Sufficiency Economy: Making a Virtue out of Low Level Reciprocity

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Sufficiency Economy: Making a Virtue out of Low Level Reciprocity Remembering your Feet: Imaginings and Lifecourses in Northeast Thailand Susan Upton A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Bath Department of Social and Policy Sciences August 2010 COPYRIGHT Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with its author. A copy of this thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and they must not copy it or use material from it except as permitted by law or with the consent of the author. This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation. 1 Dedication This thesis is for my mum, Mary. 2 Contents TABLE OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................................9 MAP OF THAILAND ........................................................................................................................ 11 MAP OF NORTHEAST THAILAND ................................................................................................... 12 MAP OF MUKDAHAN PROVINCE ................................................................................................... 13 MAP OF BAN DONG VILLAGE ........................................................................................................ 14 GLOSSARY ...................................................................................................................................... 15 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................... 17 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 18 1.1 Research Rationale .................................................................................................................. 18 1.2 Defining the parameters of the study ..................................................................................... 20 1.3 Introductory Life History: The themes of this research .......................................................... 20 1.4 Structure of the Thesis ............................................................................................................ 27 CHAPTER TWO: THE SETTING FOR CHANGE AND THAI WELFARE ................................................ 31 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 31 2.2 A Background to the Literature ............................................................................................... 33 2.3 A Wellbeing Regime Model and the Thai Wellbeing Regime .................................................. 36 2.4 Conditioning Factors ................................................................................................................ 40 1850’s to the 1970’s: Nation Building and Development ......................................................... 42 1970’s-1990’s The rise of democratic governance, globalisation and new forms of dissent ... 45 2001-2006 Changing Welfare Regimes and Rural Populism ..................................................... 47 2.5 Negotiating the Institutional Responsibility Matrix ................................................................ 49 The State .................................................................................................................................... 49 The Market ................................................................................................................................ 52 The Community and Household ................................................................................................ 58 2.6 Wellbeing Outcomes: Sufficiency Economy: Making a virtue out of low level reciprocity .... 62 2.7 Reproduction consequences ................................................................................................... 63 2.8 From the wellbeing framework to my own conceptual framework ....................................... 65 2.9 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................................... 69 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 69 3 3.2 Actor-oriented Approach Revisited ......................................................................................... 70 3.3 Studying Migration .................................................................................................................. 73 3.4 Methods: Doing Ethnography ................................................................................................. 75 3.5 The Narrative Method ............................................................................................................. 87 3.6 Focus Groups ........................................................................................................................... 91 3.7 Site Selection and WeD Involvement ...................................................................................... 93 3.8 Reflections from the field ........................................................................................................ 95 3.9 Analysis .................................................................................................................................... 98 3.10 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 99 CHAPTER FOUR: ETHNOGRAPHIC INSIGHTS ................................................................................ 103 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 103 4.2 Writing about place and identity in rural Thailand ............................................................... 104 4.3 Isan: Regionalism and protest ............................................................................................... 107 4.4 Village Background: Physical Location .................................................................................. 111 4.5 Village history, beliefs and ethnicity...................................................................................... 114 4.6 Land, Livelihoods and inequality ........................................................................................... 120 4.7 Cultural values, beliefs and beginnings of resistance ............................................................ 132 4.8 Institutional Challenge: Communist Insurgency .................................................................... 133 4.9 The period of greater state regulation and the continuing battle for land rights................. 139 4.10 Institutional Challenge: Assembly of the Poor AOP (Samacha Khon Jon) ........................... 141 4.11 Institutional Challenge: Migration as a continuing process of change ............................... 144 4.12 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 146 CHAPTER 5: GENERATION AND COHORTS .................................................................................. 150 5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 150 5.2 Looking at Change through Cohorts ...................................................................................... 152 5.3 An Illustration: The Khamyod Family..................................................................................... 157 Cohort 1: The Elders ................................................................................................................ 158 Cohort 2: Elders that still work ................................................................................................ 161 Cohort 3: Large scale migration begins ................................................................................... 165 Cohort 4: Reaping the benefits ............................................................................................... 168 Cohort 5: New views................................................................................................................ 169 Cohort 6: Aspirations for the Future ....................................................................................... 170 4 5.4 Looking at change through generations ................................................................................ 171 5.5 The Breaking down of Boundaries ........................................................................................ 173 5.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 174 CHAPTER 6: BIOGRAPHICAL LIFE HISTORIES AND IMAGINATION ............................................... 177 6.1 Introduction. .........................................................................................................................
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