Roadside memorials in northeastern Thailand

Erik Cohen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

In Thailand spirit houses are often established at places of fatal accidents, but these are generally anonymous. Personalized roadside memorials for accident victims are rare. This article analyses three roadside memorials, located on main roads in northeastern Thailand, in a comparative framework. Like in the contemporary West, such memorials commemorate a suddenly and violently killed person, but manifest a dynamics very different from that of Western roadside memorials: rather than private and temporary, these are permanent shrines, in which the spirit of the deceased is worshipped and supplicated by members of the public. The spirits and their shrines tend to become incorporated into the popular Thai magico-religious complex. While the literature offers a binary distinction between formal public monuments and informal, private and temporary (roadside) memorials, it is suggested that the informal, but public and permanent memorial shrines in Thailand exemplify a third type of edifices to commemorate the deceased in road accidents.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)343-363
Number of pages21
JournalOmega: Journal of Death and Dying
Volume66
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2012

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