Matt Phillips

24 April 2021
4pm—5.30pm (SGT)

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natalie@greyprojects.org

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During the 1950s, US psychological strategy for Thailand emphasised consumerism as a vehicle for the promotion of integration into the capitalist bloc. While this included the promotion of American products to urban Thais, it also involved the mobilization of the US consumer as a key individual in the struggle for Asia. From 1958, following a revolution that committed Thailand to an alliance with the US, the Thai state supported such efforts by mobilising Thai cultural resources for the benefit of visiting Americans. The outcome was a new kind of product that fused modern tastes and trends with Thai visual elements. During the 1960s, the proliferation of such products occurred in parallel with the emergence of new elite spaces that served the process of 'Free World' community building. The proliferation of art galleries, tourist spectacles, handicraft showrooms, hotels and shopping centres all provided a new kind of space from which to understand the Cold War. This paper will focus particularly on the case of Jacqueline Ayer, an Afro-American who was based in the city during the period, and became a key figure in the emergence of a specifically Thai-modern aesthetic.

Matt Phillips is the senior analyst for Southeast Asia (Mekong region) at the Foriegn, Commonwealth and Development Office. Previously, he was a lecturer in modern Asian history at Aberystwyth University. He received his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 2013. His thesis, which was later published as Thailand in the Cold War (Routledge), is a cultural history of the period. He has published widely since, most recently on how King Bhumibol activated Buddhist cosmology during his 1960 visit to the United States, associating the the trip with the journey of a universal monarch in the Buddhist tradition.