ABSTRACT

The past and present of inequality in Thailand is a story of uneven development – a story with regional dimensions that are structured by class, race, gender, and other social inequalities. Even more poignantly, the story of uneven development is a story of the deep interpenetration of spatialised and racialised class inequalities (with gendered dimensions) that have developed in complex ways over the last several centuries. This chapter focuses on the racialised class dimensions of uneven development and social inequality in Thailand. Tracing the story from the 19th century to the present, it emphasises how patterns of spatially uneven development that stem from the Bangkok-based Chakri dynasty’s expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries have consistently generated racialised class disparities with strong socio-spatial dimensions – albeit in historically contingent and shifting fashion over the past century. Against this backdrop, the current political moment in Thailand can be seen as a moment of ongoing, racialised class struggle over the dynamics of social inequality and uneven development.