ABSTRACT
Since the International Thai Studies Conference started in Bangkok in 1984 (there was a precursor in New Delhi, retrospectively titled the First leTS, and a later regional workshop specifically on ethnic minorities in Buddhist polities), there has always been an awkwardness (remarked on by many) in the topics of the conference. There have been papers dealing specifically with the Thai majority population of Thailand, Thai (meaning Thailand) ecology and development and history, literature, language, culture and manners. There have been other papers dealing with the broader groups of people speaking languages of the Tai family of which Thai is one, which have included the Northern Thai and the Lao populations of northeastern Thailand, the Lao people of Laos, the Shan of Burma, the Lue and many smaller Tai-speaking groups in China, Laos and Vietnam. And then there have been papers dealing with unrelated (in a cultural/linguistic sense) peoples who form ethnic minority groups within Thailand and neighbouring countries, such as the Hmong and Yao, Akha and Lua'. In effect we have had Thai studies, Tai studies, and studies of other ethnic minorities, within a single conference.
