Remembrance, Commemoration and Memorial Ceremonies in Post-tsunami Thailand

Memorial ceremonies serve varying purposes, from national recognition of a tragedy to healing an individual’s inner wounds. An important aim is to make a catastrophic event comprehensible. The Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004 hit thirteen countries and almost 300,000 people were killed. In Thailand approximately 10,000 perished and among them were foreign tourists from nearly forty countries.

Memorial practices and the sentiment that the memorial commemorations bring about among Thai survivors are addressed in this paper. The ethnography for this paper is based on a long-term anthropological research carried out after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Phang Nga, the worst hit province in Thailand. This paper includes narratives and demonstrates that memorials, as manifestations of communal grief, are sensitive in many ways.