Thai Silk Dot Com: Authenticity, Altruism, Modernity and Markets in the Thai Silk Industry

Abstract

The production of silk occupies a unique place in Thai cultural and economic practices. However, the practice is rarely passed on to the younger generation and is widely considered to be a dying craft. In response, influential organizations have proposed use of the internet as a way to reinvigorate the industry and attract new customers. This paper looks at the discourses used to sell silk and the ways in which sellers are either framing Thai silk as a traditional craft in need of saving or as an enterprise that efficiently engages with the commercial needs of the global economy. The paper reviews the range of, often problematic, emotions, images, and associations used to sell a dying craft. Ultimately, it argues that, in contrast to many of the theorized effects of the internet, it seems to be neither encouraging mass homogenization nor pushing sellers to effectively integrate themselves into global markets.

La producción de la seda ocupa un lugar único en la cultura y las prácticas económicas tailandesas. Sin embargo, la práctica pasa muy raramente a la generación más joven y está ampliamente considerada como una artesanía que está desapareciendo. Como respuesta, organizaciones influyentes han propuesto el uso de internet como una vía para reforzar la industria y atraer nuevos clientes. Este artículo examina las discusiones que se usaron para vender la seda y las maneras en que los vendedores están ya sea conceptualizando a la seda tailandesa como una artesanía tradicional que hay que salvar, o como una empresa que se compromete eficientemente con las necesidades comerciales de la economía global. El artículo revisa la serie de asociaciones, imágenes y emociones frecuentemente problemáticas, usadas para vender una artesanía que está desapareciendo. Finalmente, sostiene que en contraste con muchos de los efectos teorizados de internet, parece ser que no está animando a una homogenización de masa ni empujando a los vendedores a integrarse efectivamente a los mercados globales.

丝绸生产在泰国经济与文化的各行业中占据独特地位。然而，此行业却鲜能薪火相传，且被广泛认为是一门挣扎在死亡线上的工艺。为了挽救该行业，有影响力的组织已经提议使用因特网重振该产业，并吸引新的消费者。本文审视用来出售丝绸的话语体系，以及（丝绸）卖家的方式，他们或者定位泰国丝绸为一门需要拯救的传统工艺，或者为一个可以有效地与全球经济的商业需求相联系的企业。本文评估了用来营销一个濒于灭绝行业的做法，尽管它们都是有问题的，例如，动之以情、树立形象和建立联络。最后，与因特网的许多理论化效应做了对比，本文认为，这种做法激励大规模的同质化，有助于卖家有效地融入全球市场。

يحتل إنتاج الحرير مكانةً متفردةً في الممارسات الثقافية والاقتصادية في تايلند. ومع ذلك، فنادراً ما تُنقل هذه الممارسات إلى الأجيال الأصغر، كما يُنظر إليها على نطاق واسع باعتبارها صنعة منقرضة. ورداً على ذلك، اقترحت بعض المنظمات ذات النفوذ استخدام الإنترنت لإعادة إحياء تلك الصناعة واكتساب عملاء جدد. وتتناول هذه الدراسة أنواع الخطاب المستخدمة لبيع الحرير، والطرق التي يلجأ إليها البائعون لتصوير الحرير التايلندي إما باعتباره صنعة تقليدية تتطلب الحفاظ عليها وإما باعتباره استثماراً يدخل بجدارة في المتطلبات التجارية للاقتصاد العالمي. وتتناقش الدراسة أنماط المشاعر والصور والارتباطات المستخدمة لترويج صنعة منقرضة، وهي أنماط كثيراً ما تنطوي على إشكاليات. وتخلص الدراسة في النهاية إلى أنه على النقيض من التأثيرات النظرية الكثيرة للإنترنت، فإنه على ما يبدو لا يشجع على التجانس الواسع، ولا يدفع البائعين إلى الاندماج بشكل فعَّال في الأسواق العالمية.

비단 생산은 타이 문화와 경제에서 독특한 위치를 차지하고 있다. 그렇지만, 비단생산은 젊은 세대에게 거의 전수되지 않고 사라져 가는 수공업으로 간주된다.

대응해서 영향력 있는 조직들이 산업을 다시 부흥시키고 새로운 고객을 유치하기 위하여 인터넷 사용을 제안하였다. 이 논문은 비단을 팔기 위해 사용된 담론과 판매자들이 타이 비단을 보호가 필요한 전통 산업으로 프레이밍하거나 혹은 세계 경제의 상업적 필요에 효율적으로 개입하는 기업으로서 프레이밍하는 방식을 살펴본다. 이 글은 죽어가는 공예품을 팔기 위해 사용되는 때로는 문제가 되는 감정, 이미지와 단체들을 살펴본다. 궁극적으로 이론적으로 다루어진 많은 인터넷 효과와는 대조적으로 인터넷은 대량 동질화를 촉진시키기도 않았고, 판매자들을 세계 시장으로 통합시키지도 않았다는 것을 주장한다.

Производство шелка занимает уникальное место в тайской культурной и экономической практиках. Однако, практику ремесла редко передают молодому поколению и, как широко полагают, оно является умирающим. В ответ влиятельные организации предложили использование Интернета как способа вдохнуть новую жизнь в отрасль и привлечь новых клиентов. Эта статья рассматривает дискурс, который используется для продажи шелка и способы, которыми продавцы преподносят тайский шелк в качестве традиционного ремесла, нуждающегося в сохранении или как предприятия, которое эффективно взаимодействует с коммерческими потребностями мировой экономики. В статье рассматривается диапазон, часто проблематичный, эмоций, образов и ассоциаций, использующихся для продажи умирающего ремесла. В конечном счете, это означает, что, в отличие от многих предположительных эффектов в Интернете, это, кажется, не поощряет массовую гомогенизацию и не толкает продавцов эффективно интегрироваться в мировые рынки.

Keywords:

• internet
• Thailand
• silk
• craft
• representation

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the many weavers, dyers, spinners, designers, merchants, managers, clerks, shopkeepers, interpreters, and salespeople who graciously contributed their time and patiently answered countless questions. This work would not have been possible without a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Award and the Association of American Geographers Dissertation Grant. I also wish to extend thanks to Dr Wipawee Grisaniputi, Professor Matthew Zook, Professor Tom Leinbach, Jessica Schmid, and the referees of this paper for their comments and guidance. Any errors or omissions remain, of course, my sole responsibility.

Notes

In performing content analyses of websites, some researchers have proposed focusing only on homepages or randomly drawn pages (Haas and Grams, 2000; Koehler, 1999). Weare and Lin (2000) argue that performing a content analysis on an entire site as a whole is unrealistically demanding. However, none of the websites within my sample contained an unmanageable number of pages linked from the main index page. I therefore opted to include every page in the study in order to minimize bias that could arise from using a sampling method.

In 2006, using the keywords [Thai + Silk] and [Thailand + Silk], 139 websites were discovered. There has been a large amount of turnover since then and only 97 continue to direct to websites.

Derivatives of the words listed here were also included, e.g. ‘traditional’ instead of ‘tradition’. A word would not be counted if it was used in the negative, e.g. ‘not modern’ instead of ‘modern’.

Descriptions of new technology were also placed into the modern/contemporary/foreign category.

Substitutes for the word ‘foreign’ could include descriptors of non-local people and places such as ‘Japanese’ or ‘western’.

The term ‘orientalism’ here refers to Said's (1978) arguments about how differences between east and west are constructed through representations of the ‘Orient’, rather than the dictionary definition of the term.

The two images of the Thai model combined would create a similar composition to Ingres' painting.

These points were suggested to me by Dr Ellen Boccuzzi.

Like the Thai silk industry, the Cambodian silk industry has roots that stretch back centuries. However, the four years of Khmer Rouge rule which killed one third of the Cambodian population practically annihilated the practice of weaving.

An organization attached to the Office of the Permanent Secretary, which advises the Prime Minister on the need for new or revised legislation concerning women's rights.

One example is a story by Pira Sudham (1994) in which a taxi driver makes it his mission to repeatedly drive prostitutes from the Bangkok brothel and bar districts back to their northeastern villages in the hope that they will stay there permanently.

Two examples are Hotel Angel (Yukol, 1974) and Song of Chao Phraya (Nong mia) ( Yukol, 1990).

For the remainder of this paper, the terms ‘owned’ and ‘managed’ will be used interchangeably. Precise organizational structures are often impossible to obtain by simply looking at a website. However, a major decision maker is often listed as a ‘manager’, ‘director’, ‘owner’, ‘founder’, or any number of other similar terms.

Ownership information has been obtained using three methods: direct statements about the nationalities of owners/managers on websites; statements about ownership that only involve a name—in such cases, Thai names were placed into the Thai ownership category and non-Thai names placed into the foreign ownership category; and information from interviews and surveys (when available). While the second method of determining ownership is potentially problematic (because Thais can have non-Thai names and non-Thais can have Thai names), I would argue that it remains preferable to use these methods than to eliminate the information from the dataset.

In order to attempt to determine the ownership of websites listed as ‘undetermined’ in figure 14, I employed a WHOIS lookup service on each of the 22 ‘undetermined’ domains. Where available, I obtained location data from the ‘administrative contact’ section of each WHOIS record. In the cases where this information was missing, I obtained location data from the ‘registrant’ section of the record. The method allowed me to obtain location information for 21 of the 22 ‘undetermined’ domains. However, I refrained from using these data to eliminate the ‘undetermined’ domains from Figure 14 for a number of reasons. First, some of the administrative contacts of registrants appear to be registrars or website design firms. These firms appear to be mostly based outside of Thailand, thus potentially skewing EAs formerly in the ‘undetermined’ category into the foreign-owned category. Second, EAs formerly in the ‘undetermined’ category might actually be skewed in the other direction (i.e. too many of them being placed into the category of Thai-owned firms) for an entirely separate reason. Many entries in the administrative context or registrant sections of the WHOIS record contain only the name of a firm and a Thai street address. The information, while pointing to a base in Thailand, provides no indication as to the nationality of the owner.

Nonetheless, if these data limitations are accepted and the WHOIS data is used, it remains the case that similar patterns are present in the data. Thai-owned businesses are still more likely to use modern imagery and foreign-owned businesses are more inclined to focus more on traditional imagery. Of the 20 EAs that describe modern or non-local production methods or styles of silk, 13 are now Thai-owned or managed and seven are foreign owned. Looking at the 44 websites that employ the words ‘tradition’, ‘culture’, ‘village’, or ‘natural’, 13 are Thai-owned and 30 are foreign-owned (one remains undetermined).