From the 1950s until the mid-1980s, notions of power in photographic discourse could also be found in the widespread display of images of the country’s military dictators. Although the waning of the Thai military’s dominance over politics, beginning in the late 1970s, led to a reduction of the significance of this type of image, the representation of power continues by way of the widespread circulation of Thailand’s “Hi-So” class, associated with “big business” in a global context.
Examining the maintenance and representation of hierarchies within Thai society, the influence of pre-photographic visual and textual sources is clear.[2] Less clear is how these pre-photographic, or, to borrow Clark’s term, endogenous, sources were reconciled and relativized alongside the exogenous nature of the photographic apparatus itself and the implication of the Euramerican presence it signified.[3] Additionally, the continuing presence of photographs of power, and their role in the production and maintenance of the stratification of Thai society, begs the question of the nature of the shifting, frequently contradictory relationship between these endogenous and exogenous sources in photographic practice in Thailand.
Photography complicates any understanding of relationships between the endogenous and the exogenous, primarily because by its very nature as a technical medium, it is associated with modernity. The time of its arrival in premodern societies is often easily pinpointed, and this moment may then be placed within a causational framework as a turning point in various movements toward modernization. This focus on photography as a “marker” of modernity does not disturb the centrality of Euramerica in many studies of modernity in non-Euramerican contexts, as is it believed that the arrival of photography in Asia was dependent on contact with Euramerica as a condition of technological transfer.[4] In decentering Euramerica as the source of photography’s development in Asian contexts, it is apparent that these understandings underestimate not only the agency of individuals in the selective adoption and mobilization of technologies and styles generally associated with Euramerican modernity, but also the complex relationship between these technologies and local understandings.
Here, the relationship between endogenous and exogenous discourses is best characterized by what Clark has termed “relativisation.”[5] Implicit is the recognition that the very choice to adapt certain technologies or styles from a Euramerican context to an Asian one occurs in relation to the needs of the receiving or endogenous, discourse at that particular time. Through such processes, the received or exogenous discourse is filtered through preexisting modes of understanding that are themselves relativized through this contact, and continue to be relativized through future exchanges.[6]
In this way, the terms endogenous and exogenous are not utilized as a means of creating a dichotomy between Euramerican modernity and its “others.” Rather, they describe the discursive construction of visual discourses within particular historical and geographical contexts.[7] The construction of “inside” and “outside” in relation to nationally defined visual landscapes is, in fact, a political process. As the vast influence of Chinese, Hindu, and Brahmanic sources on so-called endogenous Thai culture testifies, the exogenous may itself, over time, become endogenous through a process of relativization. In the Thai context, Herzfeld defines this problem:
Thus, the question of whether certain habits of thought are “Thai
Buddhist” or “Western,” while grounded in the historical processes that
have indeed led to contemporary understandings, must today be read as an
argument about contested idioms of legitimation. What people say about
origins is one part, and only one, of what they do with them. Origins
are perhaps less important than the ways and contexts in which both the
discourse and its attributed origins are deployed.[8]
The representation of power through Thai photographic practice has,
within different historical and political contexts, relied to varying
degrees on endogenous and exogenous sources of legitimization. Following
on Herzfeld, I will discuss the history of conventions for the
photographic representation of power in Thailand and the political
conditions that determined their relationships to endogenous and
exogenous sources.The Traibumikhatha and Barami in Pre-photographic Discourse
The most significant text informing the structure of Thai society is the Traibumikhatha (The Three Worlds According to King Ruang). First compiled in Siamese from Pali sources in the fourteenth century, it is known as Thailand’s oldest book and comprises a detailed description of the Theravadin Buddhist cosmology, from the material world, including various hells and our own material world, to the semimaterial heavens populated by thewada, or angels, to the nonmaterial world of Nibbana, the source of enlightenment.[9] Movement among these worlds occurs through successive rebirths: one’s position within the hierarchy is determined by the merit (bun) or demerit (bap) accrued in past lives. As a quantifiable “tally” of positive or negative moral behavior, one’s karmic points determine the degree of joy or anguish to be experienced in subsequent lifetimes.Just as the structure of the Ayutthayan and later Siamese city mirrored the Theravadin concept of the universe constructed around the center of Mount Meru,[10] the cosmological structure of the Traibumikhatha was mirrored in the Ayutthayan and Siamese sakdina (loosely, “feudal”) system.[11] Within this system,[12] social position was determined through the conferring of “dignity marks.”[13] These were related not only practically to the quantifiable area of an individual’s landholdings, but also ideologically to the number of men under his control.[14] Thus, wealth and power were legitimized through associations with Buddhist notions of karma and were given ethical value as manifestations of good deeds from previous lives,[15] and correspondingly the increased ability for self-reliance,[16] and the ability to participate in merit-making ceremonies.[17] At the apex was the Cakkavatti king, whose merit and virtue secured his place at the top of this cosmological system and conferred merit and protection on his people.[18]
The maintenance of this cosmological structure relied on the notion of barami, loosely translated as “charismatic power.”[19] As Jory has written, the concept of barami, derived from the Pali word parami, is rooted in the Theravada scriptural tradition and refers to the virtues accumulated by a bodhisattva, or Buddha-to-be, in order to attain enlightenment.[20] Despite its cosmological implications, barami was extremely significant politically. Given that a Buddhist king’s possession of barami was the basis for his claim to the throne, his lack of it would become the rallying point for his enemies to dispose of him.[21] Because of the lack of dynastic principle in the courts of Ayutthaya (c. 1350–1767) and Thonburi (c. 1768–82), as well as throughout the Bangkok period (c. 1783– present), the representation and maintenance of one’s barami was a crucial means by which political and social power was maintained or seized.
Barami could be indicated in both material and relative ways. Because those with greater merit were also seen as able to reach greater understandings of Dharmic principles and were thought to be less “attached” to the material world, by submitting or showing respect to those above them individuals were able to receive protection, shelter, and guidance from those closer to Nibbana. In the same way that sakdina points were assigned in relation to the number of people under an individual’s control, here barami was seen as both produced through and reflected in that person’s network of power and influence over others. Within a patron–client paradigm, barami operated as a “ladder of reciprocity” between individuals whereby the patron provided aid and protection and the client paid back in tangible or intangible forms.”[22] In other words, the greater one’s network of influence and wealth, the greater one’s barami.
In this way, barami may be viewed in terms of an ability to “make things happen” through networks of connections and owed favors.[23] As Hanks explains:
From the top to bottom groups dwindle in size and stability. The
organization is like the leaves, twigs, branches and boughs of a great
oak. One may trace a linear path from the heart of the tree outward to
any leaf; each leaf, twig and branch standing at a unique distance from
the heart, receives varying amounts of nourishment. In the frail twigs
at the ends of the branches is found the greatest fragility, while the
heart and adjoining boughs safely stand through many storms.[24]
It is for this reason that a male’s barami was usually associated with the number of wives or mistresses accumulated through polygamous practices.[25]
Not only did keeping many wives imply financial wealth, but the
children of those wives and mistresses would also significantly increase
his network of influence and, consequently, barami. In a similar way, barami is linked to merit making (tham bun) by giving alms to monks or, indeed, giving more generally.[26]
This practice was highly competitive, with the frequency and size of
the alms acting reciprocally, to increase merit and power within a
karmic system and to indicate the wealth of the individual able to make
donations. Just as the concept of barami influenced relationships within the Ayutthayan and later Siamese social systems, it had a significant impact on the positioning of the kingdoms in relation to the rest of the world. Prior to the demarcation of the country’s state borders, Siam’s kingdom was understood as a “sacred topography,” determined by the king’s influence or barami radiating from the center of the kingdom. In this spatial understanding, his influence was strongest at the center of the kingdom and got progressively weaker toward its edges.[27] As with the individual client–patron relationships, weaker princes under the king’s influence would send tributes to the strong center in order to demonstrate respect and to ensure their protection. As Jory writes:
Political relationships were also phrased using the language derived
from the theory of the king’s Perfections. Princes or vassals who
submitted to the overlordship of the king were said to phun phrabarami, or “to come under the protection” of the king’s barami. Enemies of the king were said not to “believe in” the king’s barami, while defeated armies are depicted as being unable to stand up to the king’s barami.[28]
Although among his vassal states the Siamese king represented himself
ideologically as the supreme ruler, he was aware of his position in
relation to other regional leaders. In fact, until the mid-nineteenth
century, Siamese kings would send tributes to the Chinese emperor in
order to place themselves securely within his sphere of barami and through a reciprocal relationship associate themselves with his power.[29]Materially, barami was associated with physical appearance, particularly notions of beauty and deportment. These are linked not only through the belief that beauty is associated with wealth and therefore karmic inheritance[30] but also because of the primacy given to the sense of sight within Buddhism. As Grey writes:
[T]he visual takes precedence over other sensory dimensions in the
communication process in the temple complex. This is in accordance with
Thai-Buddhist concepts of power, in which sight is the dominant idiom,
“the leading organ” (nayana) of perception,
and in accordance with the disproportionate emphasis placed in the
taming of the “eye” faculty over other of the sensory doors in
meditation techniques.[31]
In the Traibumikhatha, place within the
cosmological hierarchy is indicated by social position and physical
attributes. The “true” Cakkavatti king is “very handsome, like Lord
Indra when he rides on his elephant named Eravana surrounded by the devata (angels) who are his followers.”[32]
Those without such merit, as a result of evil deeds in past lives, are
“born in desperate straits, have no clothes to cover themselves, have
nothing to eat, are terribly destitute, and have an ugly figure and
appearance.”[33]This relationship between acquisition of merit and physical appearance is evident in Thai mural paintings. Representations of people at the upper levels of spiritual attainment—among them kings and queens, bodhisattvas, and gods and goddesses—consist of profiled faces, graceful poses, and fine standardized features.[34] These figures are in contrast to commoners, who are frequently depicted grotesquely in a manner reflecting their “bestial” nature.[35] These distinctions were also drawn onto the spiritual geography, mentioned above: those physically closer to the king and under the “umbrella” of his barami are depicted as graceful, civilized, and beautiful; those residing farther away are seen, often in a forest, as heathens: that is, wild and uncivilized.[36]
Visualizing Barami through Photography
The importance and power of sight as related to barami was reinforced by the Siamese taboo surrounding the public representation of the royal personage, which lasted until King Mongkut’s decision (Rama IV, r. 1851–68), in 1856, to have his photograph taken.[37] It is no surprise, then, that until the Fourth Reign, no notable tradition of portraiture existed beyond standardized figures in murals and perhaps the tabooed royal-ancestor images for the eyes of the monarch.[38] As Clark persuasively argues, the introduction of the camera to Thailand and the photographing of its monarchs demonstrate transference of the iconic power of the tabooed royal body to the indexical function of the photograph.[39]Here, there is a slippage between readings of the photographic image as a trace or index “of” something and the photographic image as an icon standing “for” something. This is a result of the photographic image’s incorporation into certain social circuits where the substitution of one method of iconic control, the taboo, for another, the laws of lèse-majesté, establishes hegemonic control of the metonymic photographic image as reference to an original living icon.[40] In this case, as Clark argues, there is a kind of reversal in Benjamin’s theory concerning the “aura” of the image, where the image actually “gains status with reproduction rather than loses it.”[41]
Fig. 1: Luang Wisut Yothamat (Mom Amatyakun), H.M. King Mongkut (Rama IV). Daguerreotype treated with gold leaf, sent to Queen Victoria in 1857, 10 x 7.5 cm, 1856. Royal Collection Trust, London.
One more method of paying homage to deceased kings in Siam remains to
be mentioned: the setting of a photograph or lithograph of the
particular king on a table, before which are made the usual offerings of
lighted candles, flowers, and incense. This is now a very popular
custom, both in government institutions and private houses, since every
Siamese home possesses at least a cheap lithograph and can thus show its
loyalty in this easy and practical manner. . . . Indeed, the
supposition that some part of the royal “soul” (if one may be permitted
to use this loose term) might possibly inhabit the portrait would be an
added stimulus to paying homage before it. It is also a modern means of
expressing what remains of the worship of the living King, for whenever
it is desired to honour him, especially on the occasion of a royal
procession, portraits of the King set up on tables may be seen at almost
every Siamese doorway on the route.[43]
Morris has also analyzed a daguerreotype of King Mongkut that was
sent to Queen Victoria in 1857. The image was treated with gold leaf, in
line with Buddhist consecration practices in which gold leaf is
transferred to Buddha images.[44]
This practice is still in use today: photographs of King Bhumibol are
displayed in temples alongside Buddha images, and devotees treat both
with gold leaf as a means of showing respect and making merit.
Fig. 2: Photograph by the author, Photograph of King Bhumibon (Rama IV) Treated with Gold Leaf, Wat Mahathat, Ayutthaya, 2012.
Modernization, Photography, and Shifting Cosmological Perspectives
It is important not to overstate the ease with which the photographic medium was adopted by Siamese monarchs and integrated into endogenous discourses concerning the visual representation of barami. Much has been written about the initial reluctance of local populations to adopt photographic practices and to have their photographs taken.[45] Indeed, as Morris has written: “[T]he camera was perceived as much an instrument of European aggressivity and the occult power of technology as any other weaponry in the colonial arsenal.”[46] This is seen, too, in the ten-year interval between the introduction of the camera to Siam in 1845 upon the orders of the French bishop Pallegoix, who was stationed in Bangkok, and the first photograph of King Mongkut in 1855.[47] This gap was likely due to King Mongkut’s predecessor, King Jessadabodindra’s (Rama III, r. 1824–51) distrust of photographic technology and, more generally, of Euramerican technological modernity.[48]I would go further and point to the importance of the conceptual and visual shift implicit in King Mongkut’s decision to have his photograph taken. To borrow from Batchen’s argument concerning the invention of photography in the European context, the mere ability to photograph or the presence of photographic technology is not enough to impel the “desire” to photograph.[49] In other words, Batchen understands the adoption of photography in Europe not in terms of the medium’s invention, but rather as reliant on certain conceptual and metaphorical shifts from which the “desire” to photograph emerged.[50] In Siam, this points away from a simplistic technological determination of the photographic medium as easily absorbed into pre-photographic visual discourses and toward the recognition of Pinney’s contention that photography is “a technical practice that disturbs culture.”[51]
There were several aspects to the conceptual shift leading to King Mongkut’s decision. These corresponded with the monarch’s, and his court’s, acceptance of Euramerican modernity,[52] and were also directly related to the increased colonial presence in Southeast Asia. Most significant was a change in the Siamese elite’s conception of itself in relation to the rest of the world, in what Pratt has termed a shift in “planetary consciousness.”[53] Observing Britain’s defeat of China by the 1850s, King Mongkut stopped sending tributary missions to the Chinese emperor and recalibrated the Siamese notion of civilization (siwilai) as located in Euramerica.[54] This was soon followed by the signing of trade agreements with European countries, beginning in 1855 with the Bowring Treaty with Britain. This demonstrated the increasing openness of Siam’s elite to Euramerican ideas and technology, and, as some academics have argued, established the country as, in effect, a semi-colony.[55] The Siamese elite’s desire to attain siwilai, however, “was not simply a reaction to the colonial threat. Rather, it was an attempt originated by various groups among the elite . . . to attain and confirm the relative superiority of Siam.”[56]
The “desire” for photography in Siam may then be located within a particular nexus of historical and social developments, and photography’s increasing popularity with the country’sthe country’s elite may be seen as part of a wider interest in Euramerican products as symbols of “civilization.”[57]
Fig. 3: Monsignor Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix, King Mongkut (Rama IV) and Queen Debsirin. Daguerreotype sent to President Franklin Pierce in 1856. Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives Division.
King Mongkut may have become aware of this practice as well as Euramerican conventions for representing power through his receipt of many photographs and photographic apparatus from various world leaders, the first of which, in March 1856, were two photographs and a daguerreotype camera presented to him by Henry S. Parkes on behalf of Queen Victoria.[59] In June 1855, the first daguerreotype of the monarch, sitting stiffly and uncomfortably in Siamese dress, was sent to President Franklin Pierce.[60] In the following years, the monarch was photographed multiple times and the photographs distributed to Euramerican leaders, among them Queen Victoria in 1857, the pope in 1861, and Emperor Napoleon III in 1861.
Fig. 4: John Thomson, King Mongkut (Rama IV) Attired in the Uniform of a French Field Marshal,
modern albumen print from wet-collodion negative, 1866, 2.5 x 2 cm.
National Library of Scotland/Welcome Institute for the History of
Medicine.
His dress was of a spotless white, which reached right down to his
feet: his head was bare. I was admiring the simplicity and purity of
this attire, when his majesty beckoned me to approach him, and informed
me that he wished to have his portrait taken as he knelt in an attitude
of prayer . . . . All was prepared beneath a space in the court, which
had been canopied and carpeted for this special purpose; when, just as I
was about to take the photograph, his majesty changed his mind, and
without a word to anyone passed suddenly out of sight . . . at length
the King reappeared, dressed this time in a sort of French field
marshal’s uniform. There was no cotton stuff visible about his person
now, not even stockings. The portrait was a great success, and his
majesty afterwards sat in his court robes, requesting me to place him
where and how I pleased.[61]
The photograph utilizes several Euramerican representational
conventions for individuals with power: the king’s French-style military
uniform, his cane, and the covered table on which was placed his royal
regalia.[62] Although few of the portraits of European leaders sent to King Mongkut survive,[63]
it is not unreasonable to suggest that he would have been aware of such
conventions through both these photographs and his discussions with
foreign photographers—possibly Bishop Pallegoix and certainly, as we
have seen, John Thomson.
Fig. 5: Robert Lenz, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), c. 1904 or earlier. Siam Society Library, Bangkok. 
Fig. 6: Photographer unknown, King Chulalongkorn in Studio at Montebone, Florence, 1907. Certainly, the modernizing processes of the two monarchs rationalized the cosmological structure of the Tribumikhatha to correspond with Euramerican notions of science and modernity.[67] Rather than removing the system altogether, however, this rationalization simply permitted the expansion of the notion of barami from the royal person to incorporate elite, educated members of the Thai population. As Vandergeest writes:
The pre-national hierarchy of levels of knowledge became associated
with movement through linear time, viewing it as the advancement of
morality or as progress. In other words, hierarchies of knowledge and
morality were not thrown out but reconstituted as movement through time.
. . . Unlike the pre-national period, everybody could now potentially
learn morality, now also modernity, and achieve progress. At the same
time, however, the ruling groups could now attribute to themselves
privileged knowledge of modernity and continue to attribute a lack of
knowledge to peasants, who were described as superstitious,
particularistic (loyal to local groups instead of the nation), and above
all backward.[68]
Implicit in this move was the conferring of barami
to the possession of wealth by nonroyals. Conversely, poverty was still
seen as representative of lack of merit, and members of the lower
classes were often characterized by the elite as less than human.[69]
In this context, “conspicuous consumption,” to borrow Veblen’s term,
became important as a way of exhibiting not only wealth and social
position, but also moral status within a cosmological system.[70]The power of the increased adoption of Euramerican symbols of civilization is demonstrated in King Vajiravudh’s (Rama VI, r. 1910–25) critique of excessive Westernization as a “cult of imitation.” As Jackson rightly points out, such a critique was less about the fear of encroaching Westernization than it was about the loss of Euramerican accoutrements as symbolic of a conspicuous consumption that would distinguish the power of Siam’s elite from the country’s masses.[71] Nevertheless, it was this expansion of the concept of barami to the nonroyal elite and demythologization of the monarchy that led to the military coup in 1932, which established the constitutional monarchy and led to the abdication of King Prajadhipok (Rama VII, r. 1926–35).[72]
Photographic Representations of Power under Plaek Phibun Songkhram
It is difficult to find remnants of the old cosmological system under Field Marshal Phibun Songkhram’s semi-Fascist government after 1939. Images of King Prajadhipok were banned in 1939 and through the writings of Luang Wichit, Phibun—an admirer of Fascist regimes in Japan, Italy, and Germany—promoted his own nationalist vision of the Thai state and his own cult of personality.[73] Phibun’s self-promotion, including the establishment of a national holiday on his birthday, the passing of laws to ensure the display of his picture in homes and offices as well as before the start of films,[74] and his adoption of the dictatorial title phunam (leader), appears much like the propagandistic promotions of the European Fascist states.[75] As a result, the elite’s relationship with the citizens was readjusted:
[The] state and its representative the government [were] elevated to a
paramount position above all other social and political elements. The
concept of “the state” changed, so that the term was no longer merely
legalistic, but now encompassed a wider meaning with ideological
implications.[76]
This brief period of weakness in the image of monarchs from the
Chakri dynasty opened up the public visual field to include nonroyal men
and established the military as a powerful force within Thai politics,
and thus within the Thai visual sphere.[77]Power under Phibun was reconfigured in terms of national historical narratives, and the role of the individual was seen as existing under the power of a benevolent dictator.[78] More important for our purposes, Phibun’s cult of personality established the Thai visual sphere as a powerful political tool. Phibun’s image became the key means to persuade government officials to toe the party line.[79] This focus on the political potential of images meant that refusal to show respect to Phibun’s by not standing when it was displayed before the start of a film or the removal of his picture from public spaces and its replacement with King Ananda’s photograph by the Pridi government in 1946 was seen as a strong political statement.[80] Of course, the strategies used by Phibun in this period, among them the presentation of photographs in homes and offices, were adopted by later governments and combined with the charismatic power inherent in photographs of King Bhumibon to create the iconic power and presence of the monarch’s photograph that exists today.
Fig. 7: Photograph by the author, Public Billboard “Long Live the King” with Image of King Bhumibon (Rama IX), Ratchadamnoen Road, March 2010.
Relativization of the Cosmological System after 1957
It was not until the coup that established Field Marshal Sarit’s government, in 1957, that we see a return of the Thai cosmological system, although Phibun’s tactics for self-promotion had now considerably influenced it. Firmly establishing the centrality of the monarchy within his official version of Thai nationalism, Sarit announced after his second coup, in 1958, that his government would
above all, strictly adhere to the principle that the Sovereign and
the T’ai nation are one and the same inseparable entity. T’ai history is
founded on the conception that the Sovereign is the symbol of the
nation and the palladium of the T’ai people. The Revolutionary Party
shall do all in its power to uphold and cherish this institution and to
see to it that the sovereign is held in deepest veneration and that no
sacrilege is perpetrated on the Sovereign, the Royal Family and Royal
tradition.[81]
As Thak has demonstrated, Sarit’s government developed a symbiotic relationship with the Thai monarchy.[82] This government relied on the monarchy, and on the barami
associated with the institution, for legitimacy. Throughout the 1950s
and sixties, therefore, it reestablished many of the royal ceremonies
and increased the visibility of the royal family via the dissemination
of photographs and by sponsoring royal visits to the countryside.[83]
Fig. 8: Photograph by the author, Photographic Display in the Window of Chaya Jittakorn Photographic Studio, Bangkok, 2012. This display of photographs of high-ranking officials performed two functions. First, the visual presence of these images in homes and businesses would confer some of the barami possessed by the subject of a photograph onto the person displaying it merely by making explicit visually and physically the association between the two.[88] Second, the multiplicity of disseminated photographs both represented and increased the barami of the subject of a photograph, for the more images of, for example, Field Marshal Thanom or Field Marshal Phraphat, the greater his network of supporters, the greater his ability to influence others, and, consequently, the greater his barami. This mutually beneficial exchange recalls the process of “bestowing merit” or the client–patron relationships that characterized the Ayutthaya and early Bangkok periods.
Fig. 9: Photograph by the author, Display of Photograph of a High-Ranking Official in a Thai Home, Ayutthaya, 2012. The structuring of Thai society operates on many levels, down to the juristic committee in an apartment complex and various levels in a company. In a company, for example, photographs of employees may be on display in the lobby or foyer of its building and arranged according to rank. This type of categorization and representation served, and in many ways continues to serve, certain political outcomes for the Thai elite. As Nithi writes, the belief in the “magical” qualities of barami—that is, charismatic power—has led to a situation in which more people are willing to use social connections, or “soft power,” to solve problems, rather than rely on lawful avenues.[90] The result of this is twofold: first, the expansion of informal systems of barami results in less powerful people becoming reliant on those with more power for protection and help; second, this system legitimizes an increase in corruption and cronyism within business and politics.[91]
The conflation of political power and barami also has implications for political participation and the transparency of business and political institutions. As Streckfuss has argued,
“[T]ruth” (or dharma) in Thai Theravada
Buddhism is apparent only to those who are of pure mind. The average
person cannot see the truth through the entanglements of day-to-day
living and is often deceived by the apparent reality of the world and
the intentions of others. The notion that the truth is only accessible
to spiritually powerful people has an enormous impact on the use of
defamation laws.[92]
Streckfuss’s comments are reflected in the statements of the director
of the Special Branch Police, Lieutenant General Tritos Ronritvichai,
who in an interview with the newspaper Prachachart Thurakit on January 23, 2011, said only those who have accumulated enough merit (bun) should have the privilege of reading top-secret documents.[93]
Of course, this conflation is obvious in the comparison of unpopular
politicians with animals low on the biological hierarchy—for example,
monitor lizards and water buffalo—in protests and campaigns as well as
proclamations, such as those made by the Buddhist monk Kittivuddho
Bhikkhu in the early 1970s, that killing communists is not a sin because
of their bestial qualities.[94]
In such a context, where access to truth and, consequently, to
political power is distributed under the guise of cosmological
principles, maintaining the image of one’s barami becomes increasingly important.
Fig. 10: Photograph by the author, Photographic Display in Window of the Chaya Jittakorn Photographic Studio, Bangkok, 2012.
Chaya Jittakorn Photographic Studio
The conventions for presenting and building barami through photographs of high-ranking military, police, and government officials are easily observed in the Chaya Jittakorn studio, in the Bangkok suburb of Phahurat. Opened in 1938 by five Sino-Thai immigrants, at the height of its popularity—from the 1960s until the late 1980s—the photographers took pictures of military officers, politicians, and bureaucrats, including ex–prime minister Chatichai Choonhavan.Although the studio has produced family and advertising photographs as well, its main business consists of taking photographs for identification purposes and as tools to operate within the country’s hierarchical system. Many of these photographs would be given by high-ranking people to their lower-ranking friends and family as gifts on special occasions or as replacement photographs if the givers had earned extra decorations or perhaps a promotion. These images are frequently displayed in a recipient’s home or business to make explicit his connections and facilitate the transference of barami.
The stratified nature of Thai society is also demonstrated visually here in the studio’s window displays. Images of those with a higher rank are arranged toward the top and in a large frame; those lower in rank are presented in smaller frames and closer to the ground. This kind of visual ranking system, which in itself reflects the stratified merit system in the Traibumikhata, is also employed to display pictures of the monarchy in people’s homes: they usually appear high on the walls or above doorways. This positioning is reflected physically in ceremonies that involve the king or members of his family, in which all Thai people must always keep their heads below the monarch’s.[95] The transference here between behaviors associated with the monarch in person and the positioning of the monarch’s image is again evidence of the metonymic relationship between the photograph of the king and his iconic power.
The hierarchical system in Chaya Jittakorn is not absolute, however. Wealth, actual rank, and the presence of decorations combine in a less formal way, which to some extent conforms to the owners’ perception of individual importance and power. Barami here is not deployed as an absolute measurable quality, as is the case of military rank, but rather as a kind of “aura” of perceived influence that depends to a great degree on the political and social positioning of the audience.
Fig. 11: Chaya Jittakorn studio, Photograph of a Thai Civil Servant in Uniform, with Royal Betel-nut Set and Royal Robe for Service to the King, c. 198.
Thai public discourse positioned self-representation as a ceremonial
incarnation, instilled with majesty, elegance and magical qualities—or
even brute quotidian power. Or it gave self-representation the semblance
of such power borrowed from persons actually or ritually instilled with
it. Even when the medium employed was mimetic and naturalistic, like
photography, human representation was not seen as indicating the
co-presence in symbolic as well as lived time by a figure that
represented a character, nor one embodying experience typical to that
person of what it was to live their life, or to have lived it.[96]
In the photographs taken at Chaya Jittakorn, the “ceremonial
incarnation” is made apparent through the presence of items that through
their association with the monarchy grant the subject, and thus the
subject’s image, a higher level of barami.
The presence of the royal betel-nut set, the embellished golden robe
signifying service to the king, and various royal medals and decorations
enables the subject of the photograph to borrow barami
by way of associations with the royal personage. The symbolic power of
these decorations is heightened by the complex procedures that must be
followed in order to receive permission from the palace to borrow them
as well as to have one’s photograph taken with them.[97]Although the presence of such objects does not increase actual rank, the decorations distinguish an individual from those of the same rank. These objects perform in the same way as does the presence of the monarchical person in photographs of degree-conferring ceremonies, their presence a “gift” of barami to the recipient.
Fig. 12: Chaya Jittakorn studio, Bangkok, Retouched Photograph of Lieutenant General Fifth Class of the Order of the White Elephant, c. 1991. 
Fig. 13: Photograph by the author, Display of Old Photographic Apparatus, Chaya Jittakorn Photographic Studio, Bangkok, 2012. Considering the definition of status in a stratified social system, a Veblen effect serves to distinguish oneself from lower groups, and establishes one’s membership in a particular social group.[100] This appears similar to Bourdieu’s definition of cultural capital as “an indicator and a basis of class position: cultural attitudes, preferences and behaviors are conceptualized as ‘tastes’ which are then being mobilized for social selection.”[101] As Bourdieu discovered, as a result of photography’s availability to the vast majority of people, within the habitus of higher classes there is often a greater demand for a more expensive type of photographic activity.[102] This is signaled in Chaya Jittakorn by the use of increasingly rare and expensive analogue film and techniques. It is also indicated in the photographic production of individuals belonging to elitist photography clubs; in Thailand, the possession of expensive cameras and the ability to acquire professional Photoshop skills are seen as forms of “cultural capital” that distinguish these photographers from those who use the medium to document family events or travel, for example.[103]
The symbolic representation of barami, by military uniforms, royal insignia, and analogue photographic apparatus, has increasingly lost significance since the late 1980s, as demonstrated by Chaya Jittakorn’s ageing clientele This may be a result of the weakening of military power after the violent massacre of student protesters by the army and right-wing groups at Thammasat University in 1976, the return of student activists in 1983, and the growing participation of big business in politics because of the economic boom of the 1980s.[104] Rather than disappearing, however, recently the kind of social stratification indicated by photographs of the military in the 1960s and 1970s has reappeared in society magazines such as Hi-So Party, Thailand Tatler, 2 Magazine, and Prestige.
Photography poses a unique challenge to studies of visual culture in Thailand, as it is simultaneously a technologically and a culturally determined medium. Although images of power constitute just one aspect of photography in Thailand, it makes clear the complexity of relationships between endogenous and exogenous discourses. Here, the discursive constructions of these opposites operate in a process of relativization in which different cultural elements are emphasized at different historical moments and in relation to particular social and political strategies. In the context of increased globalization and the more recent ease with which image exchange may occur among a variety of geographical and conceptual spaces, the relationship between these discourses has become more diverse, and warrants further study.
Clare Veal is a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History and Film Studies at the University of Sydney. Her present PhD project is focused on an analysis of the relationship between Thai identities and photography in the period 1950-2012.
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