Spirit Mediumship in Thailand: A Performance Theory Approach

Human behavior in everyday life as in a great theater where everybody is an actor. Some men and women act as gods or goddesses to take on the role of messengers and pass on the words of gods or goddesses to human. As long as scientific method is unable to substantiate the reality of soul and spirit, I still contemplate spirit mediumship from the viewpoint of performance through the human body, which is full of colour and action and depends on the interaction between the possession practitioner and others around them. Their performance as gods has consequences for them. Through the eyes of the ethnologist, all the movement performers and their audiences have to be observed and discussed both when they were performing on stage and also after the performance is over. Therefore here, besides the discussion about the theories which help to explain the strategy of presentation through the body in social space and at the same time they are within a social construction. The theories which support the analysis of the consequences of performance as an aspect of social prestige, power, ethnicity, and gender will also be presented. This book should be especially useful to Anthropology.

Dr. Pim de Jong was born in Khon Kaen, Thailand in 1974. She received the Ph.D. degree in Ethnology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany,in 2008. Since 2000, she has been with Prince of Songkla University, Thailand, where she is currently a lecturer. Her research interests cover ritual, Overseas Chinese and also transnational marriage.