The wave of upbeat stories on the developing world's emerging middle class has reinvigorated a debate on how social class in general and the middle class in particular ought to be defined and empirically measured. With the aim of adding clarity to this debate, this dissertation provides a...

A note on the text -- Glossary of Thai terms -- Introduction: Division and discontent -- 1. Class and status in Thailand -- 2. Indigenous space, hierarchy, and Kalathesa -- 3. Hi-So discourse and middle-class aspirations -- 4. City above countryside -- 5. The value of a person