Fear and Domestic Architecture

Traditionally practices of domestic sanctificationin Thailand (i.e. rituals of housebuilding and domestic remedies)employed the house as a device to prevent ill fortune to promotehealth and prosperity and to repair breaches in the system ofdefence. Modernised Thais associate these traditionalpractices with an outlook which is superstitious and irreconcilablewith that of urban modernity. Nevertheless Thais are struggling toovercome their fear and these practices now reappear in urban apartmentsand houses in Bangkok. The book aims to document and interpret this reappearance of the traditional practices of domesticsanctification 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 solutionfor their anxiety while at the same time the excessiveness of thepractices has turned the familiar space of home into a profoundlyambivalent sphere.