The Rise and Fall of the Tribal Research Institute (TRI): "Hill Tribe" Policy and Studies in Thailand(<Special Issue>Redefining "Otherness" from Northern Thailand)

Abstract

The Tribal Research Center/Institute (TRI) was inaugurated in 1965 and dissolved by theThai government Bureaucratic Reform Act in 2002. This paper discusses the rise and fallof the TRI by showing that the TRI has come from the need of the Thai government, withthe support from foreign agencies, to have an "advisory and training" center to deal with"hill tribe problems, " in the context where few ethnic studies institutes and researchersexisted. TRI had actively served its mother organizations by providing them necessaryinformation and recommendation for the monitoring, evaluation and improvement of thegovernment and highland development projects, while its resource center and experts hadserved academic society for many decades. In 2000s, when "hill tribe problems" havediminished: communist operation stopped, opium cultivation reduced and hill tribes wereseemingly well integrated into Thai society, the government no longer needed to maintainits focus on the hill tribes and related organizations. The TRI's role was terminatedwithout any proper handing over of its human and other resources to the right institute.Unlike 40 years ago, however, now ethnic studies institutes and especially ethnic ownorganizations and communities have grown up to take care of their problems, arising fromgovernment policy and modernization, by carrying out ethnic studies and development bytheir own.