Pipit Banglamphu Museum and Nationalism as A Fantasy The Construction of the Recollection and Technique of Feeling

Abstract

Pipit Banglamphu Museum aims to show about the various cultures and histories of Banglamphu Community. However, the museum chose to present only memories that they are defied as a good thing. The selected representations tend to build the feeling of nationalism. Therefore, this article aims to study museum and nationalism as a fantasy, a case study on Pipit Banglamphu Museum, with 2 questions. There are 1) What are selected or unselected to exhibit in the museum? and 2) How the museum collaborates the concept of nationalism? The results show that the museum reconstructed national imagine in 2 configurations. There are 1) the selected knowledges about Banglamphu’s history, for example, Si San Banglamphu (Lively Banglamphu) and Tin Khon Dee Sri Banglamphu (Good People of Banglamphu). Although these exhibitions of the informations are presenting the ideal of nation, following interview the people in Banglamphu communities revealed that there are many unselected histories to show in the museum and 2) Techniques of Feeling, the information is not presented as words for books but its display by technologies of exhibitions, movies, pictures, sounds and lights. When people walk into the museum, they will touch with visual and auditory about fantasy of Banglamphu’s history. Thereby, these exhibitions can instigate internal feeling of nostalgia of national imagined communities. However, Pipit Banglamphu Museum is not only the recoding about Banglamphu communities, it the one of reconstruction of Nationalism as A Fantasy.