The Strategies of Conservative and Inheritable Local Culture in Chiang Mai Province and Mae Hong Son Province

Abstract

            The important objectives of this study were (1) to study the context of local culture, especially the deterioration and the causes of the deterioration in Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son Province and (2) to create the strategies of conservative and inheritable local culture in Chiang Mai Province and Mae Hong Son Province. The needed data was collected from Provincial Cultural Office personnel and Provincial Cultural Council Committee personnel in addition to the local wisdom and the cultural independent scholars. In-depth interview methods, focus group discussion and informal meetings were used as the tools. The collected data was analyzed into two parts. The first part is about the context of local culture which was analyzed by content analysis and the last part consists of the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the obstacles which were affected to the strategy management which was analyzed by the SWOT Analysis.

            The results of the study can be concluded that the history of Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son province have had for more than 720 years which includes many unique local cultures such as languages, dresses, cooking, plays, performances, traditions and others. However, the culture as mentioned above has deteriorated with time because of many internal and external factors. The appropriate strategies for Conservative and Inheritable Local Culture for both provinces are consisted of (1) the strategy of local culture preservation in Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son province (2) the strategy of local culture conservation in Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son province (3) the strategy of local culture inheritance in Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son province. There are five tactics for the local culture preservative strategy, five tactics for the local culture conservative strategy and four tactics the local culture inheritable strategy, respectively.