Ethnographic research on creative cities and transformation of local communities in Thailand

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K12407
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 80020:Tourism studies-related
• Research Institution: Dokkyo University
• Principal Investigator: Sunaga Kazuhiro 獨協大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (70550002)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 創造都市 / コミュニティデザイン / 旧市街 / 都市コモンズ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In recent years, Thai tourism has been experiencing a "creative turn", which has provided local communities with opportunities to revive their local traditions and identities through creative industries, such as art, design, craft and gastronomy.
In this research project, we have examined the potentials of creative community design and development in the Old Towns of Songkhla and Phuket in southern Thailand as major case studies. This study focused on the aspect of creating “urban commons” through creative community development. In other words, we argued that creativity is utilized in those communities as a tool to create social places for local residents to gather and inherit local memories and history, rather than a new form of cultural capitalism to promote creative industries.

Free Research Field

観光人類学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

創造都市や創造産業といった視点から都市の再編のあり様について論じた研究はすでに一定の研究蓄積があるものの、その多くは都市計画や文化政策など政策論の観点から論じられたもので、都市内部の諸アクター間の協働や交渉、抵抗などを含むダイナミズムに焦点を当てた研究は限られている。そこで本研究では、民族誌的手法を用いて、創造都市化に伴うローカル・アイデンティティの諸相について、諸アクター間の相互作用をミクロな視点から明らかにするとともに、資本主義的な原理とは異なる都市コモンズ創出という観点から、アートやデザインなどの創造的活動のポテンシャルについて明らかにした。