ABSTRACT
Historians of Buddhism in Northern Thailand have generally only paid attention, in deCerteau’s terms, to the “strategies” of those in power, rather than the everyday “tactics” of individual Buddhist students and teachers who are attempting to design their own practices, beliefs, and ways of knowing. The attention paid to strategies alone has obscured messy local histories constructed by local memory, rhetorical styles, and family reputations in favor of regional histories defined by grand phases of rise and decline of golden and dark ages. Monastic educators, if studied at all, are seen as simply pawns of secular government forces, and macroeconomic trends, not as active agents who often operate outside and in direct opposition to institutional and ideological coercion.
