by Naphorn Siriprasertsilp
Isan is a region situated in northeastern Thailand, bordering Cambodia and Laos. It is also used to reference the various ethno-regional groups who live in the area and are in a precarious position economically and culturally. The word “Isan” is of Pali-Sanskrit origin and means “Northeast”—referring to Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, as the center. Despite being Thailand’s most populated region, Isan is the poorest part of the country. This is partly due to its history as a small polity subordinated by the Siamese kingdom before coming fully under the centralized rule of Bangkok in 1827. Consequently, despite economic reforms undertaken since the early 1960s, Isan is often regarded as “un-siwilai”—meaning uncivilized, marginalized, and backward—as opposed to the siwilai capital Bangkok and its residents, maintaining their superior status through symbolic class differentiation.
Despite this harsh backdrop, Isan is also a fertile ground for thinkers and writers. One of them was Kampoon Boontawee (1928-2003), a renowned and award-winning novelist whose prominent works Child of Northeast (1976), Toong Kula Artan (2001), and Oom Krok Kao Krung (2011) illustrate and celebrate the lives and worldview of Isan people in almost documentary-like prose. Instead of striving for the notion of siwilai, Boontawee’s works address the core problems of superfluous spending born from capitalism and challenge what I call here “hierarchical worlds”—a world that is “only one under the sun, yet separated into two and three worlds.”
During the “Third World, Our World” conference held in Germany in 1988, Boontawee expressed his wish to eradicate the boundaries between the so-called First, Second, and Third worlds and hoped for the interconnectedness of human beings and animals within one singular world. Today, economic growth has become one of the criteria and gauges for human progress. The world is divided into different parts based on economic status and wealth, ranging from the economically developed “First World” to the developing “Third World.” People are reduced to labor to feed the capitalist needs; many are displaced from their homes, moving to industrial sites or even other countries for work. Nature is exploited for resources: industrialization of agriculture and food with synthetic fertilizers and ingredients supply climate crises, and as a result, even farmers become displaced.
Instead of the hierarchies and boundaries that emerge from capitalist logic, Boontawee’s novels offer a new possibility: an eco-centric, diverse community with a political consciousness that recognizes the agency of every existence within the world—including animals, trees, forests, deserts, ghosts, gods or devata, and even capital. His works highlight interdependence and interconnectedness without hierarchy within the cosmos. Humans depend on and learn from animals, nature, ghosts, and vice versa. According to Boontawee, superfluous consumption harms all actors in this chain, resulting in the hardship of all beings within the cosmos. Hence, all within this cosmos should be protected by a sense of anti-materialism. This possibility of eco-centric anti-materialism is based on the Buddhist concept of Dhammachat.
The term Dhammachat combines two Pali words: Dhamma and Jati. The meaning of Jati encompasses birth, life, or classification. The former, Dhamma, can be directly translated as “factors that remain the same” and encompass a range of meanings from normality, truth, cause, reason, and even justice. In this light, Dhammachat can be inferred to everything that is born into existence and lives in its true, normative state. According to Buddhadasa Bikhu, a renowned twentieth-century Thai Buddhist monk and thinker, Dhamma is linked to Dhammachat; he defines Dhamma as “everything, not excluding anything, and is Dhammachat. Hence, Dhamma and Dhammachat are one and interconnected with every existence in this world.”
This idea of interconnectedness is a key theme throughout Boontawee’s major works. The characters in his stories live in close-knit communities, even though they are not blood-related. In A Child of the Northeast, people share gifts and meat gathered from their hunts despite the limited resources they manage to gather. For instance, the protagonist’s father gives part of the snake meat he just hunted to another villager he meets along the way. The following day, another villager gives him and his family one of two bael fruits she received from a village monk. In Oom Krok Kao Krung, after arriving in Bangkok, Thong Suk and his daughter Sroi meet a chauffeur who offers them a free ride “as a fellow Isan.”
These examples highlight the sense of community in the world governed by capitalism and greed, bringing to the forefront compassionate characters who believe that the value of other beings cannot be quantified in monetary forms. They share gifts out of compassion and do not expect rewards—in contrast to the capitalist “generous or grateful consciousness” that, in fact, “is only the phenomenon of a calculation and the ruse of an economy.” This resonates with Partha Chatterjee’s argument that within our understanding of “civil society,” in which people are regarded as individuals with relationships mediated by the market and laws, there is a suppressed narrative: community, whereby its fuzziness and innumerable qualities enable “a wide variety of solidarities ranging from subcaste to gender to nation.” In the case of Boontawee’s novels, instead of being perceived as an inferior un-siwilai group identified by numbers like economic status or income, the Isan people and their humanity are brought to the forefront as innumerable human beings with a rich lived experience, culture, and religion in their own ethno-regional community.
Apart from the interconnectedness between humans, animals play another crucial role in Boontawee’s prose. In his view, the longevity of human lives is related to every animal, reptile, and insect. He explores this idea by presenting animals as active actors—with agency, voice, and even a sense of community among themselves and humans. In Thung Kula Artan, Khamphong (the protagonist), his dogs, buffalo, and other animals’ voices are narrated. Although they do not speak vocally in the story, the narrator always includes their communicative voice in the prose. In one instance, a dog growls and expresses worry at his human “brother,” as if saying, “Please stand up, Brother! Let us flee from this haunted field.” In another instance, the dog bears its fangs to a bird as if to tell the bird, “Don’t steal Brother’s love away from me, bird, or I will gobble you down!”
In Isan culture, animals and nature play a major role in people’s livelihoods. Isan proverbs oftentimes portray animals as role models to children. In A Child of the Northeast, Koon, the protagonist (or, according to some, young Boontawee himself), learns from his father that “Grandfathers, grandmothers, and our ancestors teach us ‘one must wake up at the same time as the crow, and sleep like a dog’,” a shortened version of the proverb “wake up like the crow; sleep like the dog; work to eat like the chicken (Tuenderkkueka Nornkuemah Haginkuegai).” As a result, Boontawee uses animals to instruct humans how they should live their daily lives, thus presenting their relationships are mutually beneficial. Far from being mere tools for exploitation or savage beings that operate purely on instinct, he sees animals as active actors endowed with consciousness just like humans.
Interestingly, Boontawee portrays animals as having connections to supernatural beings such as trees, lands, plains, or rivers. Throughout his works, he often depicts animals as manifestations of Devata, the deities that reside within certain landscapes. A cobra, for instance, might be seen as a Chao Tee (Spirits governing the land). Other than being manifestations of divine beings, their existence may depend on or could be affected by the deities. In A Child of the Northeast, when Koon and other villagers fish at Chi River, one of the elders shoots his gun into the sky, declaring, “The spirits of the ancestors of this river, next year, I will bring my descents to ask for fish.” Later in the story, the gunshot is described as a way to “pay homage and say goodbye to Chaomae Lamchi, the spirit of Chi River, to avoid misfortune. The scene illustrates how the abundance of animals like fish is attributed to the spirits that protect the land. The Isan recognize their dependence on the river and the spirits that protect it by fishing only enough to sustain their livelihoods and paying respect to the spirits.
Although unrelated to animals, the acknowledgment of supernatural beings and their agency is emphasized throughout the story, often in relation to nature. For the Isan, the supernatural remained crucial in everyday lives: ghosts and spirits are powerful beings whose existence is tied to nature—from the land to the sky, from the weather to the river; they are capable of goodness and badness, and able to fulfill one’s wishes or befell one with misfortune. In A Child of the Northeast, besides the Chi River and its spirits, Boontawee also presents the sun as a deity that sets because it “wants humanity to rest and fight for tomorrow.” Similarly, the sky is home to Phraya Thaen, or Phi Fah (sky ghost), capable of eliminating obstacles and hardships. The land is inhabited by Phra Mae Thoranee, or the Earth deity. In forests and homelands rest the spirits of ancestors, their shrines resembling a human house. Each December, people hold feasts for the spirits to ensure peaceful and happy lives for the community. With spiritual beings integral to people’s lives, the books exemplify how humans and spirits co-exist within the Isan cosmos. All spirits are part of Dhammachat and are adequately respected, with some having their own shrines. If someone disrespects the land or the spirit tied to it, they are bound to suffer misfortune. Trees, plains, fields, and rivers, together with their spirits, thus have agency and are interconnected with all beings within the Isan cosmos.
Amidst capitalist greed and competition, the works of Kampoon Boontawee highlight the unique worldview of the Isan people—one that recognizes the interdependence of all beings and rejects capitalist competition for superfluous material gains. Through the concept of Dhammachat, Boontawee acknowledges the interconnectedness of all beings—from animals to ghosts in the landscapes—as well as their agency and communicative abilities. This eco-centric approach reminds us that one’s misfortune will inevitably impact others, as all beings are interdependent. Thus, Boontawee’s eco-centrism challenges the idea that people and beings can be reduced to numbers and become mere objects, un-beings, to be owned. Instead, his works offer a powerful alternative vision of a more egalitarian future: one where people prioritize planetary coexistence, unify differences into one non-hierarchical world, and where all voices within Dhammachat—including those of plants, animals, and ghostly beings—are heard.
“A writer is not a judge who inflicts punishment upon humans or non-humans. Writers are one that provides enjoyment to fellow human beings and reflect human livelihood artistically. I want to speak for trees, mountains, mountains, and Dhammachat (nature) in order for humans to love and care for them instead of destroying them.” (Boontawee during the Third World, Our World Conference, 1988)
Naphorn Siriprasertsilp is an MLitt student in Global Social and Political Thought at the University of St Andrews.
Edited by Artur Banaszewski
Featured Image: Kampoon Boontawee, the Award-Winning Author of 1979 South East Asian Writers Award, c. 2001 (คำพูน บุญทวี นักเขียนรางวัลวรรณกรรมสร้างสรรค์ยอดเยี่ยมแห่งอาเซียนประจำปี พ.ศ. 2522 และศิลปินแห่งชาติสาขาวรรณศิลป์ประจำปี พ.ศ. 2544), via Thai Wikipedia.
