Isan people

Thailand's longstanding policy was not to regard Isan as a separate ethnicity, based on the principle of considering all Tai groups living in Thailand as part of the Thai people. This successfully downplayed the majority Lao ethnicity and led to the development of a distinct regional Isan identity,[22] which is, nonetheless, multi ethnic.

In 2011, Thailand recognized almost all its ethnolinguistic identities. The following table shows all the officially recognized ethnolinguistic groups of Northeast Thailand.[3] The source, a 2011 country report to the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, uses revised (2004) Mahidol University Ethnolinguistic Maps of Thailand data (1997), which provides population numbers for most Northeast Thailand ethnic groups.[23]

Ethnic groups of Northeast Thailand by language family[3]

Subsequently, in 2015, the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security's 2015 Master Plan for the Development of Ethnic Groups in Thailand 2015-2017[24] officially recognized the majority of the Northeast's peoples, the main exception being the 'Thai Lao' group. Further, it did not recognize the 'Isan' ethnic identity.

The first Western scholar to identify and study the distinct "ethno-regional" identity of khon isan was the US anthropologist Charles F. Keyes in 1967.[25] He chose to categorize them as a "ethno-regional" group rather than an ethnic minority, given that their "cultural differences have been taken to be characteristic of a particular part of the country rather than of a distinctive people."[26] He has, nonetheless, consistently described them as being formed mainly of the ethnic Lao group.[2]

About 88% of the people habitually speak the Isan language at home, while 11% say they speak both Isan and Central Thai among themselves, and only 1% speak Central Thai exclusively.[1] "Isan", "Lao" and "Thai" languages form a dialect continuum, in many cases the linguistic varieties do not coincide with the geographical and political boundaries. Defining and differentiating these three "languages" according to objective, linguistic criteria is impossible. The different terms are rather used for political and emotional reasons.[27] In official contexts as well as in school and university classes, only Standard Thai is allowed. There are hardly any mass media publishing or broadcasting in Isan. Many Isan people, especially the younger and well-educated ones as well as those living in towns or outside their native region, master standard Thai on a native or near-native level. Some of them are even shy to speak their original language with their own parents,[4] and in public or in the presence of Thais from other regions[21] due to the low social prestige.[28] Many Central Thais, but also some Isan speakers, associate the Isan language with being uneducated and backward.[28] Therefore, many Isan practice diglossia (i.e. Isan in familiar and informal contexts, standard Thai in public and official ones)[29] or code-switching in their everyday lives.[30] Despite effectively being banned in official discourse, since at least the 1997 Thai constitution, the Isan language has been used publicly within the Northeast for communicating Thai discourses,[31] including political discourses,[32] and there has been a recent resurgence in assertion of the Lao identity, including language.[33]

From the late nineteenth century into the 1930s, the Siamese and then Thai states employed diverse means to integrate the people of the former Lao principalities into the Thai state, including military conscription, forced labour, the introduction of Thai provincial administrative systems,[34] the Siamese monarchy, the Siamese religious sangha and Buddhist calendar (as opposed to the Lao sangha and religious calendar or hit sipsong khong sipsii), and a national education system and bureaucracy.[11] Thai sociopolitical integration of the Isan people into Siam was in some cases met with insurrection in the form of the Holy Men's Rebellions.[35] In the late 1930s, the Thai Cultural Mandates were deployed; by this period, acculturation included the burning of ancient Lao Buddhist manuscripts and records, in order to eliminate Lao culture, especially Lao literacy.[36] In the 1950s, during the Cold War, acculturation accelerated, incorporating more determined and institutionalized state development that included a sacralized bureaucracy,[37] economic development, mandatory primary and then secondary education, health programs, infrastructure (roads and rail) and media (print and radio, followed by television) programs, inspired by Thai nationalism and utilizing the Thai monarchy as a unifying symbol. The overall result was a significant shift towards the Thai language and Thai dress norms, combined with a greater awareness of Thai national identity as defined by adoption of national symbols (e.g., the Thai flag and photographs of the Thai monarch in homes) and reverence towards the Thai Sangha and the Thai monarchy.[38] The integration of Isan people into Thai national identity was generally successful, though with significant structural inequalities remaining, meaning socioeconomic and political integration remain problematic.[39] However, cultural assimilation in terms of, for example, food,[40] music[41] and language[42] was never complete, more hybridized, and in more recent years, there has been a resurgence in some of the local Isan regional and ethnic cultural identities, such as Phu Thai[43] and Lao.[33] This has been due in part to greater multiculturalism and political decentralization beginning in the late 1990s, following the 1997 Constitution and 1999 Education Act, as well as the work of institutes working on language and cultural maintenance and revitalization, such as Mahidol University's Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia (RILCA).[44]

Millions of people have migrated from Isan to the Bangkok agglomeration seeking work and they constitute at least one-fourth of the capital's population.[45][46] About 8,000 from Isan live in Laos on the eastern bank of the Mekong River, which forms much of the border with Thailand. Others have emigrated to Malaysia, Singapore, and western countries such as Australia and the United States.[1]

The socioeconomic integration of the Isan people is an unfinished and ongoing project, and the ethnic minorities of Northeast Thailand are heavily affected by the regional disparities that plague Thailand in terms of, for instance, socioeconomic and educational outcomes.[39] For the period of the 1970s and 1980s, the lower outcomes experienced by the Ian people has been described as internal colonialism due to Isan people filling a cultural class role as construction workers, gardeners, and maids for the Central Thai.[47] More recently, it has led to the integration of Isan people being characterized as 'integration without inclusion'.[48][49][50] A 2019 Asia Foundation report highlighted that Isan people were less affected by poverty than in the past, except in rural areas; that their incomes were stagnant, though they were optimistic for the future; that most people still owned land, but that it was unproductive; they experienced extremely high levels of household debt; that fewer of them were now migrating to other regions of Thailand; that a high percentage of survey respondents supported greater development and industrialization in the region; that most were actually satisfied with educational quality; and that Thailand's universal health courage scheme was greatly benefiting them. The report concludes by pointing out that, contrary to stigma, Isan people are not "unsophisticated peasants".[51]

• Isan#Demographics
• Lao people#Lao in Thailand
• History of Isan

• Asia Foundation (2019). Thailand's Inequality: Myths & Reality of Isan. The Asia Foundation.
• David Brown (1994). "Internal colonialism and ethnic rebellion in Thailand". The State and Ethnic Politics in Southeast Asia. Routledge. pp. 109–142.
• The Isaan Record (online magazine).
• Volker Grabowsky, ed. (1995). "The Northeast (Isan)". Regions and National Integration in Thailand, 1892-1992. Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 105–192.
• Charles F. Keyes (2014). Finding Their Voice: Northeastern Villagers and the Thai State. Silkworm Books.
• Duncan McCargo; Krisadawan Hongladarom (June 2004). "Contesting Isan-ness: Discourses of Politics and Identity in Northeast Thailand" (PDF). Asian Ethnicity. 5 (2): 219–234. doi:10.1080/1463136042000221898. S2CID 30108605.