Paper short abstract:

This paper examines malls as monumental and everyday spaces in order to explain recent protests centered on Bangkok’s economic center. Specifically, I connect the unique bond between the mall and street market to protestors harnessing pop culture to express dissent against the military government.

Paper long abstract:

The use of the salute found in the Hunger Games series by anti-military demonstrators in Bangkok, is just one protest amongst many worldwide that emerged around the "junkspace" of the mall. To better examine why these protests are occurring, I analyze the mall as a monument as well as an everyday space that is shaped by the specific way global and local conceptions of space interact in Thailand.

The mall, as a form of everyday urbanism, is not simply set as opposed to the "lower class" space of the street market, but encourages and at times incorporates such local economic activity. This paper therefore turns to the everyday spaces of the market in order to first demonstrate how the play and interaction between high and low classed spaces are not always a matter of removal or erasure of one over another through planning or architectural form. The mall, in fact, is an urban form particularly conducive to such engagement and play.

Unlike the ways in which previous protests have posed themselves as counter to this space of the mall in the past, the most recent demonstrations that take place around one of the key luxury malls reveals that urban spaces of insurgence can actually engage with the global language of the mall and global popular culture to make their demands. The mall is no longer solely a space that must be countered, even burned down, but in fact it is harnessed and engaged with through the act of protest.