The rise and fall of the Tribal Research Institute (TRI): "Hill tribe" policy and studies in Thailand

Abstract

The Tribal Research Center/Institute (TRI) was inaugurated in 1965 and dissolved by the Thai government Bureaucratic Reform Act in 2002. This paper discusses the rise and fall of the TRI by showing that the TRI has come from the need of the Thai government, with the support from foreign agencies, to have an "advisory and training" center to deal with "hill tribe problems," in the context where few ethnic studies institutes and researchers existed. TRI had actively served its mother organizations by providing them necessary information and recommendation for the monitoring, evaluation and improvement of the government and highland development projects, while its resource center and experts had served academic society for many decades. In 2000s, when "hill tribe problems" have diminished: communist operation stopped, opium cultivation reduced and hill tribes were seemingly well integrated into Thai society, the government no longer needed to maintain its focus on the hill tribes and related organizations. The TRI's role was terminated without any proper handing over of its human and other resources to the right institute. Unlike 40 years ago, however, now ethnic studies institutes and especially ethnic own organizations and communities have grown up to take care of their problems, arising from government policy and modernization, by carrying out ethnic studies and development by their own.