Fear and Domestic Architecture

Traditionally, practices of domestic sanctification in Thailand (i.e. rituals of housebuilding and domestic remedies) employed the house as a device to prevent ill fortune, to promote health and prosperity, and to repair breaches in the system of defence. Modernised Thais associate these traditional practices with an outlook, which is superstitious and irreconcilable with that of urban modernity. Nevertheless, Thais are struggling to overcome their fear and these practices now reappear in urban apartments and houses in Bangkok. The book aims to document and interpret this reappearance of the traditional practices of domestic sanctification in contemporary Thai home. The evidences show that the modernised Thais are reusing and reinventing some of the techniques of the traditional practices as a solution for their anxiety, while at the same time, the excessiveness of the practices has turned the familiar space of home into a profoundly ambivalent sphere.