On Tuesday, 3 August 2021 at 5pm, Thammasat University students are cordially invited to participate in a free Zoom webinar on Current Issues in Cultural Heritage of Southeast Asia.
The webinar will be presented by the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, Thammasat University and the Thammasat Museum of Anthropology.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes many books about different aspects of the cultural heritage of Southeast Asia.
Students are invited to register for the webinar, which will be given in Thai and English, at the following link:
shorturl.at/gFGUX
For any further information or questions, please write to the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology Faculty, Thammasat University at this email address:
tusa.research@gmail.com
On 3 August, one of the speakers will be Professor Rasmi Shoocongdej, Ph.D., of the Archaeology Faculty of Silpakorn University who will address the subject of heritage studies development in Thailand in the context of Southeast Asia.
Also, Professor Tim Winter, Ph.D., of the University of Western Australia will speak on heritage futures in Southeast Asia.
The event moderator will be Dr. Anna Karlström, Researcher at Uppsala University and Visiting scholar at Thammasat University.
The TU Library owns several books written and cowritten by Ajarn Rasmi.
Her areas of interest include late-to post-Pleistocene foragers in the tropics, Southeast Asian prehistory, cave archaeology, and archaeology and ethnic education. Her archaeological experience extended from northern, western, central, and southern Thailand to Cambodia, the southwestern United States of America (USA), and southeastern Turkey.
Presently, she is the principle investigator of An Exploration and Sustainable Heritage Management Project in Pai-Pang Mapha-Khun Yuam Districts, Mae Hong Son Province (supported by the Thailand Research Fund).
She was a director of the Archaeological Heritage Management at Ban Rai and Tham Lod Rockshelters in Pang Mapha District, Mae Hong Son Project (supported by the US Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation 2006) and Highland Archaeological Project in Pang Mapha, Mae Hong Son province, northwestern Thailand which is her most well-known research (supported by the Thailand Research Fund).
Apart from professional services, she has also been intensively worked with the local communities and Thai general public on heritage protections and archaeological educations.
Her personal website includes an essay on how she was inspired to become an archaeologist.
Originally planning to attend journalism school to become a reporter and expose historical injustices, she was not admitted to any academic journalism program due to limited availability, she studied archaeology instead and
realized that I can be a journalist of the past and still maintain my sense of responsibility to society as a whole.
After earning a PhD degree in anthropology from the University of Michigan, USA, she
further developed and extended my PhD. Dissertation in Lower Khwae Noi river basin (this area has been known from the movie Bridge Over River Khawe) (on Forager Mobility Organization in the Seasonal Tropical Environments: A View from Lang Kamnan Cave, Kanchanaburi Province, Western Thailand) which I am interested in explaining cultural change and the interaction between humans and their environments and would like to conduct comparative studies of the same environment in northern Thailand. I belief that my current research can help us understand and explain adaptive processes and local environmental variability.
At present I have a long term project in highland Pang Mapha, Mae Hon Son province, northwestern Thailand since 1998 to present. In 1998, I worked on the Cave Survey and Database System in Mae Hong Son Province. This project aims to preserve the caves from rapid tourism development in the area. Since 2001, I have been a principle investigator of the Highland Archaeology Project, a multidisciplinary research involving archaeology, physical anthropology, and dendrochronology, has carried out a long term research in Pang Mapha, Mae Hong Son Province and will continue working in this area through present. In order to understand the relationship between human and environments in highland Pang Mapha and before constructing a specific theoretical framework applicable to Thailand, this research project simply addresses a series of general issues concerning the evolution of social organization and the nature of culture change in the seasonal tropical environments. Specifically, this research will elicit the elucidation of cultural history of archaeologically poorly known part of Thailand and the world.
At present, I devoted my time to working with students as well as on a public campaign for the conservation of Thai and ethic heritages in Thailand. As my current position is an associate professor of archaeology and a chair of the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Bangkok, Thailand. My long term goal is to train a young generation of Thai archaeologist to enhance awareness of cultural heritage and to develop a sense of responsibility to the society… My professional achievement is my long-term research project in highland Pang Mapha. Academically, the excavations uncovered the skeletal remains of two individuals from Tham Lod rockshelter are the oldest homo sapiens sapiens found in northern Thailand and the largest excavated lithic workshop found in Thailand that dates to the Late Pleistocene period. It is important to note that there are less than 10 late Pleistocene sites found in Thailand.
The consequence of long term research has helped the local ethnic groups, who are minority groups of Thailand proud of themselves and indirectly it has the potential to generate income and employment. The project have taken place in highland Pang Mapha, a small district in Mae Hong Son Province in northwest Thailand bordering the Shan State of Burma. Pang Mapha is distinctively diverse biologically and culturally, comprising various ethic groups who migrated to this area over several decades, including Shan (Tai), Karen, Lahu, Lisu, Hmong, and Lua. Pang Mapha has a long been the target of government modernizing policies, such as opium eradication, encouraged by international donor agencies.
I believe that the past can serve the present and the future. Through the public campaign I am doing now, I hope that the research commitment can have an impact on a much broader scale not only regional but international levels. I have worked closely with the communities in order to develop the site museums and guide training both children and adults. In doing so, I have developed an integrated project (an art project) which has brought experts from various fields (e.g., archaeologists, anthropologists, artists, educators, architects, scientists, museologists) to help preserve the “archaeological heritage” of humankind. Working closely with local and academic communities on heritage management at Ban Rai and Tham Lod rockshelter sites, demonstrates that archaeology is not only a science of the past, but also a discipline that cuts across all spatial and temporal boundaries.
Professor Winter’s university webpage indicates:
As an interdisciplinary scholar, my work addresses current trends in cultural internationalism, and how the past is (re)constructed for public audiences and for diplomatic and nationalistic purposes. My recent book Geocultural Power: China’s Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty First Century (University of Chicago Press 2019) introduced the concept of geocultural power to the analysis of international affairs, an area that is further developed in the forthcoming The Silk Road: geocultural pasts, geostrategic futures (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Over the past decade I have been at the forefront in the conceptual development of heritage diplomacy, with much of this work characterised by critical perspectives towards the issues facing developing, postcolonial or post-conflict societies.
My current interests lie in the future of cultural internationalism and the role of culture, history and heritage in such contexts. By looking at the re-emergence of civilizational discourses from rising and middle powers across Eurasia, this work speaks to current debates about a shifting world order. I am also leading projects that examine maritime heritage as an emerging platform of international cultural policy and diplomatic strategy.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)