Search Result

Srl

Item

ID: 108493

Thailand's agrarian myth and its proponents / Dayley, Robert

Dayley, Robert	Journal Article
	0 Rating(s) & 0 Review(s)

Publication

2011.

Summary/Abstract

Thailand's agrarian myth holds that culturally-based, small-scale subsistence farming is the most desirable form of community life for rural Thais. This article outlines Thailand's agrarian myth and argues that its current promotion finds support in an obsolete 'sufficiency ethic', rather than from the country's pragmatically-oriented farmers. Proponents of this myth come from Thailand's cultural and bureaucratic elite, urban intellectuals, and religious fundamentalists. Based on field research and secondary sources the article demonstrates how the attitudes and behaviors of contemporary Thai farmers belie the agrarian myth which non-farming elites now advocate. The article concludes that yellow-shirted proponents of Sufficiency Economy, Community Culture, and austere Buddhist fundamentalism should adjust their vision to the reality that Thailand's forward-looking farmers desire a rural lifestyle beyond the agrarian myth.

Key Words

Thailand ; Sufficiency Economy ; Agrarian Change ; Yellow-red Political Cleavage ; Political Development

In Basket

Export

ID: 144099

Thailand's last peasant / Dayley, Robert; Sattayanurak, Attachak

Dayley, Robert	Article
	0 Rating(s) & 0 Review(s)

Summary/Abstract

Does Thailand still have peasants? Does it still have a peasant society? How dynamic are Thailand's chaona? To answer these questions we begin with an interview of a septuagenarian farmer who discusses rural change over his lifetime and provocatively claims he is ‘the last peasant’ of his village. We use this rural anecdote as a catalyst to highlight agrarian change in Thailand and to expose the hazards of employing static concepts to describe contemporary rural political economy. By analysing the use and meanings of the term ‘peasant’ and its Thai equivalents, we demonstrate how static concepts obscure Thailand's rural evolution and contribute to misleading assumptions, harmful agrarian myths, and extant political cleavage.

Key Words

Thailand ; Rural Change ; Rural Political Economy

In Basket

Export