To Belong or Not to Belong. Affective Self‐Nationalization in Thailand.

GOVERNMENT ownership; BASIC needs; SOCIALIZATION

Through analyzing conflict narratives regarding Khao Phra Wihan, a territorial conflict important for nationalists in Thailand, this article aims to detangle how nationalization is experienced and performed on an individual level. In this article, the concept "affective self‐nationalization" is proposed to analyze the emotional and embodied practices through which individuals fashion themselves into nationalized subjects. In Thailand, self‐nationalization is instigated by the governing agency through repeated, regular, mandatory, public performances of loyalty through which individuals create the nation collectively. These performances create automatic feelings to the nation, establishes national others as fearsome, and rule through the basic human need of belonging. At the same time, individuals' emotions shape the society through how they decide to perform nationalization. The concept of "affective self‐nationalization" captures the connections between the official nationalizing program of "outside" society in a form of nationalist emotional socialization with individual experience of nationalizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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