Research & Article

This paper examines changes in the power and moral position of Mo Muang (traditional healers in northern Thailand) as seen through case studies of healing rituals, in Nan, Phayao and Lampang provinces. The paper seeks to identify indigenous perspectives as seen through ideas of people, knowledge and morality. The paper examines the dialectical relationships between the reproduction of ritual knowledge and the transformation of power. In the changing social relationships that are occurring in Thailand, a strong bureaucratic system holds on to power while the enlarging middle class finds itself with only limited power. Mo Muang plays a role in helping members of this new and volatile middle class rationalize their distorted social position.