"Spettacolo politico, paesaggi immaginari ed eco-propaganda monarchica nel nord della Thailandia"

The Thai Monarchy in recent years developed the Buddhist inspired ideology of sufficiency economy, that the central conservative powers have translated in a complex developmental machine intentioned to redesign the Thai rural landscape. The eco-propaganda enhanced by the Thai royal family through its think tanks and technocratic apparatus is based on idealized images of the forested hills of northern Thailand. An environmental spectacle hiding forms of territorial and socio-political control and economic and environmental grabbing in areas populated by non-Thai ethnic groups. The article offers an ethnographic acocunt of this national trend by describing the communication strategies accompaining the implementation of a mega-royal project for forest restoration and sustainable agriculture, its publicization and mainstreaming and and the forms of resistance enacted by the local populations to avoid the inclusion in the project.