Sonic branding and neoliberal survival: tracing disparate histories of Muay Thai boxing music
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
This dissertation examines the ways in which musicians that play pii muay, or music that accompanies Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing) simultaneously recants royalist historiography, while navigating contemporary issues such as economic precarity, heritage tourism, sonic austerity, and nationalist sounding. Musicians from the historic stadia of Bangkok, as well as tourist sites in the North (Chiang Mai) are presented with similar, albeit unique circumstances, where their labor and musicking is leveraged for its affective value and its ability to present the stadium as “authentic,” i.e., similar to Bangkok. In the case of Bangkok musicians, they perform according to tradition because of their deep connections to traditional music houses and familial lineages that date back generations. In the case of tourist stadia in the North, these familial lineages are broken: musicians instead create their own imagined histories through their conscious adaptation of Bangkok repertory and instrumentation. On closer examination, aspects of their musicking reveals nuances about how they break from both Northern and Central traditions and technique, instead performing a hybridized version of pii muay that is both irreverent and unexpected.
Description
2026
License
Attribution 4.0 International