Thailand's Khmer as ‘invisible minority’: Language, ethnicity and cultural politics in north-eastern Thailand
@article{Vail2007ThailandsKA, title={Thailand's Khmer as ‘invisible minority’: Language, ethnicity and cultural politics in north-eastern Thailand}, author={Peter Vail}, journal={Asian Ethnicity}, year={2007}, volume={8}, pages={111 - 130} }
Ethnic Khmer speakers in Thailand number over a million. Yet, despite their large numbers, they are regarded as an ‘invisible minority’, largely inconspicuous in the nation's arena of cultural politics. Their invisibility has, to some extent, to do with their overall cultural similarity with surrounding ethnic Lao speakers of Thailand's north-eastern ‘Isan’ region; like Isan Lao, they are syncretic Theravada Buddhists, and their village life revolves around wet rice agriculture. Such similarity…
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