タイ中国人社会研究の歴史性と地域性 : 冷戦期アメリカにおける華僑・華人研究と地域研究に関する一考察(<特集>東南アジアを超えて : 華僑・華人史研究のフロンティア)

Abstract

This essay examines the historiography of Chinese society in Thailand, focusing on the idea of "assimilation."Post-WWII scholarship on the Chinese in Thailand has been strongly influenced by what JenniferCushman called the "Skinner `assimilation paradigm.'" G.W. Skinner, in his Leadership and Power in theChinese Community of Thailand (1958), predicted a rapid assimilation of the entire Chinese community;subsequent scholarship, negatively or positively, made its arguments by referring to this paradigm.However, many scholars have found ethnicity to be tenacious or ethnic identity to be arbitrary, and variousChinese factors and elements have come to be manifested more openly in Thai society in response tothe (re)emergence of China as an economic and political power since the 1990s. In recent years, therefore, there has been a growing tendency to question this paradigm. By re-reading Skinner's various workswritten from as early as 1950, tracing relevant works done by other contemporary scholars in the samefield, and placing them in historical and geo-political contexts, this essay explores why such emphasis wasgiven to the idea of assimilation and how it persisted in subsequent years. It argues that assimilation was aresponse to "political" needs in the era of Cold War and emergent nationalism in Southeast Asia and thatstudies of overseas Chinese societies in Thailand and Southeast Asia were created as an integral part ofthe "area studies" strongly advocated in the U.S. since the 1950s.