A review by Thosaeng Chaochuti which appears on the New Mandala blog draws attention to a chapter on the uptake of Foucault in Thailand.
Rachel V. Harrison and Peter A. Jackson, eds., The Ambiguous Allure of the West: Traces of the Colonial in Thailand, with a foreword by Dipesh Chakrabarty. Hong Kong and Ithaca: Hong Kong University Press and Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2010. Pp. xxiv, 268; black and white figs., bib., index.
[…] Similarly focusing on the appropriation of Western knowledge in Thai academia, Thanes Wongyannava traces the reception and localization of Michel Foucault’s thought, particularly his notion of “discourse,” translated into Thai as “wathakam.” Thanes not only makes clear the popularity of Foucault among Thai social scientists but also offers a trenchant critique of the way in which that popularity has left the Frenchman’s work disengaged from its theoretical roots. Thailand’s scholarly consumers of Foucault have, that is, simply viewed his work as a store-house of positivistic models for the empirical study of Thai society.[…]
Foucault News 