Dr.Kunnaya Wimooktanon

NAME: Kunnaya Wimooktanon

EMAIL ADDRESS: kunnaya.w@chula.ac.th

EDUCATION

  • 2013 – 2018
    Ph.D. Sociology
    University of Manchester
    Thesis title: Status Strategies among Thai Elites: International Education,
    Cosmopolitanism, and Ideas of ‘The West’. (abstract attached)
    Manchester, UK
  • 2012 – 2013
    M.A. Sociology 
    University of Manchester (Merit)
    Manchester, UK
  • 2009 – 2010
    M.Sc. in Social Anthropology
    University of Edinburgh
    Edinburgh, UK
  • 2003 – 2007
    B.A. in Social Science (International Studies)
    With 1st Class Honor, (3.74 GPA)
    Mahidol University International College
    Nakhon Pathom, Thailand
  • 1997 – 2001
    St. Peter’s School (Y 9 à Y 13)
    Cambridge, New Zealand
  • 1995 – 1996
    Southwell School (Y 7 à Y 8)
    Hamilton, New Zealand
  • 1991 – 1995
    Udom Suksa School (Y 1 à Y 5)
    Bangkok, Thailand

RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Social Distinction
  • Social Conflict
  • Social Networks
  • Technology and Society

COURSES TAUGHT

  • History of Western Ideas
  • Introduction to Anthropology
  • Culture and Globalization
  • Postcolonial Cultures
  • Thailand and The World

WORK HISTORY

  • 2013-2014 Teaching Assistant, University of Manchester
  • 2015-2017 (With one year away to perform research fieldwork and data analysis) 
    Running discussion-focused seminars, being an initial point of contact for students, and marking student assessments in support of various 1st and 2nd year sociology courses.
  • 2010-2012 Part-Time Lecturer, Mahidol University International College
    Formulating and Teaching the courses “Introduction to Sociology” and “World History C: 1914-1945”, setting of course syllabus and examination, and delivering 2 2-hour lectures per week.
  • 2008 – 2009 Specialist (Sustainable Community Development), Knowledge & Learning Centre,
    Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage (MFLF)
    Overseeing various processes of knowledge creation and knowledge management such as the study and consolidation of MFLF’s development best practices, preparing speeches & presentations for the Secretary General, acting as the Secretary General’s personal assistant on occasions.
  • 2007 – 2008 Assistant Programme Manager, Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage (MFLF)
    Assisting the Programme Manager in the formation of project proposals, for the development programme in Aceh, Indonesia and the running of projects and overseeing projects under the main programme’s umbrella, (e.g. the implementation of Malaria testing and eradication in a particular village), overseeing logistics to ensure the smooth running of the programme, and preparing speeches & presentations for the Secretary General, acting as the Secretary General’s personal assistant on occasions.

TEACHING EXPERIENCES

  • 1 hour/week discussion-focused seminar in support of the 2nd year undergraduate (equivalent to Thai 3rd year) sociology course ‘Work, Economy, and Society’ at the University of Manchester in academic year 2017-2018
  • 1 hour/week discussion-focused seminar in support of the 2nd year undergraduate (equivalent to Thai 3rd year) sociology course ‘Sustainability, Consumption and Global Responsibility’ at the University of Manchester in academic years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017
  • 1 hour/week discussion-focused seminar in support of the 1st year undergraduate (equivalent to Thai 2nd year) sociology course ‘Work, Organisation and Society’ at the University of Manchester in academic years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017
  • 1 hour/week discussion-focused seminar in support of the 1st year (equivalent to Thai 2nd year) sociology course ‘Modernity to Post Modernity 2’ at the University of Manchester in academic year 2013-2014
  • 4 hour/week 1st year sociology lecture ‘Introduction to Sociology’ at Mahidol University International College in academic years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012
  • 4 hour/week 2nd year history lecture ‘World History C c1900 – 1945’ at Mahidol University International College in academic year 2011-2012

IT SKILLS

  • Proficient in QSR International’s NVivo 10 qualitative data analysis software
  • Proficient in Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel)
  • Proficient in Prezzi
  • Proficient in Turnitin’s Feedback Studio
  • Proficient in Zotero
  • Semi-proficient in Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom (as an amateur photographer)

THESIS ABSTRACT

The University of Manchester
Kunnaya Wimooktanon
Doctor of Philosophy

Status Strategies Among Thai Elites: International Education, Cosmopolitanism, and Ideas of ‘The West’.

International education has been practised by Siam/Thailand’s elite classes since the late 19th century. However, studies of this practice are few and far between. This thesis investigates the practice of international education among Thailand’s elites, examining international education as a strategy that is used to maintain or enhance an elite’s status through the importation of deterritorialised cultural capital.

This research employs in-depth semi-structured interviews of former international students, examining the logic and discourses behind the participants’ decision to study overseas, their perceptions and practices while studying overseas, and how they deploy their new-found cultural capital upon their return to Thailand. These narratives are then analysed with respect to historical references outlining the ways in which Siamese/Thai elites have employed western-derived cultural capitals as status symbols in the past. It demonstrates a link between these historical engagements with western modernity to the contemporary practice of international education among Thailand’s elite, influencing the participants’ assumption of a hierarchy of culture, with western tertiary institutions seen as being automatically superior to Thai institutions.

This study investigates the practice of international education as a strategy that has been influenced by the participant’s family, notably through the schooling choices made for the participants by their parents. Participants who have been schooled overseas or at an international school demonstrated higher levels of ease with the Western other, enabling them to engage more closely with the ‘source’ of Western culture, allowing them to show greater nuance in their consumption of Western things and practices. Their schooling history placed them at an advantage to participants who have been schooled in the Thai educational system, whose narrative shows a more anxious, deliberative, and by-the-book approach to their engagement with western culture.

This study confirms findings from previous studies into international practices. Specifically, it shows that narratives of openness to foreign others do not necessarily automatically indicate a cosmopolitan or globally reflexive world view, that these narratives need to be analysed within the context of the participants’ frame of reference. In the case of this thesis, the participants’ narratives of openness to foreign others and their valuing of international education prove to be a reproduction of a culturally hierarchical frame of reference, with roots in the unequal relationship between Siam/Thailand and western colonial powers. This frame of reference results in the west being perceived as the source of modernity and progress. Moreover, this thesis also expands upon previous research into deterritorialised cultural capital, broadening the concept by bringing attention to the nuance between high cultural capital participants, and very high cultural capital participants. This thesis also demonstrates how Thailand’s intellectually bifurcated discourse of its relations to the west complicates the study of international education as a deterritorialised form of cultural capital. This finding demonstrates a need for an approach to deterritorialised cultural capital that is attuned to not just the nuances of a particular field’s western lifestyle myth but also the nuances in how that myth was constructed.