Affective Cohorts: Why Elite Schools Matter for Southeast Asian Politics
This talk advances the concept of affective cohorts to illuminate the political significance of elite schooling in Southeast Asia. Affective cohorts are groups of students whose shared experiences of discipline, nationalism, and duty become enduring political resources.
At Suankularb Wittayalai in Bangkok, the 1934–1941 cohort was moulded by a climate of militarised nationalism; its members later became both architects of authoritarianism and leaders of communist insurgency. Comparative cases from the Philippine Military Academy and revolutionary Batangas underscore a wider pattern: the particular institutional culture of a school at a given moment leaves a deep imprint on the political cultures its graduates construct in power. Elite schools must therefore be seen as dynamic institutions, highly sensitive to political upheaval, in which shifting pedagogies of authority are absorbed and later mobilised. Recognising the production of affective cohorts helps us to understand how educational experiences are not merely personal but are repeatedly mobilised in the service of political projects, shaping the trajectories of power, legitimacy, and resistance across Southeast Asia.
Speaker & chair biographies
Dr. Daniel Whitehouse is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. His research explores how elite schools in Southeast Asia function as political institutions, shaping networks, loyalties, and ideologies. He is currently writing a monograph on Suankularb Wittayalai in Bangkok.
Prof. John Sidel is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, and the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Dr. Petra Alderman is Manager of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre and researcher with a notable country expertise on Thailand. She is the author of Branding Authoritarian Nations: Political Legitimation and Strategic National Myths in Military-Ruled Thailand (Routledge, 2023) and of articles in various disciplinary and area studies journals such as International Political Science Review, Geopolitics, Politics, and the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs.
*Banner photo by Nopparuj Lamaikul on Unsplash
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