By the 1890s, Siam (Thailand) was the last holdout against European imperialism in Southeast Asia. But the kingdom's exceptional status came with a substantial caveat: Bangkok, its bustling capital, was a port city that was subject to many of the same legal and fiscal constraints as other colonial treaty ports. Sovereign Necropolis offers new insight into turn-of-the-century Thai history by disinterring the forgotten stories of those who died "unnatural deaths" during this period and the work of the Siamese state to assert their rights in a pluralistic legal arena.Based on a neglected cache of inquest files compiled by the Siamese Ministry of the Capital, official correspondence, and newspaper accounts, Trais Pearson documents the piecemeal introduction of new forms of legal and medical concern for the dead. He reveals that the investigation of unnatural death demanded testimony from diverse strata of society: from the unlettered masses to the king himself. These cases raised questions about how to handle the dead-were they spirits to be placated or legal subjects whose deaths demanded compensation?-as well as questions about jurisdiction, rights, and liability.Exhuming the history of imperial politics, transnational commerce, technology, and expertise, Sovereign Necropolis demonstrates how the state's response to global flows transformed the nature of legal subjectivity and politics in lasting ways. A compelling exploration of the troubling lives of the dead in a cosmopolitan treaty port, the book is a notable contribution to the growing corpus of studies in science, law, and society in the non-Western world.
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Extrait
SOVEREïGN NECROPOLïS
SOVEREïGN NECROPOLïS
T HE POL I T I CS OF DE AT H I NSE MI COLONI AL SI AM
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Fîrst pubîshed 2020 by Corne Unîversîty Press
Lîbrary o Congress Cataogîng-în-Pubîcatîon Data
Cover îmage: “Courtyard o Bangkok’s Gogotha” rom Jacob T. Chîd,Asîa: Remînîscences o The Pear o the Court o a Supreme Monarch, or Fîve Years în Sîam(Chîcago: Donohue, Henneberry & Co., 1892). Photo courtesy o the Corne Unîversîty Lîbrary Dîvîsîon o Rare and Manuscrîpt Coectîons.
To Phî Pha and the Sukwon Famîy, who took în a twenty-one-year-odwanderer and heped hîm ind hîs way. To Su-Pîn, Quînn, and Josephîne—the îe and îht în my word.
Archîves do not record experîence so much as îts absence; they mark the poînt where an experîence îs mîssîng rom îts proper pace, and what îs returned to us în an archîve may we be somethîng we never possessed în the Irst pace. —Sven Spîeker,The Bî Archîve: Art rom Bureaucracy
The chronîcer, who recounts events wîthout dîstînguîshîng between the great and the sma, thereby accounts or the truth, that nothîng whîch has ever happened îs to be gîven as ost to hîstory. —Water Benjamîn,Seected Wrîtîns,Voume 4, 1938–1940
Co n t e n t s
Lîst o Iustratîonsîx Note on Namîn Conventîons, Sources, Transcrîptîon, and Transatîonxî
ïntroductîon 1. Bad Death 2. ïndemnîty and ïdentîty 3. Treaty Port Tort 4. Accîdenta Metaphysîcs 5. Morbîd Subjects 6. ïncîsîons and ïnscrîptîons Concusîon Epîogue: Spîrîts în a Materîa Word