Reinventing ordinary heritage: Sino-Thai communities in a transforming Bangkok

In recent decades, Bangkok’s old town has undergone major transformation driven by redevelopment and transit expansion. Long-established Sino-Thai communities around Chinatown increasingly face uncertainty as development pressures and eviction threats reshape everyday life. Using Charoen Chai, Luenrit, and Talat Noi as case studies, the article examines how local communities respond to these pressures through different forms of reinvention, and how residents negotiate urban change through heritage activities, collective organisation, tourism initiatives, and alliances with landlords, planners, and state agencies. Residents in Charoen Chai turned to heritage activities and local-history initiatives in their efforts to oppose eviction. In Luenrit, residents spent years negotiating redevelopment plans with the Crown Property Bureau, leading to the creation of a cooperative management system. In Talat Noi, heritage became increasingly connected to tourism, creative-economy initiatives, and the promotion of the neighbourhood as a cultural destination. The three cases show that reinvention developed differently according to patterns of land ownership, relations with institutional actors, and the varying intensity of redevelopment pressure. They also reveal the contradictions of heritage-based revitalisation. While these initiatives sometimes created new economic opportunities, they also generated concerns over tourism growth, commercialisation, and the gradual loss of community traditions.