Existing literature on maritime people in the West coast of Southern Thailand generally reiterate an academic given, positing that the area has been inhabited by three distinct ethnic groups, namely the Moken, the Moklen, and the Urak Lawoi. Distinction among them was drawn on the basis of linguistic differences and variation in ways of life and certain socio-cultural traits, heralded by scholars as emblems of ethnic identity setting each group apart from one another. However, such academic representation of distinct coastal tribes is at odd with self-identification made by the members of the groups being studied, especially the Moken and the Moklen, who take the two ethnonymns as varying designations referring to one and the same group of people.
In this paper, I examine the discrepancy between academic constructs and insiders’ understandings of their ethnic identity manifest in the contested perceptions of the Moken-Moklen differentiation. I intend to show that the distinction between these two groups is academic construct built from an overemphasis on differences that, though recognized by the Moken/Moklen informants, are not perceived as salient differences justifying the Moken-Moklen division. Given its conspicuous inconsistency with the insiders’ perspectives, such division betrays politics of representation as it seems to be dictated by agendas inside and outside academia rather than faithfully reflecting essential differences dividing the Moken from the Moklen. These agendas, I argue, include: 1) A need to invent a definite and clearly-demarcated object of study, resulting in a predisposition toward differences pivotal to the construction of the Moken and the Moklen as two separate analytical units. 2) The reservation discourse and movements after the 2004 Tsunami, which advocate the protection of “endangered” ethnic minorities on the West coast of Southern Thailand and their unique, pristine traditions. 3) Local activists who stress the Moken-Moklen differences via the invention of a conventional and homogenous Moklen tradition, promoted as the badge of ethnic identity distinguishing the Moklen from the Moken.
Anthropological and folkloristic knowledge as academic/social construct has been widely discussed among scholars of cultural science. This study, exposing such construction via a case in which academic given collides with the insiders’ perceptions, brings into the conversation the heretofore neglected self-identification made by the members of the group under scrutiny. This ultimately sheds light on the inevitably partial and selective nature of academic explanations premised on the Moken-Moklen differentiation.