reflection. First, Sino-Thai heritage occupies an ambiguous position, neither excluded nor fully protected, but subject to conditional recognition shaped by political and economic agendas. Then, Chinese temples reveal participatory management rooted in associations and self- organized groups, reflecting enduring capacities for mobilization around conservation. Finally, heritage functions as a field of negotiation and self-representation, as Sino-Thai communities strategically reappropriate “Chineseness” to assert identity, maintain visibility, and resist displacement.
To achieve this analysis, the thesis examines historical, policy, and planning documents, as well as heritage practices across multiple scales, ranging from Chinese religious sites, shophouses, and residences to neighborhoods. These objects exhibit different trajectories of heritage development, ranging from preservation and adaptation to reinvention and contestation. By revealing both the participatory and contested dimensions of heritage practice, the analysis shows how ordinary heritage is both a site of struggle and a resource to be mobilized. Sino-Thai heritage, with its attendant practices of conservation, rehabilitation, and cultural initiatives, thus constitutes both an object of study and an analytical lens for examining broader dynamics, including urban transformation, identity negotiation, and the governance of heritage in contemporary Bangkok.
Keywords: Sino-Thai heritage, legacies, Bangkok, ordinary heritage, urban transformation, participation, identity
