The Quest for “Siwilai”: A Geographical Discourse of Civilizational Thinking in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Siam
Top Cited Papers
- 1 August 2000
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Duke University Press in Journal of Asian Studies
- Vol. 59 (3) , 528-549
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021911800014327
Abstract
On 27 december 1932, prince bhidayalongkorn, the President of the Royal Institute of Siam, delivered a special lecture titled “What are the conditions called ‘siwilai’?” [Phawa yangrai no thi riakwa khwam siwilai]. Transliterated from the English word civilized, the term was widely used in public without elaboration. Bhidayalongkorn reported that there was a debate whether Siam was or was not yet siwilai, often referring to England, China, Haiti, Tibet, and many other countries, but it was not clear what made them siwilai or not siwilai. He went on debunking the general understanding that wealth, power, territory, monogamy, gender equity, cleanliness, dress, etiquette, or mechanization constituted the notion of siwilai. The meaning was slippery, no matter how anybody tried to claim or use it politically (Bhidayalongkorn 1970).Keywords
This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:
- Southeast Asia as a Southeast Asian Field of StudyIndonesia, 1994
- Fields from the SeaPublished by Cornell University Press ,1993
- World Conqueror and World RenouncerPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,1976
- Buddhist Cosmography in Thai History, with Special Reference to Nineteenth-Century Culture ChangeJournal of Asian Studies, 1976
- Imperial EyesPublished by Taylor & Francis ,1900