Embracing the Global in Thailand: Activism and Pragmatism in an Era of Deagrarianization

Rigg, Jonathan; Nattapoolwat, Sakunee

doi:10.1016/s0305-750x(01)00021-3

Cited by 109 publications

(115 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Agriculture in Thailand has been dominated traditionally by small family farms growing rice (Hayami, 2001). But, the commercialization of agriculture was already apparent in the 19th century and this was accelerated in northern Thailand upon the completion of the Chiang Mai--Bangkok railway (Rigg & Nattapoolwat, 2001). Unlike in Tanzania, the government intervened little in the activities of private traders--who were supported by major public expenditure in infrastructure.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The World Bank recognized Thailand as the fastest growing economy in the world during 1985-1994(Goss & Burch, 2001). Yet during the latter decades of the 20th century, agriculture has been barely able to meet the needs of the average family due to declining land resources, stagnant prices for farm produce and a rise in demands on family income (Rigg & Nattapoolwat, 2001). Thus nonfarm work has become critical for both augmenting and stabilizing rural livelihoods.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Paradoxically, this additional income may be instrumental in facilitating the investment in agriculture needed for it to be profitable in Tanzania. In contrast, in northern Thailand, if the suggestions of Rigg and Nattapoolwat (2001) are correct, agriculture can be expected to decline further as young people prefer to engage in more nonfarm work. Low returns to investment in poorer quality land in the Uluguru Mountains is one of the most significant factors affecting investment and there is every indication that this is also significant in Thailand.…”

Section: Comparisons Between Case Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In terms of interhousehold differentiation, there has been a gradual erosion over the last 50 years of land ownership as an indicator of wealth and class with the profound reorientation towards nonfarm income generation (Rigg & Nattapoolwat, 2001). Rigg and Nattapoolwat (2001) believe that education level is likely to be a major differentiating factor at the beginning of the 21st century as it has become the key determinant of the nonfarm opportunities open to people in rural Thailand.…”

Section: Case Study Two: Soil Conservation In the Highlands Of Northementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rigg and Nattapoolwat (2001) believe that education level is likely to be a major differentiating factor at the beginning of the 21st century as it has become the key determinant of the nonfarm opportunities open to people in rural Thailand. In the case study area household income ranged from 11,000 to 30,000 bhat per year in 1995, and on average 37% of this came from off-farm sources.…”

Section: Case Study Two: Soil Conservation In the Highlands Of Northementioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

A Framework for Understanding On-farm Environmental Degradation and Constraints to the Adoption of Soil Conservation Measures: Case Studies from Highland Tanzania and Thailand

Jones

2002

World Development

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Summary. -This article presents a simple but valuable framework that helps to generate a clear understanding of the social causes of environmental degradation and factors that affect land user decision-making in soil conservation. It is grounded in structuration theory and resonates with recent ideas encompassed by the ''sustainable livelihoods'' approach. The framework is illustrated with reference to two case studies in mountainous areas where officials have, for some time, expressed a considerable degree of concern about degradation. The first is from the Uluguru Mountains of central-eastern Tanzania and the second is from the Chiang Dao District of the Northern Highlands of Thailand. The framework helps to reveal the diverse factors contributing to a lack of investment in conservation measures in these two places, in a comprehensive but nondeterministic and culturally-specific way.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comparisons Between Case Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case Study Two: Soil Conservation In the Highlands Of Northementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case Study Two: Soil Conservation In the Highlands Of Northementioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A Framework for Understanding On-farm Environmental Degradation and Constraints to the Adoption of Soil Conservation Measures: Case Studies from Highland Tanzania and Thailand

Jones

2002

World Development

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Regional Scenarios and Simulated Land‐Cover Changes in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia

Fox

Vogler

Şen

et al. 2014

Vulnerability of Land Systems in Asia

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Forests, marketization, livelihoods and the poor in the Lao PDR

Rigg

2006

Land Degrad Dev

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The Lao PDR is making the transition from subsistence to cash, and command to market. Rural communities are being drawn ever more tightly into the embrace of the market economy and of the central state. The construction of roads, schools and health centres, the provision of credit and new crops and technologies, and the arrival of traders and the panoply of the consumer economy are all, in their different ways, remoulding rural economy and society. This paper looks at one aspect of this multistranded process of agrarian transformation: the role and place of forests and, in particular, non-timber forest products, in rural people's lives and livelihoods. The paper highlights the contradictory and uneven livelihood-eroding/enhancing effects of these transformations. In many upland areas of Laos livelihoods are being squeezed from 'below' by environmental degradation and from 'above' by the operation of government policies and, more generally, by evolving market relations. While market pessimists see market integration as a largely destructive process, the paper highlights the opportunities that market integration can provide through diversification and livelihood reorientation. The challenge is that these opportunities are unequally available and are likely to promote social differentiation. Some households find themselves in a position to embrace new opportunities while others are forced to continue to rely on a declining and degrading forest resource. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.key words: market integration; resource decline; NTFPs; vulnerability; Lao PDR FOREST DEGRADATION, LIVELIHOOD DEGRADATION This paper focuses on the role and place of the forest and, more especially, non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in rural people's livelihoods in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Figure 1). However, the focus of the paper is not on the role of NTFPs in rural livelihoods per se. Rather, I am interested in exploring how market integration and, more widely, globalization (reflected in the Country's integration into the Greater Mekong Subregion) have pressured traditional systems and reworked the place of the forest in rural livelihoods. In particular I wish to elucidate the implications of this for marginal groups in rural society and show how the forest resource has, in a real sense, been wrested from the grasp of local people. The actors in this theatre of development are rural households and commercial intermediaries, and the props and scenery comprise government policies, market forces and, of course, the forests and their fauna.The degradation of the forest resource is central to the narrative of dearth and decline that the paper will outline. But rather than providing a detailed examination of forest degradation itself, the paper will seek to build an understanding of the impact of the process on rural populations and the way in which it narrows and compromises (and therefore degrades) rural livelihoods and in particular the livelihoods of the poor. The paper conceptualizes degradation in a tw...

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Embracing the Global in Thailand: Activism and Pragmatism in an Era of Deagrarianization

Cited by 109 publications

References 12 publications

A Framework for Understanding On-farm Environmental Degradation and Constraints to the Adoption of Soil Conservation Measures: Case Studies from Highland Tanzania and Thailand

A Framework for Understanding On-farm Environmental Degradation and Constraints to the Adoption of Soil Conservation Measures: Case Studies from Highland Tanzania and Thailand

Regional Scenarios and Simulated Land‐Cover Changes in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia

Forests, marketization, livelihoods and the poor in the Lao PDR

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