Searching for feminist geography in Thailand: mapping trails of inspiration

Abstract

Feminist geography in Thailand is not generally recognized in the academic landscape. Instead, feminist geography is limited to those scholars located in Women’s Studies who have a research or personal interest in the theoretical, conceptual or empirical issues taken up in feminist geography. Although the discipline of geography has been part of the Thai academy since 1935, in both the Thai Geographical Association and its flagship journal, (Geographical Journal), feminist geography has still not made significant inroads into the discipline. However, once Women’s Studies was established, and then expanded its influence, gender and feminism affected every other social science program, including Geography. Even though only a few, if any, students enrolled in feminist geography courses across Thailand, the work that did exist took on a postcolonial form. Thus the feminist geography literature that would introduce (some part of) the theories, concepts and practice of feminist geographers came through both compulsory and elective courses through a postcolonial lens. In this report, we provide a brief history of the challenges around, and progress of, feminist geography across the country through an analysis of key Thai geographical institutional shifts, journal publications and curricular offerings.