Wolfram Schaffar

Wolfram Schaffar holds the Chair of Development Policy at the University of Passau, Germany. Previously, he was Professor of Political Science and Development Studies at the University of Vienna (Austria), and Acting Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Tübingen (Germany). He has also lectured at Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), Yangon University (Myanmar) and JSW Law School (Bhutan). His research interests include social media platforms, processes of democratization and de-democratization, and state theory in the global South. He focuses particularly on East and Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Myanmar, Japan and China.

The project

Title: Thai influencers and platform entrepreneurs in Paris - and the K-Pop-ization of Thai politics

"In the Thai parliamentary elections of May 2023, the Move Forward party and its leading candidate Pitha Limjaroenrat won to the surprise of political observers and analysts. This political newcomer had neither a strong party organization nor much capital to finance his election campaign. Instead, his victory was due to an entirely new type of organization and political mobilization: a fandom, as we know it from Korean pop culture (K-pop). In other words, groups of fans organized and integrated on Internet platforms, who support their idol through characteristic fan activities.  This “orange fandom” - as some commentators called it because of the color of the party - was transnational in character and managed by influencers and platform entrepreneurs - based, among others, in Paris. The aim of the project is to learn more about the character and structures of this new form of political organization through ethnographic field research and expert interviews with influencers and exiles in Paris."

Hosting institution: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE)

Selective Bibliography

• Schaffar, Wolfram (2019): "Social Media" in: Pavin Chachavalpongpun, Kewin Hewison, David Streckfuss, Paul Cham­bers, Claudio Sopranzetti (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Contem­porary Thailand. London: Routledge, 353-365.
• Schaffar, Wolfram (2018): "'Am not Here for Fun': The Satirical Facebook Group Royalists Marketplace, Queer Tik­Toking, and the New Democracy Movement in Thailand". An Interview With Pavin Chacha­val­pong­pun. Austrian Journal for Southeast Asian Studies (ASEAS), special issue on Social Media in Southeast Asia
• Schaffar, Wolfram (2024). Schrift als Zeichen – Was uns Kanji, Keilschrift, Emoji und Memes über die Universalgeschichte der Schrift sagen [L'écriture comme signe – Ce que les kanji, l'écriture cunéiforme, les emojis et les mèmes nous révèlent sur l'histoire universelle de l'écriture]. in: Heidi Buck-Albulet, Michaela Oberwinkler und Wolfram Schaffar (Hrsg.): Über Grenzen hinweg – Zeichen, Sprache und Kultur in Japan. Festschrift für Viktoria Eschbach-Szabó. München: Iudicium. 190-214.
• Schaffar, Wolfram; Fahimi, Miriam and Flatschart, Elmar (2022): Introduction. Critical State Theory in the Global South. in: Miriam Fahimi, Elmar Flatschart and Wolfram Schaffar (eds.) Critical State Theory in the Global South - Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Studies. Springer, 3-17.