Title: Decoding Thai Politics: Challenges & Prospects, with Pita Limjaroenrat
About the Event: Join Pita Limjaroenrat, former leader of the now-disbanded Move Forward Party of Thailand, and Daena Funahashi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, for a moderated discussion about contemporary Thai politics and society. After a conversation with Funahashi, Pita will take audience questions on themes such as Thailand’s politics, economy, inequality, and democratic movements; Thailand’s relationships with ASEAN, BRICS, and the world’s superpowers; and regional (ASEAN) issues and the global state of democracy.
About the Speakers: Pita Limjaroenrat (b. 1980) formerly led the Move Forward Party (MFP) in Thailand’s May 2023 general elections, where his social democratic platform won the most votes and seats in the Parliament. Despite this mandate, his attempts to form a government were blocked by institutional mechanisms, and the Constitutional Court dissolved the MFP on August 7. Pita’s policy focus centers on addressing grassroots issues, welfare improvements, and human rights, while advocating for the demilitarization of politics and economic demonopolization. Currently, he is Visiting Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. He holds a joint MPA-MBA from Harvard Kennedy School and MIT Sloan and has been named on the TIME 100 Next List. Today, Pita continues to champion transparent and equitable governance on a global scale.
Daena Funahashi is a political and economic anthropologist interested in examining the force of speechlessness, the uncanny, and what lies in the shadow of what can be named. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell University, and is currently a member of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies (CSEAS), Institute of European Studies, The Program in Critical Theory, and an affiliated faculty with the DE in Political Economy. Her work has been funded by the IIE-Fulbright program, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Aarhus University Research Foundation, and the Hellman Fund. She is the author of Untimely Sacrifices: Work and Death in Finland (Cornell University Press 2023), and she has publications in Cultural Anthropology, American Ethnologist, Indonesia, and the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia.
If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) or information about campus mobility access features in order to fully participate in this event, please contact Alexandra Dalferro at adalferro@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days before the event.