Cultural diversity, biodiversity conservation, and modern identity: Conflicts about biocultural diversity in Thung Yai, a world heritage site in Thailand

Abstract: Interrelations between biological and cultural diversity have become important controversial issues in discourses about nature conservation, sustainable development, and indigenous rights. This paper reviews very broadly the conceptualization of these interrelations in different discourses and points to 'conflicts about biocultural diversity' as a common empirical core issue of
these discourses. It is argued that these conflicts represent a historically specific expression of conflicts at the fringes of expanding modern societies, framed in current discourses which increasingly propose, at the same time, the preservation of biological as well as cultural diversity, going along with an 'ecologization' of the natural and social periphery of modernity.
As an example for such conflicts, the case of Karen ethnic minority groups in the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary and World Heritage Site in Thailand is analyzed. The paper identifies major re-framings of the conflict over the last century focusing on interdependent changes on the local, national, and international level related to modernization processes.
Referring to ongoing controversies about 'modernity' and 'cultural diversity', the paper finally advocates, in an inductive approach, a particularistic conceptualization of modernity and an alterity-oriented concept of cultural diversity in the context of a self-reflexive 'culture of modernity'

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

Classification and Topics

• Keyword: Karen ; Pwo ; Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Reserve ; Thailand

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Freiburg
• (who): Universität
• (when): 2021
• Creator: Buergin, Reiner

Further information

• DOI: 10.6094/UNIFR/194282
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-1942824
• Rights: Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:54 AM CEST