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Paper short abstract

This paper explores how folk stories about the nagas, mythical serpents intimately linked with waterways, landscapes, weather patterns, and cosmologies, continue to provide an allegorical framework for people in northern Thailand in the face of growing vulnerabilities induced by climate change.

Paper long abstract

Like many other parts of the world, the province of Chiang Rai, in the north of Thailand, has been experiencing an increasing number of climate-related catastrophes in recent years. Last September, exceptional rainfall and the overflowing of rivers across the upper-middle Mekong basin were the cause of unprecedented flooding, resulting in extensive personal and property damage. While official and public discourse about these events is mostly framed in modern scientific terms, this is a region where ancient stories about the nagas, mythical serpent-like creatures intimately linked with local waterways, landscapes, weather patterns, and cosmologies, are still part of a rich but waning oral tradition. This tradition, represented in a variety of folk tales, rituals, and artistic expressions, incorporates very ancient animistic beliefs as well as Buddhist principles and practices that have become an integral part of the diverse and dynamic culture of the region. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the persistence and relevance of these narratives for contemporary inhabitants of Chiang Rai and the broader Chiang Saen basin in the face of climate change and other environmental catastrophes. Based on recent ethnographic fieldwork conducted by undergraduate Thai students under the author’s supervision, this paper will present and discuss some of the stories that people in this area tell about the nagas today. It will also explore whether these stories continue to provide an allegorical framework for local inhabitants to interpret and make sense of their growing concerns about the risks and vulnerabilities induced by climate change.