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Woman between Two Kingdoms
Dara Rasami and the Making of Modern Thailand
Author(s)
Castro-Woodhouse, Leslie
Collection
Sustainable History Monograph Pilot (SHMP)Language
EnglishAbstract
"Woman Between Two Kingdoms explores the story of Dara Rasami, one of 153 wives of King Chulalongkorn of Siam in Thailand during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in a kingdom near Siam called Lan Na, Dara served as both hostage and diplomat for her family and nation.
Thought of as a ""harem"" by the West, Siam's Inner Palace actually formed a nexus between the domestic and the political. Dara's role as an ethnic ""other"" among the royal concubines assisted the Siamese in both consolidating the kingdom's territory and building a local version of Europe's hierarchy of civilizations. Dara Rasami's story provides a fresh perspective on both the socio-political roles played by Siamese palace women, and how Siam responded to the intense imperialist pressures it faced in the late nineteenth century."
Keywords
history; Asia; South East Asia; Asian history; social science; women's studies; gender studies; women & girls; biography & autobiography; women; biography; Thai royal concubines, Siam royal consorts, women in Thai history, Lanna history, Thai crypto-colonialism, King Chulalongkorn's reignISBN
9781501755507Publisher
Cornell University PressPublisher website
cornellpress.cornell.eduPublication date and place
2021Grantor
Classification
Asian history
Gender studies: women
Biography: general