Indigenous Heritage and Identity of the Last Elephant Catchers in Northeast Thailand

Abstract

In 2019, when Mew Salangam passed away at 91, newspapers across Thailand described him as belonging to the “last generation of elephant doctors.” Mew was a member of the Kui Ajiang community in Thailand, an Indigenous group living in the Northeast known for catching elephants. Sometime beginning in the 1950s, this practice gradually came to an end. 'Indigenous Heritage and Identity of the Last Elephant Catchers in Northeast Thailand' examines how the end of elephant catching has affected the heritage and identity of the Kui Ajiang, offering an analysis that calls for close attention to the broader currents of Thai history and the development of Thai environmental and cultural heritage policies. Furthermore, the term Authorised Environmental Discourse (AED) is introduced in tandem with Laurajane Smith’s Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD) to portray how heritage embedded in nature and culture reflects impacts of political authority and how a community responds to threats of loss and challenges to the authenticity of its traditions.