Date of Award

Summer 8-21-2025

Document Type

Thesis (Master's)

Department or Program

Master of Arts in Liberal Studies

First Advisor

John M. Watanabe

Second Advisor

Jaggapan Cadchumsang

Third Advisor

Donald E. Pease

Abstract

Abstract

This thesis traces the evolving symbolism of the Naga motif (a mythic water serpent) in Northeast Thailand through a framework I call meta-motion, which maps symbolic persistence of this cultural signifier and boundary marker across four cultural horizons—animist (Z), Hindu–Khmer (B), Buddhist (A), and modern/global (C). Like electrons in quantum super position, symbolic motifs circulate as overlapping “waves” of potential meaning and are concretized into cultural “particles” only when recruited for specific ritual, commercial, or political purposes. I add a bookend extension to Chang’s Hindu-Buddhist (B/A) typology with the addition of Horizons Z and C in order to make visible the accumulative logic by which cultural symbols persist.

Based on sixteen months of multilingual archival study and ethnographic fieldwork in Northeast Thailand and Laos, the analysis draws on Barth’s cultural boundary theory, Watanabe’s idea of cultural shibboleths and recombinant forms, and Tambiah’s fieldwork in Thailand during the 1960s where he observed layered ritual and religious fields. I show that the Naga phin acts simultaneously as boundary marker and bridge: its carved Naga head along with the intrinsically Lao tonal contour of Mo Lam assert Isan distinctiveness, while its amplified form and artistic stage presence invite cosmopolitan participation.

Reframing syncretism as strategic calibration rather than passive blending, the meta-motion framework provides a transferable lens for analyzing resilience of cultural motifs and symbols under globalization. It shifts the conversation from rupture-centric post-colonial narratives toward an agentive, locally driven model of cultural persistence, and explains how motifs such as the Naga remain “good to think with” (Lévi-Strauss 1963) in new epistemic terrains.

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