Tracing Women in Thammasat University: A Feminist Re-reading of Thammasat’s History

Abstract

This research article explores the roles and status of women at Thammasat University, focusing on how its institutional history has shaped their visibility and remembrance within Thai higher education. Using qualitative documentary research, the study analyzes primary and secondary sources spanning the 90-year history of Thammasat University (1934–2024), framed through feminist historiography. This framework centers the recovery of women’s voices, experiences, and memories—often overlooked or erased in mainstream historical narratives. The findings reveal that although Thammasat University has a reputation as a bastion of freedom, equality, and democracy, women remain marginal in institutional records, memorials, and commemorative practices, which are largely informed by androcentric perspectives. The study interrogates this marginalization—through silence, selective remembrance, and exclusion—as a form of power that shapes the production of knowledge about women within the institution. The article not only highlights women’s absence from official histories but also challenges dominant epistemologies and power structures underpinning conventional knowledge production. It argues that feminist historical approaches can create space for more inclusive, critical, and diverse narratives, and provide deeper insight into the interplay between institutional memory, power, and academic discourse.