Gatty Lecture Series

Join us for a talk by Sirithorn Siriwan, (Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University), who will discuss Feminized Divinity and Animist Sovereignty in Northern Thai Ricelihood.

This Gatty Lecture will take place at the The Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave. Lunch will be served. For questions, contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

About the Talk

The prevalent scholarly interpretation of Thai religiosity as a congenial form of religious syncretism permits animism to exist alongside Theravada Buddhism and Hindu-Brahmanism. In fact, animism or sasana phi is often considered a mere set of beliefs, not a religion. This study reconceptualizes the ontology of northern Thai rice beings, human and non-human, or what I call ricelihood. I probe the rice narratives produced by the Thai Sangha that erase animist sovereignty and subdue agrarian deities. Drawing from stories of rice farmers and rice tales in archival documents, converting the non-demarcated rice deity into a feminized body suggests two forms of religious and gender subjugation. The first is the transformation of khwan khao (the rice spirit) into a feminized deity secondary to the Buddha. This genderization and religious constitution devise new, yet deviated conceptions of khwan khao, and strip away its personhood and governing power in the rice realm. The second is the subdual of the pre-existing phi under the male-dominant Sangha and its laity, not only making phi less potent, but also constituting these entities as other-than-Buddhist remnants. This talk includes the investigation of rice narratives from oral traditions and local rituals that are less popular and often neglected, but at the same time, less censored and pasteurized by centralized narratives. Through phi performances, women in rice communities subtly subvert religious subdual through rice rituals and divination rites in which animist entities manifest in corporeal and immaterial forms. In these ritualistic spaces, phi, rice deity, and Theravada Buddhism negotiate and reclaim their governing sovereignty.

About the Speaker

Sirithorn (Ing) Siriwan is a Ph.D. candidate in Asian Studies at Cornell University. Previously, she was a member of Crescent Moon Theater and a lecturer at Chiang Mai University. Sirithorn is currently completing her dissertation research on the livingness, residuality, and seedness of ritual, performance, and culture in northern Thai ricelihood through ethnographic studies and creative research approaches. Recently, she has co-authored a book chapter, “Thai Theatre and the Interplay of Perfection and Imperfection” (2022).