Phanom Phrai Studies: The Politics of Local Power in Bun Bang Fai Festival

Abstract

This article analyzes the Bun Bang Fai rocket festival not merely as a rainmaking ritual or a form of Isan cultural heritage, but as a cultural-political arena in which power, interests, identities, and legitimacy are continuously produced, negotiated, and redistributed. The analysis draws on cultural politics, patron–client relations and local political networks, political space, and the political economy of festivals and ritual events to explain the interaction between culture, power, and resources within the context of Phanom Phrai. The analysis demonstrates that the Phanom Phrai Bun Bang Fai festival constitutes a political space in which state agencies, local administrative organizations, politicians, business groups, community leaders, and young people participate in defining the meanings of “Isan culture” and the identity of “Phanom Phrai as the city of rockets.” Such cultural definitions are far from politically neutral. Rather, they are closely connected to the construction of legitimacy and the accumulation of multiple forms of capital, including symbolic, political, and economic capital. The festival also provides a visible arena for patronage networks through budget allocation, sponsorship of rocket competitions, entertainment stages, and other festival resources, thereby reinforcing relationships between local political actors and community constituencies. At the same time, residents and young people should not be understood merely as passive subjects of state or economic domination. They actively employ cultural practices, social media, and symbolic production as strategies for negotiating power and redefining local identity. The article therefore argues that contemporary local politics in Northeast Thailand should be examined through festivals and ritual events as forms of everyday politics, where struggles over meaning, resources, representation, and authority become publicly observable. It further recommends in-depth ethnographic fieldwork and comparative studies across localities to advance political science scholarship that more systematically integrates the dimensions of power, culture, identity, and political economy.