Representational work and ‘reverse order’ essentialism: Digitisation of local information in Thailand and Bhabha’s Third Space

Abstract

The Local Information Working Group (LIWG) of Thailand’s provincial university libraries holds main responsibility for digitising Thai local information (LI), a resource that shares many characteristics with what in other contexts is described as Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK). This study therefore explores how the digitisation activities of the LIWG correlate with claims of culturally responsive and responsible ILK representation, and how this work can be understood through the perspective of Bhabha’s Third Space. The study is based on interviews with 23 LIWG members, collected in 2016–2017. A guided, qualitative content analysis focused on uncovering themes of digitisation tools and methods with Third Space relevance as supporting or hindering essentialism, fixity and hybridity in LI representations. The findings illustrate that whereas the digitisation itself, field studies, language choices and outreach activities offer certain Third Space potential, this is underdeveloped and largely circumstantial. Third Space potentials are further likely to be restricted or hindered by uneven distribution of internet access, digital literacy, standard Thai proficiency and university/academic library accessibility among the Thai public in general and LI holders in particular. Overall, marginalised groups are excluded, and LI holders are positioned as passive contributors and recipients of digitised LI, suggesting a reversed sort of ‘self-essentialism’ on behalf of the dominant culture. In conclusion, two aspects in particular require further attention for libraries engaging with digitisation of ILK types of resources: the inclusion of national, societal level participation into participatory approaches; and the incorporation of functionalities for user interaction, holistic knowledge representation, multiple languages and cultural protocols into ICT for representation and use. The study provides a unique application of Third Space as analytical perspective on library digitisation of LI/ILK types of resources. Methodologically, the study is case specific, limited to a cross-section in time, and to data from interview accounts of LIWG members.

Introduction

It is increasingly recognised that cultural resources of Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) character all over the world are in need of both preservation and revitalisation (e.g. Benyei et al., 2020; Rivière and Erdelen, 2009; UNESCO, 2009; Vandebroek et al., 2011). Many researchers also argue that these needs and concerns are – or at least should be – within the competences and mandates of library and archive institutions (e.g. Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Maina, 2012; Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017; Shiri et al., 2021). Influential library associations concur, and Maina (2012: 16–17) highlights that the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA, 2010) is urging libraries to get involved in traditional knowledge issues and that the American Library Association (ALA, 2010) acknowledges ‘traditional cultural expressions’ as playing ‘. . . an integral role to the communities that create them, [and] libraries should manage and care for these materials in a manner that values the unique qualities and concerns of their creators’. This article describes one such case of library digitisation of ILK types of resources, focusing on the Local Information Working Group (LIWG), a centralised organisation of the Provincial University Library Network (PULINET) of Thailand, which operates under a national political directive with the mission to digitise Thai local information (LI).

As shown in previous studies emanating from the larger research project of which this study is part (c.f. under ‘Methods’), the conception of Thai LI is broader than, yet inclusive of, resources of ILK type (Nonthacumjane and Johansson, 2022). The digitisation of LI thus involves selecting and representing a broad variety of expressions of knowledge, culture, history and practices that are situated and embedded in the localities, lives and doings of local individuals and cultural communities. The LIWG’s LI digitisation approach is characterised by strong application and use values associated with the LI resources; offering guidance on how to live, and for developing pride in local traditions (Nonthacumjane and Johansson, 2022). The LIWG’s overall digitisation of LI may therefore seem to align well with international ILK agendas and policies that stress the need to not only preserve but revitalise traditional knowledge (Nonthacumjane and Johansson, 2022; Rivière and Erdelen, 2009; UNESCO, 2009). The previous study also finds, however, that the LIWG’s seemingly all-inclusive LI conceptions are selectively applied in ways that exclude marginalised cultures and societally undesirable LI expressions. The LIWG’s digitisation activities thereby also contribute to shape LI as a homogenous resource for unified national identity (Nonthacumjane and Johansson, 2022), aligning with Thailand’s national politics of cultural assimilation and homogeneity (c.f. Mungmachon, 2012; Pornpimon et al., 2014). From this perspective, the LI digitisation activities of the LIWG simultaneously risk counteracting the aforementioned ideals of ILK preservation and revitalisation.

Although Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia to have never been colonised by a European power (Frederick, n.d.), this does not mean that the ethnic composition and national political climate is unproblematic and without internal colonialist tendencies. Throughout history, many cultural and ethnic minorities have immigrated to Thailand from other places in the Southeast Asian region without reaching the status of formal state recognition with adhering rights and obligations (c.f. Baird, 2019; Minority Rights Group International, 2017a, 2017b; The Network of Indigenous Peoples in Thailand (NIPT), 2010). Although not post-colonial in the literal sense, nations with mixed ethnic and cultural compositions may still display power imbalances that play out as (mis)representation and exclusion of non-dominant groups in ways that can be conceived of as internal colonialism. Examples are found from the Sámi populations of the Nordics and Russia (Lehtola, 2015) to the Nagas of India (Bandyopadhyay and Yuwanond, 2018). We frame here the LI digitisation activities of the LIWG as representational work in a similar context of power imbalances.

From this background understanding, we focus in the following on two main and interrelated challenges of the LIWG’s LI digitisation activities: the representation of ILK characteristics of LI through library associated tools and methods; and the representation of cultural diversity on overall national level. Below, we outline this problematising approach in more detail.

Problem and aim

The characteristics of ILK types of resources pose far-reaching challenges to established library and archival practices. As described by Maina (2012: 16), ‘traditional knowledge’ is contextual, multifaceted and overall non-conformant with Eurocentric knowledge and property systems. It is:

. . . generally understood to be produced in the context of Indigenous Peoples’ relationships with their environment and with each other, . . . orally transmitted from generation to generation, and . . . dynamic and changing as opposed to a possible misconception that it is ‘past knowledge’. It is . . . a way of life and is also, inter alia: experiential through observation and hands-on; originates from the Creator and spirits; is holistic; and intuitive (Maina, 2012: 16).

Maina’s description clarifies that the challenge of preservation and revitalisation of ILK resources from the perspective of established systems and practices in libraries and archives is considerable, even if considering the digitisation of one ILK culture and its resources as an isolated endeavour. Vigorous innovative work is performed to better meet ILK specific demands. Issues of participation and control, ICT design for dynamic interaction and contextual/holistic representations, and language related considerations are central to strives towards such culturally ‘responsive and responsible’ digitisation (e.g. Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Maina, 2012; Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017; Shiri et al., 2021). But what is more, these challenges should also in many cases be understood in light of how one or several ILK cultures are represented within larger, national, contexts; subordinated a dominant culture that, intentionally or unintentionally, may cause additional misrepresentation, discrimination and exclusion of these marginalised cultures.

A large part of recent critical research on digitisation and representation of ILK types of resources addresses aspects of the above mentioned problematic, and are conducted within the contexts of nations with a colonial past. Examples of the sort describe historical oppression and rectifying projects from First Nations in Canada (Shiri et al., 2021) and Australia (Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017), Māori tribes in New Zealand (Brown and Nicholas, 2012) and Native Americans in the US (Maina, 2012). Post-colonial theories frequently feature in these studies to help explore ways in which conditions and processes of cultural representation relate to subject positioning, identity formation and relations between ethnic and cultural groups. Examples are particularly prominent within the fields of tourism studies (Amoamo, 2011; Bandyopadhyay and Yuwanond, 2018; Hollinshead, 1998) and pedagogy (e.g. Bartmes and Shukla, 2020). One of these perspectives, which we also choose for the framing of our study, is Bhabha’s (1994) writings on Third Space. His ideas have helped illuminate issues of power and politics as studied by researchers from numerous different disciplines. Here, we mainly draw inspiration from Third Space examinations of cultural representations in tourism, which also illustrate the analytical range of Bhabha’s construct (c.f. ‘Theoretical framework’ below).

We propose that the problematic raised in Third Space applications onto studies of cultural representation in tourism can be applied to acts of cultural representation in library work with digitisation of ILK types of resources. Indeed, Hollinshead (1998) admonishes Bhabha’s work as ‘. . . an imperative read . . . for all those researching culture/ethnicity at distinct places . . . and also for all those who manage held representations . . . of cultural sites and cultural attractions. . .’ (p. 124). Aligning this view of representational work in library contexts with Bhabha’s ideas raises questions concerning what spaces for identity formation, subject positioning and (inter-)cultural relations that may result from choices and activities in ILK types of digitisation projects, from an overall societal perspective. In Bhabha’s terms:

What is theoretically innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences. These ‘in-between’ spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood – singular or communal – that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself. (Bhabha, 1994: 1–2)

As a seminal contribution, bringing Bhabha’s ideas to library practices, Elmborg (2011) argues that in an ideal sense, Third Space can enable constructive, pluralistic, transformative meetings between cultures and individuals with the possibility to bridge or transcend polarities, giving rise to new identities and ways of being. In so doing, Third Space can also be a place of contestation where the owners, contributors and users of the cultural resources collected and represented by libraries are given both cause and opportunity to confront and contest ‘the Other’. More recently, we also see Engström (2022) use Bhabha’s notion of ‘de-realized democracies’ to suggest, in a wider discussion invoking the concepts of ‘public sphere’ and ‘agonism’, a reconceptualisation of the public library from a public sphere to a plurality of public spheres. The shift would acknowledge existing inequalities and conflicts between adversaries in ways that provide opportunities for different groups to strengthen their social identity and make claims of power.

Against this background, two research questions are formulated to guide research design, analysis and discussion:

• - How does the digitisation activities of the LIWG correlate with claims of culturally responsive and responsible ILK representation?

• - How can the overall representational work of the LIWG be understood through the perspective of Bhabha’s Third Space?

In the following, we present first a literature review with particular emphasis on previously described challenges and possibilities associated with digitisation of ILK types of resources. Thereafter we present the study’s theoretical framework based on Bhabha’s writings on Third Space. The following sections describe the methodology of the study, and presentation of results. After this, we present a discussion of the overall results, and in closing we offer conclusions and suggestions for future research.

Literature review

This section provides a review of selected research from library and archival perspectives; cultural heritage; and some other research traditions with interest in ILK types of resources and their representation in digitisation projects. Whereas the main concerns of ILK types of resources in a traditional library and information science perspective may point to documentary and documentation related aspects of misrepresentation and decontextualisation (c.f. Jarusawat et al., 2018), we also find closely related cross-disciplinary concerns that emphasise issues connected to participation and control, ICT design, and language choices.

Decontextualisation and misrepresentation

A foundational challenge for traditional memory institutions’ approaches to ILK types of resources concerns, as recognised by Jarusawat et al. (2018: 953) the complex and sensitive nature of applying documentary practices onto these resources. Their study of digitisation of the Lanna culture’s traditional palm leaf manuscripts in Thailand highlights clashes between Western oriented document management and organisation traditions with associated professional and institutional boundaries, and locally embedded characteristics and values. Other types of ILK resources can be altogether immaterial in character and even contextually bound to certain times, places and person-to-person interaction.

The centrality of oral tradition in ILK is also challenging for libraries’ and archives’ representational work and systems in many ways. Maina emphasises the disjoint between oral resources and established library practices for material collection, as the latter is centred on knowledge that has already been recorded and documented in material form by researchers and universities. This ‘. . . excludes traditional knowledge that is not formerly codified and is acquired not through research but through, inter alia, inspiration and life experiences’ (Maina, 2012: 17). Manžuch (2017) adds to this problem complex with reference to such heritage objects that are also sacred and secret, with access restricted to persons of specific age or gender, and for which digitisation and open access would conflict with the worldview and traditions of the community. Wongbusarakum’s (2019) account of the Urak Lawoi people in Thailand offers such an in-depth description of a culture including both these characteristics. This tribe has no written language at all; their knowledge is local and embodied; and is in some instances exclusively connected to one elder. Citing or recording their local knowledge-bearing rammana music performances, for example, is not allowed since their original meanings would thereby be taken out of their proper contexts (Wongbusarakum, 2019: 77).

Decontextualisation can be physical-geographical, as in the case of palm leaf manuscripts that throughout history have been taken away from the Lanna region to national institutions such as the National Library in Bangkok, or to Western collections. Whilst such actions may have ensured the survival of documents, protecting them from physical deterioration, argue Jarusawat et al. (2018), they also removed them from the communities in which they were originally created. But as demonstrated, the problem complex also involves a sort of epistemic decontextualisation. Many of these resources remain in dynamic use as ongoing concerns in local communities and localities, some of them so deeply connected to places and persons that it is impossible to record and represent this knowledge in a static manner, out of context, without losing or changing much of its characteristics and meanings.

If these challenges are not handled well, preservation activities tend to be practices of nationalisation or dominance of ILK and ILK holders. From Aboriginal experiences, Whaanga et al. (2015) argue that representing Indigenous knowledge and spirituality through unreflective use of metadata and institutional organisation schemes violates the integrity of these expressions, forcing them into Western worldviews with a destructive impact on community culture. Manžuch (2017) elaborates general ethical conflicts along the same lines and ties such practices of Western oppression to political interests, lack of knowledge, and funder preferences. The general argument is that neglecting community needs and values leads to reinforcing a discriminatory approach towards the community that is the creator of this heritage. The increasing recognition of these types of conflicts drives various participatory approaches, as described in the following section.

Participation and control

Approaches within the so-called ‘participatory turn’ strive to make local knowledge holders and community members active, equal, or even leading partners in digitisation by involving them in resource selection, metadata and information systems development, and maintenance processes (c.f. Jarusawat et al., 2018: 953). As noted by Manžuch (2017: 13), however, ‘[r]ealizing the ideal conception of a participative, responsive, and empathetic institution [has] proved to be complicated . . .’. Even the mere conceptions of participation vary considerably. In a direct critique of shallow and biased approaches to participation in cultural heritage preservation and digitisation projects, Nyhlén and Gidlund (2019) argue firstly that what becomes digitised is often what is most easily captured and understood, and secondly, that those invited to participate will likewise often be already known, easy to reach and invited too late in the process to be able to contribute or influence in meaningful ways. In this way, they argue, the effects of digitisation of cultural heritage rather reinforce existing power structures than mitigate or eradicate them. Similar limitations and contradictory patterns are noted in ILK preservation and research initiatives as well – in most of these, the ILK holders become involved in late stages and do not participate beyond the contribution of ILK (Benyei et al., 2020).

Another central dimension to the issue of participation concerns the question of control over the ILK resources once digitised. This comprises control over who will get access to what; when; and for what purposes. These challenges mount to both infrastructural and institutionalised levels. The failure of the dominant and politically, culturally, and technically engrained Western constructs of copyright and patents to protect the interests of Indigenous cultures is a recurrent theme in critical work on digitisation of ILK types of resources. Recognition of these problems is however also found alongside discussions on how traditional cultures’ requirements of selective access stand in conflict with absolute library ideals and norms of free and open access. Brown and Nicholas (2012) summarise these frictions and incompatibilities from Indigenous Peoples’ perspectives. The discord is mainly associated with the holistic nature of ILK, for which distinctions between ‘cultural property’ and ‘intellectual property’ (‘things’ and ‘ideas’/tangibles and intangibles) and between past and present are muddled or non-existent. Restrictions are nevertheless needed, they argue, since uncontrolled access and use can lead to improper appropriation and commodification with risks of:

. . . loss of access to ancestral knowledge, loss of control over proper care of heritage, diminished respect for the sacred, commercialization of cultural distinctiveness, uses of special or sacred symbols that may be dangerous to the uninitiated, replacement of original tribally produced work with reproductions, threats to authenticity and loss of livelihood, among other things. (Brown and Nicholas, 2012: 309)

The answer to these challenges, according to many stance-taking and application oriented authors, is to ensure that responsibility for both production, storage, and management reside with the ILK holders (Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Jarusawat et al., 2018; Maina, 2012). Whether directly controlled by the ILK holder communities themselves, or managed by an external institution, Maina points to local guidelines and protocols developed by Indigenous communities as vital tools for clarifying and sustaining culturally appropriate terms of access and use. The development and implementation of these protocols, he continues, balances but also opens up for negotiating the interests of, primarily, the communities themselves, institutions supporting or managing the collections, and researchers, paving the way for ‘respectful exchanges’ (Maina, 2012: 22). From the opposite view, however, Brown and Nicholas (2012) also claim that the more uncontrolled access and use possibilities of social media platforms may have proven more effective for preserving and revitalising traditional knowledge and cultural identity precisely because of the absence of ‘. . . conventional legal provisions to monitor and control their dissemination’ (320).

On a more general level, research overviews suggest that variations in participation between projects demonstrate correlations between inclusiveness and factors relating to type of knowledge, extent of ICT use, and project approach and aim. Specifically, it is found that there are positive correlations between ICT and participation, and that community based or education and awareness approaches have a higher probability of inclusiveness compared to initiatives with policy/legislation and research/documentation aims (Benyei et al., 2020). The role of ICT for inclusive, participatory purposes however, is also contested by counter suggestions that modern ICT is equally likely to function as instrument for reinforcing the domination of economically and politically powerful societies and groups (e.g. Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Manžuch, 2017; Van Klyton and Castaño-Muñoz, 2017). In the following, we look closer at perspectives on ICT and language choices as related to ideas of culturally ‘responsive and responsible’ participation and representation of ILK resources and holders.

ICT and language

Among the most pressing challenges to Indigenous groups and their knowledge resources today is the threat of generational estrangement. Elders embody and carry the Indigenous communities’ cultural knowledge and traditions, but contextual, on-site (‘on Land’; ‘on Country’) and orally mediated interaction between generations is increasingly rare, resulting in generation gaps (Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Maina, 2012; Wongbusarakum, 2009). Closely associated with these tendencies is the urbanisation and geographical fragmentation of Indigenous cultures due to globalisation (Rivière and Erdelen, 2009) and younger generations leaving their communities for education and job opportunities (Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Shiri et al., 2021). Associated with all of these is the issue of language loss (Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Maina, 2012: Shiri et al., 2021; Wongbusarakum, 2009), exacerbating the negative tendencies of the aforementioned.

In light of these challenges, great interest is directed towards ICT solutions to mitigate, redress, and reverse the negative tendencies of vanishing Indigenous, local and marginalised languages and knowledge resources. Maina, for example, argues that ‘if properly used’, technology could ‘. . . ensure transmission of traditional knowledge to the young generation using media that they are familiar with, . . . close the technology gap, [which] . . . translates to a generation gap . . . [and] break down the geographical barriers created by relocation for either education or job opportunities’ (Maina, 2012: 20). Many of these technologies, Maina continues, are already used in libraries, and librarians have necessary information system design competences. And indeed, a host of novel, ILK adapted, ICT systems are making their way to library and archival practices. The systems incorporate, in various combinations: cultural protocols; situated, holistic, ecological, and local connections; oral/narrative formats; multivocal, interactive, and dynamic features; and multilingual representations, as illustrated below.

Shiri et al.’s (2021) description of the Inuvialuit Voices, a community-based digital library/archive project in Canada, emphasises digital storytelling and digital media for preserving oral traditions, stories, and language. Digital storytelling is here seen as an important tool for ‘real’ participation and empowerment of Indigenous groups in archival processes as: ‘. . . interview-based narrative research risks objectifying and adjusting Indigenous knowledge to the researchers’ views and interests. Digital storytelling research, in contrast, is centred on the participant and better able to “. . . capture the nuances of lived experience”’ (Shiri et al., 2021: 98). Yet using Indigenous language alone for representation might also hinder other benefits. Maina (2012) describes how First Nations elders in the US emphasise the need to educate about and share their traditional knowledge both within and outside their community. For these purposes, translation to a common language is decisive, enabling not only: ‘. . . non-indigenous and indigenous non-speakers of traditional languages to learn about indigenous cultures but . . . also allowing speakers to communicate, for the purposes of knowledge sharing, with non-speakers’ (21).

The so-called ‘archival turn’ is also frequently featuring in these contexts. The functionalities of digital storytelling are associated with ‘. . . a new archiving paradigm where traditional practices of professionalized, expert-based archiving are being challenged by the multiplicity of voices, perspectives, and memories that are emerging in our society’ (Shiri et al., 2021: 94–95). Particularly important aspects associated with functionalities of this type are that they allow for multiple, perhaps conflicting, annotations (Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Shiri et al., 2021); participation of non-literates (Shiri et al., 2021); and preservation and perhaps revitalisation of local languages (Maina, 2012; Shiri et al., 2021). The cultural resources collected and represented in these ways take the form of living, evolving and transforming resources (Brown and Nicholas, 2012), as places where knowledge is not ‘found’ but ‘. . . produced, exchanged, and enlivened through dialogue’ (Shiri et al., 2021: 100). The processes subvert the archival authority (Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017).

Digital mapping technology, with cartography and GIS, presents another popular ICT solution for culturally adapted representation of, participation in, and control over, traditional knowledge. Using digital mapping tools as basis for the representation of ILK, addresses one of the dimensions that are most difficult to incorporate or re-create in the systems of libraries and archives: the ‘. . . sense of place in the absence of on Country experiences’ (Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017: 195). Many, or even most, of the digital tools described in the research presented here take the form of digital maps, with most of the other value-adding and culturally adapted features incorporated. For example, the Memoryscapes app presents oral histories of First Nations Peoples in Melbourne, Australia, as cartographic annotations that can be used as a museum tour guide while wandering the outdoor terrain (Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017). The Aboriginal Mapping Network (AMN) and Māori Maps are successfully used for both ‘tenure mapping’ (land claims and resource development), and ‘cultural mapping’ (Brown and Nicholas, 2012).

Technology, however, is never a solution by itself. As noted by Brown and Nicholas (2012), unreflective use would still force misrepresentation and superficiality, where ‘. . . land-based cultural knowledge could be potentially “distorted, suppressed, and assimilated” and underlying cultural understandings of space (particularly human, animal and supernatural scale) and time (cyclical and sequential) are lost’ (319). Successful implementation requires reflective appropriation, as in the example of the Naming and Claiming: A Visual History of the Bella Coola Estuary project, which developed a set of ‘culturally responsive representational techniques’, and emphasised doubt when representations were deemed uncertain (Brown and Nicholas, 2012: 319).

Theoretical framework: Bhabha’s Third Space

Given the ethnic composition and political climate of Thailand described in the introduction, we find it fitting to work with Bhabha’s (1994) post-colonial ideas on Third Space. His perspective describes the life conditions of many people in contemporary culturally and geographically fragmented and unstable societies characterised by dynamic and often unevenly distributed political, social and cultural nodes and power structures. Third Space also represents a – more or less ideal – place where the marginalised can exist, be understood and included in ways that support cultural diversity and hybrid identities in the face of ethnocentric forces. There is thus a normative current in Bhabha’s conception of Third Space which means that the ideas lend themselves well to both exploratory study and intentional design of learning activities aiming to bridge cultural divides and form the basis for new, hybrid practices and identities (e.g. Bartmes and Shukla, 2020; Pham and Renshaw, 2015; Tsui and Wong, 2010; Tuomi-Gröhn, 2003). Here, however, we deal with more indirect relations emerging on societal level through the LIWG’s activities in relation to the digitisation of LI, and we therefore primarily refer to applications of Bhabha’s work in other areas.

Our approach primarily resonates with Third Space adaptations as critical lens in research on private and state produced tourism representations of non-dominant cultures for economic and cultural policy interests. In these approaches, Third Space primarily offers a problematising view of imperialistic ‘Othering’ as performed through essentialising discursive and material practices (Amoamo, 2011; Bandyopadhyay and Yuwanond, 2018). Transposing these Third Space applications to the context of LI digitisation in a library and information science perspective, we focus mainly on the negatively connoted concepts of essentialism and fixity on the one hand, and the positively framed concept of hybridity on the other.

Essentialism and fixity go hand in hand in Bhabha’s (1994) writings, where fixity is described as: ‘. . . the sign of cultural/historical/racial difference in the discourse of colonialism, which is a paradoxical mode of representation: it connotes rigidity and an unchanging order as well as disorder, degeneracy and daemonic repetition’ (p. 66). ‘Othering’ is both the result and purpose of reinterpretation and misinterpretation that relies on essentialising and fixed descriptions of marginalised or non-dominant cultures through a dominant actor’s exercise of power. Essentialising representations often function as strategic tools that rely on, and (re)produce, fixed stereotypes of ‘the Other’ in support of economic, political, and cultural interests of the dominant culture. These representations can often become normalised and largely go unnoticed, even in societies that deem themselves democratic and intent on rectifying damages of colonialist pasts.

Amoamo’s (2011) study of tourism representations of Māori culture in New Zealand provides historic examples of reductionist essentialism with tendencies to group Māori tribes as one homogenous group, linked to natural landscape and authenticity. Critically, such approaches fail to acknowledge that while Māori culture can be considered ‘. . . collectively distinct [it] is also a dynamic, living culture with “contemporary” expression derived from, but not prescribed by, “traditional” culture’ (Amoamo, 2011: 1269). The result of limiting representations is a rhetoric of biculturalism that hides the cultural plurality and variety, as well as the transformation over time, of the numerous Māoris of the nation. Bandyopadhyay and Yuwanond (2018: 165) likewise find that the Indian government produces cultural descriptions of the Naga tribes that are fixed in the past, partial and shaped to promote a certain image that emphasises the difference of the Other, whilst also attracting tourist (and economic) interests.

Cultural representations that emphasise essence and authenticity in traditional ways have the limiting, imprisoning effect of denying the cultural group possibilities for change. The consequences, according to Amoamo (2011), are severe: ‘To deny “change” by seeing the only “authentic” indigenous person as one from the remote past simplifies indigenous cultures to a point where they can only ever lose their culture’ (p. 1265). In Bhabha’s work, however, allowing local cultures the ability and recognition of change, reinvention, and enrichment is a central theme, as: ‘. . . hybridity theory problematizes the inherent purity and originality of cultures as “untenable” which represents a “non-sense”, a discourse and praxis that is locked within totalized and historic visions of people hood’ (Bhabha, 1994: 217). As described by Bandyopadhyay and Yuwanond (2018: 167), groups and individuals almost always intersect, and where this happens, processes of hybridisation will occur. Acknowledging fluidity and intersection between cultures, thus, supports the formation of new hybrid identities in the locations in-between artificially conceived or rigidly policed and controlled spheres of cultural ‘opposites’ and ‘difference’ – that is, in Third Space.

In the face of ‘denialist’ essentialism and fixity, Bhabha’s hybridity presents a positive force, able to problematise and even reverse restrictive colonial representations. Through hybridity, other ‘denied’ knowledges’ may ‘. . .enter upon the dominant discourse and estrange the basis of its authority’ (Bhabha, 1994: 156). For Amoamo (2011: 1257), hybridity is a positive transformational force that works against perceptions of national cultures and ethnic communities as homogenous and ‘organic’. The processes of hybridity, however, require certain elements of opposition and conflict: ‘Although some forms of mixing will assimilate and homogenize, it is the unsettling forms of hybridity that challenge essentialism’ (Bhabha, 1994: 37). Hybridity, thus, acknowledges ‘culture’ as both restlessly forming and transforming practices and identities of groups and individuals, and as disruptive forces altering relations of power and knowledge. It is ‘. . . where new expressive cultural identities “open out” performatively to de-essentialize elements through unsettling narratives’ (Amoamo, 2011: 1257).

Although emphasising discursive practices, Bhabha’s processes of hybridity, as we understand it, can comprise all forms of cultural representation. The inter-disciplinary approach, further, enables examination of all contexts where institutions of dominant culture represent the less powerful, with all the associated risks of objectifying, normalising and disciplining cultural groups that ‘. . . confine, imprison people within . . . authoritarian acts of representation’ (Hollinshead, 1998: 124). This view is echoed in Elmborg, who explains that the traditional narrative of libraries and librarians encourages acts of representation that are ‘. . . rigid, controlled, policed, and defined’ (Elmborg, 2011: 344–345). For these controlled representations, Elmborg continues, librarians construct and uphold codes and structures that are external, alien and in many cases oppressive to their contents and users. A constructive, open, Third Space requires instead permeability of cultural borders and multiplicity of voices. The plurality of voices allows conflicting perspectives, which in this view represents a positive Third Space potential for libraries. Inclusion, following Elmborg (2011), means acknowledgement but also possibility to contest, to alter and (re-)assert identity. Engström (2022) similarly emphasises the plurality of voices as a necessary condition for public libraries to provide democratic public spheres, by virtue of making room for agonistic interaction.

Arguably, the Third Space perspective is not least a suitable tool for nation’s seeking to reconcile past colonial oppression and lingering inequalities. Transposed to non-conformant/non-postcolonial conditions, however, the idealistic and normative dimensions of the theory may also be interpreted as unfairly and without sufficient accounts of cultural context casting blame onto specific actors as hindering possible realisations of the ideal. Striving for reflexivity and critically attuned positionality of ourselves as researchers acting from an overlapping vantage point of partly external, partly ‘privileged’ Western gaze and academic position vis-à-vis Thailand and the group of professionals under study, it is important to underline that this study is in no way aiming to produce state/nation level explanation and critique. The intention is rather to use the Third Space framework in a more general sense to explore challenges that we understand as largely shared within and between cultural communities and nations in a global perspective. Undeniably, we are interested in the specifics of Thai LI digitisation as shaped by and shaping aspects of the larger Thai culture, politics, and social organisation, but not as exotic, inferior, or otherwise ‘Other’ expressions. Instead, the unit of analysis presents to us as yet another empirical contribution to a growing body of empirical research and theoretical development of contextual variations on a global theme of nation level ILK representations. Further, and from the study’s explicit library and information science perspective, some of the clearest manifestations of acts of colonising dominance are primarily associated with Western originated library practices of representation – a traditionally restrictive set of practices (c.f. above) that we find to be at least partly evaded in interesting ways by the situated LI activities under study.

Both Elmborg’s (2011) and Engström’s (2022) contributions are close to our approach, but none of them focus explicitly on the representation of ILK types of resources. Under ‘Methods’ below, we therefore piece together theoretical strands with previous research into an analytical tool.

Methods

In the following, we describe the study’s data collection methods, the appropriation of the theoretical framework for data analysis, our ethical considerations, and limitations of the study.

Data collection

The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 23 LI professionals in the LIWG. Data collection was conducted in 2016–2017 as part of a larger research project on the PULINET’s digitisation of LI in Thailand in the form of a PhD thesis project of the second author of this article. At the time of study, the LIWG consisted of 25 members from 20 universities. All members were asked to participate in the study, but two declined – one because of ill-health, and another due to lack of active participation in group activities.

The semi-structured interviews with the remaining 23 LIWG members were conducted between November and December 2016 through the LIWG’s own preferred social media LINE, a popular and widespread communication platform in the Southeast Asian region. Although the interviewer is native to, and a resident of, Thailand, the interviews were conducted when the interviewer was out of the country and thus at a spatiotemporal distance from the participants. LINE allows for video calls, but only sound was used for the interviews, due to consideration of possibly weak internet connections on behalf of participants, and for reasons of minimisation of personal data processing. The interviewer used a computer connection, whereas study participants connected to the scheduled LINE calls through the LINE smart phone application. The interviews comprised questions concerning the participants’ own conceptions of LI; their views on roles and responsibilities of the LIWG; roles and duties of the LIWG members; and the digitisation activities and related projects of the LIWG. The interviews were conducted in Thai, lasted between 20 and 60 minutes, and were recorded as audio files.

Data analysis

As a first step, the audio recorded interviews were transcribed in Thai, and adjusted to written language form. Thereafter followed a delimitation of the larger project material by sifting out answers to questions suitable for this study; mainly those responses describing tools and methods of the LIWG’s digitisation activities. The first round of analysis was performed on the Thai transcripts of this delimited interview material, and translation to English occurred after an initial, rough, thematic selection of quotes and passages had been made. The second author performed the preliminary sifting of material and subsequent translation to English, whereupon the first author took the lead in a more theoretically guided coding and analysis of the material. In the final stages, both authors read and discussed codes and themes in dialogue.

Clarity and intercoder reliability in the analytical process was sought through focusing the reading and searching for themes in the empirical data on any expressions with association to the negatively framed concepts essentialism and fixity, and the positively connoted hybridity, as described in the theoretical framework. However, as Bhabha’s work on Third Space is generic, rather than context-specific, and rather takes the form of a perspective than a clear theory, it is not straightforward how to apply and use it for coding and analysis in practice. For this reason, Bhabha’s concepts were combined with results from the literature review which suggest more concretely how different tools and methods may support or hinder effects of relevance. Most prominently, this alerted us to existing or missing expressions of LI holder participation and control; interactive and holistic knowledge compatible ICT; and language choices. The overall analytical process took the form of an explorative, guided qualitative content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005) of LIWG tools and methods as described in the interviews.

Ethical considerations

The study follows international research ethical recommendations (Bryman, 2016; Wager and Kleinert, 2011). Participation was informed, voluntary and confidential. In the report of empirical data, study participants are pseudonymised with ID:s (P01, P02, etc.), and identifying elements such as named places and organisations have been removed. Another research ethical consideration concerns the choice to represent groups of LI holders, where appropriate and when more specific names of tribes and communities are not possible to provide, as ‘Indigenous [Peoples]’ with capitalisation as a sign of recognition and inclusion, as recommended by for example, Younging (2018).

Limitations

All data used for the analysis presented here was collected at an earlier point in time as part of a larger PhD project. From this extensive dataset, a number of publications have been produced prior to the one presented here, which has led to a time lapse for which due caution is necessary. The empirical data are constrained to a cross-section of activities in 2016–2017, and the findings cannot be generalised outside of this time frame. Subsequent complementary studies are needed to add longitudinal and updated perspectives to LI digitisation activities in Thailand. As a further shortcoming, the study is mainly based on interviews with LIWG members, thereby lacking data on other pertinent aspects such as organisational and project related concerns (although c.f. Nonthacumjane et al., 2022, for this), actual documentation practices and outcomes, and first-person perspectives of LI holders and users.

Results

The presentation of results follows the thematic structure of the analytical approach, placing focus on activities with Third Space hybridity potentials of offering transformative, pluralistic, representations and meetings between individuals and communities of different cultures – or of risks of essentialism and fixity. Four main themes emerged in the analysis of participants’ descriptions of tools and methods for LI collection and digitisation. The LIWG members’ high valuation of their own methods of field studies for LI collection is a theme with strong correlations to issues of participation and control. Specific community outreach activities is another theme that corresponds to other participatory issues – with focus on physical and intellectual access. The final section presents two related themes at once, directly corresponding to the ambivalent aspects of ICT design and language issues.

Field studies

In the context of the LIWG’s digitisation activities, a particularly strong valuation of field studies for the LI professionals’ own collection of LI resources stands out as one of the main openings for inclusion and participation of LI holders with Third Space potential. Although field studies in quantitative terms constitutes a minor part of the LI professionals’ work, it emerges as one of the most prominent and valued tasks for the study participants, both for collection of LI as such, and for professional development of LI competences. A wide view of the importance and values of field studies and field work is expressed: ‘Participating in fieldwork in the locality helps us to understand the local information work’ (P08). The LI professionals are said to: ‘. . . learn the local. . . ’ by ‘. . . going to study the real settings, events in the locality’ (P11). Some descriptions even portray field work as the essence of LI work: ‘I think that we, the [X region] studies, work on the real or truly local information work. We get gradually acquainted with almost the whole process of local studies, starting from data collection to dissemination of local information’ (P23).

Interviews with LI holders is a common method for LI collection and development, but in a wider sense, participation of LI professionals in local activities is also encouraged: ‘For example, participating in the monk ordination ceremony should help the local information professionals understand the local tradition’ (P11). From a Third Space perspective, this approach of course offers a more open, bottom-up alternative to established library practices of organising already structured and published documents (c.f. Elmborg, 2011). The approach rather reminds of ethnographic traditions with associated reversals of expert-novice relations awarding the subjects under study (in this case, the LI holders) certain influence over knowledge and interpretation. Professional learning of necessary competences for such field studies is also non-formalised and situated, although in-house local studies as ‘book based research’ is described as a necessary starting point. Further learning, however, occurs through practical, firsthand experience and mentoring of newer LI professionals by more senior ones: ‘. . . I learned from a mentor. I took the role of participant observer . . . [and] positioned myself as an active participant’ (P01). The learning process is described as complex, time consuming and requiring experience (P01) since LI ‘. . . has a wide scope’ (P08). Project teams therefore serve as important tools for gradual learning. The perceived importance of LI collection in the field is further underlined by testimonies that high qualifications are required, and that senior professionals are central to the activities (P06).

The highly esteemed field studies can be seen to support an approach that could enable provision of Third Spaces; locations of cultural meetings in-between otherwise disparate cultural ‘places’ – the university libraries and the local communities – in that the LI professionals strive to learn about and collect LI resources directly from the LI holders. The conceptions of LI that frame these processes incorporate holistic knowledge views (Nonthacumjane and Johansson, 2022), which at least in part evades one of Bhabha’s main critiques of colonialist oppression: the problematic of forcing Western separations and dualisms of past-present-future and nature-culture onto non-Western knowledge systems (Bhabha, 1994). However, field based LI collection in projects of this type is not without complications. From similar experiences on the African continent, Salawu (2010) notes four main barriers: library professionals’ challenges of acquiring materials in for them unknown Indigenous languages; the subsequent institutionalisation of local translation services for the benefit and inclusion of rural, native speaking users; possible resistance of professionals towards alternative cultural expressions; and – reversed – the refusal on behalf of local knowledge holders to invite and share knowledge with external professionals. And although more ‘bottom-up’ oriented than more established library practices, interview-based resource collection still risks continuing to objectify and misrepresent local knowledge and knowledge holders, by framing oral accounts in the narratives of the researchers/librarians (Shiri et al., 2021).

Community outreach

Another LI digitisation aspect with Third Space potential concerns opportunities for physical and intellectual access and intercultural meetings, which can be seen as another aspect of participation. The empirical data suggests that this is an at least partly recognised challenge which manifests in community outreach ambitions and activities among the university libraries and their LI departments. Academic libraries in general are not seldom recognised as detached from underprivileged social groups (e.g. Horrigan, 2015), but interest and investment in community outreach activities are also well documented (e.g. Beene et al., 2019). In similar ways, the study participants describe the PULINET libraries as attuned to working with and for the interests and needs of their local communities outside university campuses and in tandem with existing public libraries.

One of the main missions of the university libraries is in fact described as being a community center for sustainable learning including the local community outside the walls of the academy: ‘The provincial university library is the center of the community and has a mission to promote and be a community learning center’ (P06), an ‘. . . educational institution that provides learning sources for academic services for community and society’ (P05). Rather than seeing this as a conflict of interest or double work, providing their services to the local population is described as a complement to public library services: ‘The public libraries provide general local information, but the provincial university libraries deliver more details of the community’ (P23). The university libraries can also provide: ‘. . . local information to users through more channels so that the local people in each locality can have easy access . . .’ (P03).

It is only in comparison with public library services that the participants talk about LI in this more specific way. The shift may mark a difference in content, so that aspects of LI associated with public libraries have more to do with community information of official or mundane character (local policy documents, directories, news and events), than with ILK and cultural heritage types of resources. However, the empirical data of this study cannot shed further light on the issue.

Irrespective of the extent to which LI of ILK character is lacking from public libraries, the primary association of LI as national, digitised, resource with provincial university libraries is both evident and, in certain respects, troublesome. Even though strategically dispersed throughout Thailand, only 20 of the country’s 76 regions have a provincial university library with an LI department or center. In a national perspective, this makes the LI departments at risk of being doubly removed from non-academics: by being placed in major cities, and on university campuses. Besides physical distances and urban-rural divides, the university placement as such can reasonably be thought to pose a barrier to access and use for non-academics and the underprivileged classes (c.f. Horrigan, 2015; Van Klyton and Castaño-Muñoz, 2017). Seen through a statistical and economic lens, the gross enrollment percentage for tertiary education ¹ in Thailand in 2016 was 49.3% (UNESCO, 2021b), and the localities and resources of several of the university libraries in the study are only open to external users upon payment of a fee (e.g. Chiang Mai University Library, n.d., 2016; Mae Fah Luang University Library, n.d.).

Some descriptions by study participants suggest recognition of such challenges and a desire to overcome them through outreach projects intended to increase access opportunities to LI holdings and resources. Although not frequently featuring, the approach suggests a connection to Third Space aspects of participation through acknowledging and addressing physical, intellectual and cultural access challenges. The LI department in the [X] region, for example, aspires to ‘. . . organise and disseminate moving exhibitions about five stories . . .’ on a yearly basis (P23). In these exhibitions, a selection of LI holdings are represented on posters and taken to surrounding villages and local communities. They also ‘. . . organise an event or roadshow of the [X region] studies project in the [X] city to the local people so they can get to know the project and learn about their city through the information provided in the project’ (P23). In this roadshow, an LI professional goes out to hold presentations and talk to members of local communities about the library’s LI holdings.

Despite good intentions of outreach activities, the theme may also suggest contradictions between the two types of library institutions. On the one hand, the university libraries have better financial and infrastructural resources and professional expertise, and can therefore invest more into the digitisation of LI. On the other hand, the university connection may cause physical, social, and intellectual barriers to and detachment from local and Indigenous groups and individuals.

Digitisation and translation

The third and fourth themes of activities with Third Space potential concern the focus on ICT/digitisation and language choices. Digitisation of LI types of resources recur in ‘Global South’ (c.f. Kloß, 2017) government strategies as a ‘. . . next stage developmental paradigm’ (Van Klyton and Castaño-Muñoz, 2017: 20; c.f. also Ballantyne, 2002; Salawu, 2010; UNESCO, 2009), envisioned to enable all – and particularly the marginalised – segments of societies possibilities to participate, promote commercial activity, offer novel forms of cultural representation, and preserve languages, customs and rituals. Another Third Space potential thus for LI holders’ representation in and access to LI is connected to the LIWG’s work with open, digital, LI databases.

The primary purpose of creating LI databases is described as the provision of a ‘hub’ of LI databases in line with the overall mission and vision of the PULINET: to collect and provide LI to the public (e.g. P22). It also connects more specifically to the network’s strategic plan for 2012–2016, to create ‘. . . a bibliographic local information database . . . available in the member libraries of the Provincial University Library Network . . . a one-stop searching database’ (P04). But although approximately 77% of the population (53.62 million) used the internet in 2020 (Statista, 2021), this still leaves considerable parts of the population at the margins or altogether cut-off from physical access opportunities. And since neither ICT access nor digital literacy is evenly distributed (Office of the National Digital Economy and Society Commission, 2021), digital access requirements may constitute barriers that predictively and persistently hinder already underprivileged and disempowered groups from reaching and engaging with these digitised collections. With physical internet access and digital literacy skills beyond reach of many groups, the already marginalised are at risk of new forms of exclusion concerning access to digitised LI collections, possibly exacerbating the already existing.

Previous research also reveals that the scope, physical location, and purposes and strategies of ICT reliant digitisation projects have clear correlations with matters of inclusion and representation, although in various ways. Projects that target a specific local community in situ with an inclusive bottom-up approach to the design and control of ICT are seen to include and empower locals as equal partners or even primary custodians over their own resources (e.g. Benyei et al., 2020; Jarusawat et al., 2018; Vandebroek et al., 2011). Larger scale approaches find it more difficult to achieve just inclusion and representation, as in the city of Medellin, Colombia, where a city-level deployment of an ICT platform for LI services was seen to reinstate rather than bridge existing social divides (Van Klyton and Castaño-Muñoz, 2017). The case of the LIWG comprises more of large scale and ex situ characteristics in that LI resources are taken from their local settings and re-presented in universities and online databases as part of a national digitisation initiative.

Intellectual property rights (IPR) and ownership issues are well incorporated in the activities: ‘. . . we ask them [representatives of LI holder communities’; authors’ note] for permission, and we ask them to sign consent [forms]. In this way, we [can] provide digital collections including e-books, images, and graphics—for example, temples in the [X] district’ (P23). The consent, however, is modelled on international IPR conventions and not on protocols addressing potentially culturally specific terms of access and use, which sets additional limitations to local knowledge holder control and empowerment (c.f. Maina, 2012).

Further, the choice of linguistic representation for the digitised LI resources forms a similar ambivalent Third Space potential. With about 50% of the population ascribing to Standard Thai as primary language, and ‘widely spoken’ as secondary language among the remaining 50% (Kosonen, 2017), the choice to represent some of the LI resources in both Standard Thai and original local languages opens up for the broadest access opportunities nation-wide. Yet, with estimates of in total 72 spoken languages in the nation, and an unknown proficiency level of Standard Thai among non-primary speakers (Kosonen, 2017), this may also have considerable consequences for accessibility. If translation occurs, the institutionalisation of translation services is another potential and related factor that may need careful attention to avoid unintentional misrepresentation (c.f. Salawu, 2010; Shiri et al., 2021).

Discussion

For this study, we asked two main questions: how the LI digitisation activities of the LIWG correlate with claims of culturally responsive and responsible ILK representation; and how the overall representational work of the LIWG can be understood through the perspective of Bhabha’s Third Space.

Findings of relevance to the first question illustrate that ILK characteristics are mainly acknowledged through the strong valuation of field studies for professional LI work, but that the approach is underdeveloped. The use of field based interviews with, and observations of, LI holders can be considered more ‘culturally responsive’ than merely collecting externally produced academic or similar publications on LI. Still, the LI professionals’ distance as external to LI holders and communities, and their association with a dominant culture/institution (state/university library) may still risk misinterpretation or forcing of local, alternative voices and knowledges into foreign narratives that suit the formats and interests of the ‘researcher’/LI professional (Shiri et al., 2021).

Whereas in a previous study, we found that a narrow application of LI conceptions for actual LI digitisation tends to exclude marginalised LI holders (Nonthacumjane and Johansson, 2022), we also find here additional restrictions commonly observed in similar international projects. These restrictions concern how those who are included are constructed as comparatively passive contributors of LI resources (c.f. Benyei et al., 2020; Nyhlén and Gidlund, 2019), and as equally passive recipients of digitised representations of the same (c.f. Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017). The empirical data further contains no indications that the inclusion or exclusion of LI holders constitute any sort of explicit concern to the LIWG. It is therefore likely that the digitisation here rather falls in the common category of projects that, as argued by Nyhlén and Gidlund (2019), tend to invite those that are known and easy to reach, and only after the agenda has been set. Such approaches restrict ‘real’ participatory opportunities for LI/ILK holders, including decisions on what gets included, who can have access, and how this will occur.

Regarding ICT design and language choices, the only rights of use permissions mentioned by the LIWG members are conventional IPR agreements. Western IPR constructs, however, are not adapted to ILK characteristics, nor to legitimate claims of LI holder control and power over terms of access and (re-)use of such resources. Specific cultural protocols for access and use (c.f. Maina, 2012) seem not be considered. And although the LIWG makes use of various documentary formats such as audio recordings and photographic documentation of buildings and handicraft, the digital representations must still be considered comparatively ‘non-inventive’ and ‘non-responsive’ in light of recent ICT adaptions suggested for ILK types of resources. The LIWG’s representations are dominated by transcriptions of interviews, still image databases and narratives constructed by the LI professionals. Digital storytelling for holistic and oral representation centred on the narrator/LI holder (Maina, 2012; Shiri et al., 2021), and visual GIS/cartographic mapping software for nature-location connections of knowledge and traditions (Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017), are not mentioned as options. Equally scarce are discussions on ICT functionalities for dynamic interaction possibilities that would allow users to annotate, add to, and discuss the LI resources. It also appears that the LIWG’s choices most often are to represent LI in standard Thai, although there are some indications of instances when a local language has been kept.

The seeming lack of more innovative approaches to ICT and language solutions adapted to LI/ILK characteristics and LI holders’ perspectives may be due to one or several lacks in know-how, financial resources, and technological possibilities. It may also be that such approaches go against political goals of cultural conservation, homogeneity, and assimilation clearly present in the Thai context (Mungmachon, 2012; Nonthacumjane and Johansson, 2022; Pornpimon et al., 2014). Nevertheless, neither the research questions nor the empirical data and theoretical framework of this study allow for in-depth exploration of possible reasons for the activities observed.

Findings with relevance to the second research question indicate that to a certain extent, the interest in community outreach activities, and the choice of access provision through digital databases in Standard Thai and sometimes local languages, may work towards Third Space plurality and cultural meetings. But these aspects as well seem underdeveloped and circumstantial. There are no indications in the data to suggest explicit consideration of values that resonate with the transformative, empowering, hybridisation processes of Third Space. That is, there are no expressions of ideals that emphasise cultural pluralism, change, dynamics and border crossing meetings with associated cultural amalgamation and (constructive) conflict. Importantly, in the absence of this, the analytical lens offered by Bhabha’s work allows us to explore and interpret silences and omissions as meaningful in this context.

As noted above, LI holders’ participation in the digitisation activities is passive – merely partaking as sources/contributors. And even if included in this passive sense, it is not certain that marginalised LI holders would be able to access and use the digitised representations of their own LI resources, and thereby see them in the context of other similar resources. Digital representation in databases on the internet can be seen as a condition for a pluralistic Third Space – the internet is a place to which all, in theory, has access. But in practice, of course, many nations, including Thailand, are still far from the high physical access levels of ‘Global North’ countries. Moreover, challenges concerning the public’s digital literacy competences, and the LI digitisation project’s connections to academic/university institutions, are further aspects that are likely to make it more difficult for LI holders of marginalised cultures to access, view, and use the digitised LI resources. Outreach activities may have merit, but for such activities to have real Third Space significance, they would need significantly extended frequency and reach, to specifically and consistently target also the most marginalised and hard-to-reach individuals and communities in terms of both geographical and cultural distances.

The theories and previous research laid forth in this article further suggest that being deprived of opportunities to be part of a shared ‘space’/’location’ or ‘public sphere’ with representations (digital or not) of local cultural expressions, constitutes a considerable hinder to learning about oneself, seeing oneself through the eyes of the other and be empowered to co-construct and contest the conditions and effects of representation. For this to happen, representations of multiple cultural knowledges, perspectives and traditions alongside each other is decisive, for context and comparison. Being awarded representation on one’s own terms in shared, pluralistic, public spaces, may have many positive and important effects. It can bring about reinstatement of lost pride and self-esteem in marginalised communities (Wongbusarakum, 2009). It can also raise awareness of issues to discuss, question, and contest in constructive, transformative, and liberating ways (c.f. Bhabha, 1994; Elmborg, 2011; Engström, 2022; Van Klyton and Castaño-Muñoz, 2017). Exploring such potentials in the LIWG’s representational work would require, however, a more inclusive and developed participatory approach to the collection and representation of LI, alongside dynamic and holistic ICT features and multiple linguistic options.

Rather than seeing the representational activities studied here as a challenge unique to libraries in Thailand, however, the results of this study and its previous research framing first and foremost highlight the simultaneously global-cultural (including the ‘Global North’) and institutionalised library practice-related character of challenges. Consequently, significant value derived from studies on Global South concerns how common and related challenges in a larger international perspective can both manifest and be addressed.

Conclusions

Library and information science has seen many ‘turns’, and two of them – the participatory turn and the archival turn – feature prominently in this article. To a certain extent, these turns also go well in hand with Bhabha’s (1994) ideas of Third Space. The theoretical perspective and empirical results of this study of the LIWG’s LI digitisation activities in the Thai context, however, suggest at least two main aspects in need of further attention for libraries engaging with digitisation of ILK types of resources in local, national and global perspectives.

Firstly, it appears vital that participatory approaches include consideration of democratic participation on national societal level, and not be limited to aspects of participation within singular, freestanding, LI/ILK digitisation projects. There is a rich international body of research within both library and archival studies on post-colonial nations and restitutive digitisation projects of one colonised culture at a time (e.g. Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Jarusawat et al, 2018; Maina, 2012; Ridgeway and Guntarik, 2017; Shiri et al., 2021; Whaanga et al., 2015). However, studies of contexts in which libraries’ representational work overlap with normative, cultural assimilation ideals and politics on national level, seem scarce in comparison. The power relations expressed through the representational work of the LIWG epitomise in this sense a case of ‘reverse order’ essentialism (c.f. also Nonthacumjane and Johansson, 2022), through which expressions of dominant, societally desirable Thai culture and identity are promoted as the true, genuine and correct ways to live in support of national stability, prosperity and well-being.

Although not explicitly acknowledged as such by the study participants, the expressions of dominant culture ‘self-essentialism’ associated with the LIWG’s LI digitisation, implies risks of omission, exclusion or misrepresentation of Other cultures. The activities are similar to, yet in some ways also a reverse form of essentialism as compared to previously identified dominant culture acts of representation vis-à-vis marginalised cultures spanning from the Nordics (Lehtola, 2015) to India (Bandyopadhyay and Yuwanond, 2018), and New Zealand (Amoamo, 2011). From Bhabha’s (1994) perspective, however, all approaches of this type rest on mistaken assumptions regarding relations of power and functions of conflicting perspectives in multicultural societies. For Bhabha, authorised power in a hybrid culture ‘. . . does not depend on the persistence of tradition; it is resourced by the power of tradition to be reinscribed through conditions of contingency and contradictorianess’ (p. 2). The Third Space perspective hereby offers libraries on a global scale tools for self-reflection in relation to participation of LI/ILK holders. Through this, libraries can consider their actual and desired roles as arbitrators of inclusive, constructive societies, which require allowing for difference, multivocality and conflicting perspectives. It also offers a lens for considering political, economic, ideological and other largescale and contextual forces affecting specific libraries’ ability to make such choices. This latter aspect has not been in focus here, but constitutes an important dimension of a comprehensive understanding of LI digitisation activities in Thai (as well as other national and local) contexts.

Secondly, libraries should look deeper into opportunities for allowing dynamics and change for ILK types of resources, as pronounced in the archival turn. Researchers and practitioners may not have sufficiently acknowledged the risk that library institutions’ established practices (continue to) produce representations of ILK types of resources that essentialise and fix, objectify and restrict, through rigid and controlled representations (c.f. Amoamo, 2011; Bandyopadhyay and Yuwanond, 2018; Elmborg, 2011; Hollinshead, 1998). The archival turn illustrates that possibilities of dynamic, interactive user annotations, discussions and adding of material do not relinquish but rather reshape quality and authority aspects, to draw more value from bottom-up orientation and multiplicity of perspectives, than from one professional view of the archive (or library) (c.f. Brown and Nicholas, 2012; Shiri et al., 2021).

Functionalities of dynamics and change may in fact be decisive for communities that do not have a ‘steady stream’ of cultural output more or less effortlessly going into everyday collection development activities of libraries. When, at a rare occasion, an ILK digitisation project actually occurs, therefore, the ensuing representations are all the more likely to have significant, long-lasting impact on how the cultural community in question will be viewed by both others and themselves (c.f. Van Klyton and Castaño-Muñoz, 2017; Wongbusarakum, 2009). It may be questioned why dynamics and change should ever be an issue of consideration for libraries; institutions that historically have prioritised precisely the opposite in terms of documentary stability and fixity over time. An answer is that libraries have the best, maybe even a unique, possibility to provide open, free, contemporary, inclusive and democratic spaces in society. And an important condition for this to be realised is the provision of similar representations of different cultures alongside each other. Library spaces of this type would offer context and opportunities for comparison, discussion, contestation, and conflict (c.f. Elmborg, 2011; Engström, 2022) in a Third Space sense. And in Bhabha’s view, freedom to interact and transform, to construct and reinvent, acknowledges and supports the restless formations of hybrid identities and cultures that offers alternative means of societal stability and wellbeing through reducing negative polarisation.

Suggestions for future research

Future research relating to digitisation of LI in Thailand, as well as in other similar contexts, is both important and urgent. Areas in need of attention concern not least studies of the actual digitised material of the LIWG activities. Studies of the databases and physical-digital collections at various provincial university libraries are necessary for understanding how the activities as described by the LIWG play out in practice, as material manifestations. Such studies should also investigate what, if any, differences in the content of LI that exist between LI holdings at provincial universities and at public libraries. The study presented here also lacks the important perspectives of local knowledge/LI holders, and of the users and non-users of LI resources at both the university and public libraries. The first-hand perspectives of these groups are vital for their own sake, but also for putting the findings of this study and similar research in perspective.

Related and interesting lines of inquiry would also be to examine if, and if so, what and how, alternative forms of self-representation occur among marginalised and Indigenous communities of Thailand (c.f. Bandyophadhyay and Yuwanond, 2018). Finally, studies situating the LI digitisation work more explicitly within national and local structures, accounting more deeply for politics, values, practices, and power relations characteristic of Thailand and the Southeast Asian region from a library and information science perspective, would constitute important steps in painting a fuller picture of the issues touched upon in the initial exploration provided here.