Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T02:07:55.063Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Globalization and the Decline of Legal Consciousness: Torts, Ghosts, and Karma in Thailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

David M. Engel
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study analyzes the transformation of legal consciousness associated with the process of globalization. It examines changing conceptions of injury and compensation in northern Thailand, where global economic and cultural flows have had a dramatic impact over the past twenty years. In their “injury narratives,” ordinary Thai people describe the harm they have suffered, the causes they identify, the issues of responsibility with which they struggle, the obligations and remedy systems they consider relevant, and the role of law as they perceive it. These accounts, as well as litigation records from the Chiangmai Provincial Court, suggest that a transformation of Thai legal consciousness has indeed occurred, but not in the direction one might have expected. Rather than embracing liberal legalism or conceptualizing their grievances in terms of rights, injury victims in post-globalization Thailand are now less inclined to perceive their experiences in legal terms and more inclined to rely on a new form of religious discourse in which Buddhist precepts justify the injured person's decision to refrain from the pursuit of compensation. This article offers an explanation of why globalization appears to have pushed legal consciousness in the direction of religiosity rather than rights.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , Summer 2005 , pp. 469 - 514
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2005 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Berger, Peter L., and Samuel, P. Huntington 2002. Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bilmes, Jack. 1976. Rules and Rhetoric: Negotiating the Social Order in a Thai Village. Journal of Anthropological Research 32:44–57.Google Scholar
Black, Donald. 1976. The Behavior of Law. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bloom, Anne. 2001. Taking on Goliath: Why Personal Injury Litigation May Represent the Future of Transnational Cause Lawyering. In Cause Lawyering and the State in a Global Era, ed. Austin, Sarat and Stuart, Scheingold. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bunnag, Tej. 1977. Provincial Administration of Siam 1892–1915. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cassells, Jamie. 1996. The Uncertain Promise of Law: Lessons from Bhopal. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Coutin, Susan Bibler. 2000. Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants' Struggle for U.S. Residency. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, Chris. 1999. The Thai Economy: Uneven Development and Internationalisation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Engel, David M. 1975. Law and Kingship in Thailand During the Reign of King Chulalongkorn. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asian Studies, No. 9.Google Scholar
Engel, David M. 1978. Code and Custom in a Thai Provincial Court. Tucson: University of Arizona Press (Association for Asian Studies Monograph Series).Google Scholar
Engel, David M. 2001. Injury and Identity: The Damaged Self in Three Cultures. In Between Law and Culture, ed. David, Theo Goldberg, Michael Musheno, and Lisa Bower. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Engel, David M., and Frank, W. Munger. 1996. Rights, Remembrance, and the Reconciliation of Difference. Law and Society Review 30:7–53.Google Scholar
Engel, David M. 2003. Rights of Inclusion: Law and Identity in the Life Stories of Americans with Disabilities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Engel, David M., and Eric, H. Steele. 1979. Civil Cases and Society: Process and Order in the Civil Justice System. American Bar Foundation Research Journal 1979:295–346.Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, and Susan, S. Silbey. 1992. Conformity, Contestation, and Resistance: An Account of Legal Consciousness. New England Law Review 26:731–49.Google Scholar
Engel, David M. 1998. The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Felstiner, William L. F., Richard, Abel, and Austin, Sarat. 198081. The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming. Law and Society Review 15:631–54.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M., and Robert, Percival. 1976. A Tale of Two Courts: Litigation in Alameda and San Benito Counties. Law and Society Review 10:267–301.Google Scholar
French, Rebecca Redwood. 1995. The Golden Yoke: The Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1985. Legal Torpor: Why So Little Has Happened in India after the Bhopal Tragedy. Texas International Law Journal 20:273–94.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1986. When Legal Worlds Collide: Reflections on Bhopal, the Good Lawyer, and the American Law School. Journal of Legal Education 36:292–310.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1996. Real World Torts: An Antidote to Anecdote. Maryland Law Review 55:1093–160.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 2003. Runaway World: How Gbbalization Is Reshaping Our Lives. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gilliom, John. 2001. Overseers of the Poor: Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart. 1997. The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity. In Culture, Gbbalization, and the World-System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity, ed. Anthony, D. King. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Hanks, Jane Richardson. 1963. Maternity and Its Rituals in Bang Chan. Ithaca, N.Y.: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Harvey, David. 1990. The Conditions of Postmodemity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Heinze, Ruth-Inge. 1982. Tham Khwan: How to Contain the Essence of Life: A Socio-Psychological Comparison of a Thai Custom. Singapore: Singapore University Press.Google Scholar
Hussey, Antonia. 1993. Rapid Industrialization in Thailand, 1986–1991. Geographical Review; 83:14–28.Google Scholar
Inda, Jonathan Xavier, and Renato, Rosaldo, eds. 2002. The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader. Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Keyes, Charles F. 1977. The Golden Peninsula: Culture and Adaptation in Mainland Southeast Asia. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kongrut, Anchalee. 2004. Dishing up Dhamma. Bangkok Post, November 7. http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/07Nov2004_news03.php.Google Scholar
Lingat, Robert. 1973. The Classical Law of India, trans, and additions Duncan, J., Derrett, M. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mather, Lynn, and Barbara, Yngvesson. 198081. Language, Audience, and the Transformation of Disputes. Law and Society Review 15:775–821.Google Scholar
Munger, Frank W. 1990. Trial Courts and Social Change: The Evolution of a Field of Study. Law and Society Review 24:217–26.Google Scholar
Munger, Frank W. 1992. Laboring below the Line: The New Ethnography of Poverty, Low-wage Work, and Survival in the Global Economy. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Nader, Laura. 1990. Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain Village. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
National Statistical Office, Office of the Prime Minister (Thailand). 1970 Population and Housing Census, Chiangmai Province.Google Scholar
Nader, Laura. 1990. Population and Housing Census, Chiangmai Province.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Laura Beth. 2004. License to Harass: Law, Hierarchy, and Offensive Public Speech. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Pérez-Perdomo, Rogelio, and Lawrence, M. Friedman. 2003. Latin Legal Cultures in the Age of Globalization. In Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin America and Latin Europe, ed. Lawrence, M. Friedman and Rogelio, Pérez-Perdomo. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Phongpaichit, Pasuk, and Chris, Baker. 1998. Thailand's Boom and Bust. Chiangmai, Thailand: Silkworm Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Frank E. 1994. Dhamma in Dispute: The Interactions of Religion and Law in Thailand. Law and Society Review 28:433–51.Google Scholar
Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Saks, Michael J. 1992. Do We Really Know Anything About the Behavior of the Tort Litigation System-And Why Not University of Pennsylvania Law Review 140:1147–292.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin, and Thomas, R. Kearns. 1995. Editorial Introduction. In Law in Everyday Life . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sassen, Saskia. 2001. Spatialities and Temporalities of the Global: Elements for a Theorization. In Globalization, ed. Arjun, Appadurai. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Shamir, Ronen. 2004. Between Self-regulation and the Alien Tort Claims Act: On the Contested Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility. Law and Society Review 38:635–64.Google Scholar
Starr, June, and Jonathan, Pool. 1974. The Impact of a Legal Revolution in Rural Turkey. Law and Society Review; 8:533–60.Google Scholar
Stephens, Beth. 2002. Translating Filártiga: A Comparative and International Law Analysis of Domestic Remedies for International Human Rights Violations. Yale Journal of International Law 27:1–58.Google Scholar
Swearer, Donald K., Sommai, Premchit, and Phaithoon, Dokbuakaew. 2004. Sacred Mountains of Northern Thailand and Their Legends. Chiangmai, Thailand: Silkworm Press.Google Scholar
Tambiah, S.J. 1970. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in Northeast Thailand. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thailand Royal Edict Concerning Persons Injured by Vehicles. B.E. [Buddhist Era] 2535 [1992].Google Scholar
Tinakorn, Pranee, and Chalongphob, Sussangkarn. 1996. Analysis and Forecast of Registered Motor Vehicles and of Car Ownership in Thailand. Bangkok: Thailand Development Research Institute Foundation.Google Scholar
Toharia, Jose Juan. 1976. Economic Development and Litigation: The Case of Spain. Jahrbuch fur Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstheorie 4:39–42.Google Scholar
Trubek, David M., Austin, Sarat, William, L. F. Felstiner, Herbert, M. Kritzer, and Joel, B. Grossman. 1983. The Costs of Ordinary Litigation. UCLA Law Review 31:73–129.Google Scholar
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 2003. Thailand Human Development Report 2003 on Community Empowerment and Human Development. Bangkok, Thailand: United Nations Development Programme, http://www.undp.or.th/publications.Google Scholar
Vervoorn, Aat. 2002. Re Orient: Change in Asian Societies. 2d ed. Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Winichakul, Thongchai. 1994. Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Wyatt, David K. 1984. Thailand: A Short History. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Yngvesson, Barbara. 1997. Negotiating Motherhood: Identity and Difference in “Open” Adoptions. Law and Society Review 31:31–80.Google Scholar