Most Thais have been taught from time to time that all kinds of cultural resource are owned by the state not by private.Civic sectors and local communities could not take any management actions to cultural resources without the permission from the state authorized person. Most of cultural resource management activities (CRM) have to be organized and operated by state-archaeologists and state conservation - architects without any participation of other sectors in the society.
Since the management of cultural / archaeological resource in Thailand has been state-centralized in non-participative actions for more than 100 years, general people with no academic background in archaeology and / or related academic disciplines cannot conduct and at any ancient building / monuments without the permission from the authorized person.
All registered or non-registered ancient sites / objects located or housed in their communities, once belonged to people but now they are untouchable without official's permission. The state-centralized and non-participative management drove major group of Thais turn a blind eye to it.
All cultural / archaeological resources are protected as national heritage and preserve to be used by the state only. Villagers and ordinary people can not use such resources as inputs for their community development at all. This is one of the factors that create most Thai communities' weakness.
The directive and non-participative CRM has gradually created difficulties to the management programs and increased gap between state and people and even between people and cultural resources. Most Thais have less opportunity to know and understand deeply about meanings, values and importance of the cultural / archaeological resources they live next to or the ones located distantly. Most Thais have no sense of belonging in cultural / archaeological resources and feel that the protection and conservation duties are not theirs.
çÕHundreds of cultural / archaeological sites had been excavated, conserved, reconstructed and managed as educative and tourist attractions i.e.Sukothai Historical Park, Ayutthaya Historic City, Ban Chiang archaeological site, etc. ,has less benefit to local communities. Most Thais pay less attention and cannot use any of those for their community development.
As happened in most countries, all archaeological excavated zones are always enclosed or fenced to protect the archaeological features. Non-archaeological / historical / anthropological background person, villager have to observe outside ,keeping distant from the zones. The Thai CRM - authorized unit always operate management tasks alond based on laws rather than people participation.
Although most cultural /archaeological structures had been created and constructed by local artisans and popular wisdom accompanying natural and cultural environments during several periods, popular knowledge related to identification, classification, valuing conservation or reconstruction are not accepted by authorized and specialized archaeologists.
These management manners made most Thais gradually feel unfriendly to both cultural resources and authorized management unit. They turned their backs to any CRM projects and giving no participation.
As we know, cultural resources are parts of cultural system that belong to group of people not to individual, so CRM without people participation is not correct logically. Non-participaitive / directive or top-down CRM always devalues human dignity, decrease people opportunity to acculturate and socialized, making people inaccessible to cultural resources, decrease people potential to elevate self-reliance in any aspects and destruction community as well. Such inappropriate traditional CRM style should be improved immediately.
.. an approach on Cultural Resource Management in association with Community Development [CRM & CD].
..integrates philosophy, principles and development methods of 3 main theories :
(1) HM King Bhumibol's Sufficient Economy Theory
(2) Community Cultural-based Development Theory
(3) Community Development Theory
This approach is an alternative non-lineal concept believing in the basis of 'small is beautiful' , aiming to enhance and strengthen the ability of local people and villagers in management cultural / archaeological sites / resources in association with their community development. Main purposes are:-
(1) empowering the 'man' together with management the 'things', not only preserving 'things' and excluding 'man' as ever practiced in the past,
(2) promoting the concepts 'Living Heritage' and 'Living Together' as development means to advantage highest stake to people through participative CRM.
(3) developing cultural / archaeological management units on the basis of His Majesty King Bhumibol's Self Sufficiency Economy Theory or 'Set-tha-kit-Por-phiang'.
Community Archaeology has been firstly taken place in 1999 in the research program 'Participatory action research and development program towards an enhancement the community ability in cultural resource management in Nan Province, North Thailand'.The research was operated in Sauk an Na-Sao sub district of Muang Nan District where ancient ceramic kiln sites (12th - 15th century A.D.) and prehistoric stone-tool producing / manufacturing sites (approx.4,000-8,000 yrs.) are located.
Research style and Process.
The research methodology was newly stylized as Participative Action Research and Community Development (PAR & CD) which aimed to :
(1) enhance the ability of local people living in communities where cultural / archaeological sites are located in or nearby on the management such heritages themselves.
(2) create and innovate the Participative CRM medel for furthur practices in other communities within Thailand or other regions.
Main research activity was the fulfilment of the 'Living Heritage' and the 'Living Together' which included :
- Facilitating people with the right in-community training to become on site survey, site excavation, artifact classification, site conservation and manintenance.
- Facilitating and enhancing people's ability on site-museum and community museum organization.
- Developing 4 categories of CRM unit, i.e. CR-manager, Family-based management unit, Intra-community-based management unit and Inter-community-based management unit.
- Continuity of indigeneous culture to be maintained through the development of community museum, revitalization, promotion, and trade of handicrafts, textiles and other local products.
During the research process, volunteers from any backgrounds were welcome at any time to work with archaeologists and villagers. Graduate and undergraduate students in the field of Social Work and Community Development programs and people of all ages in the stydy area participated this program . Students used Community Archaeology as a means to do Social Work and Community Development with local people. While local people applied Community Archaeology as a means for self-empowering and enhancing their pride. Province-governer, government services and civil groups, monks, doctors, nurses, farmers and politicians in Nan province also joined the activities. The sites, site-museum and community museums in the study area became better known and used as teaching and learning sources on archaeology and history of ceramics and stone-tools, local arts and culture, folk lifestyles, especially after the royal visits of HRH Princess Galyani, the King's elder sister in 1999 and HRH Crown Princess Maha Chakri Siridhorn in 2001. During 1999-2005 , there are approximately 50,000 visitors visited the sites and museums in the study area.
As an archaeologist and a community development worker who believe and trust in human dignity and people ability, I has innovated Participative CRM approach named as Community Archaeology through my long-term research program during 1999-2004. The Pilot research is aimed to enhance the ability on CRM of people in local communities who has been excluded from traditional CRM for several decades.
The research program was mainly granted by the Thaikhadi Research Institute of Thammasat University. Extra operation budget used in the program apart from research grant has been funded by the Ford Motor Company Conservation and Environmental Grant.
(11) Ford Motor Company Conservation & Environmental Grants awarded the Community Archaeology Project in 2000 and in 2003.
(12) Thailand World Heritage Commitee agreed with the very high value and most important of prehistoric stone-manufacturing sites at Doi Phu Zang and proposed this archaeological site into the tentative list of World Heritage.
(13) Local government allocated large amount of budget to develop infrastructure as road, information buildings, local museums and deeper archaeological research in the study area.
(14) In 2005, Ja-Manas Tikham, one of CR-museum has been awarded from HRH Princess Sirindhorn for his ability and voluntary jobs in maintenance the ancient kiln site museum at Ban Bo Sauk.
(15) HRH Princess Sirindhorn made auspicious visit the stone-tool manufacturing site at Doi Phu Zang on July 28,2005. Her visit made local people more aware and paid more attention in preservation of the archaeological sites.
In summary, I would like to say that participants in the study area realized the values of existing archaeological and cultural resource, have sense of belongings, have confident and management skills based on multi-level of self-reliance principle. This research, in the long term, will provide decent incomes,higher self-esteem to villagers and local people. These pilot practices using Community Archaeology Approach, although in micro scale of study, has been accepted by several groups in Thailand. Should Community Archaeology be an alternative CRM for this postmodern-era?
