Passing over in silences: Ideology, ideals and ideas in Thai translation

Abstract

This article explores English-Thai translations of 'political ideology'. It traces the evolution of the Thai term udomkan and discusses how the complexity of the foreign discourse was reflected in its Thai counterpart. There was a conflation of 'idea' and 'ideal'. Udomkan is a uniquely Thai word, translations of which have never been stable. The contemporary political conflict is analysed through an attempt to catalogue the points on which opposing sides pivot. While this tangled 'pre-post-ideological' predicament is not unique to Thailand, it exemplifies the ways in which cross-country comparisons might be wary of coding political factions along universal standards of coherence, contrast or temporal stability. © The National University of Singapore 2012.