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SFB 564: F3.1 - Development intervention, state administration and local responses of ethnic minorities in upland Northern Thailand: role and dynamics of local, rural organizations and networks
Project
Project code: DFG SFB 564: F3.1
Contract period: 01.07.2000
- 30.06.2003
Purpose of research: Applied research
Thailand is probably the only country that succeeded in fighting poppy production and trade, by implementing a 'stick and carrot' policy allowed by the economic take-off the country experienced from the 1960s onward and the 'anti-Communist rent' provided by the USA. This development was mainly launched by special bilateral projects and by the King (later Royal Foundation) and bypassed to a certain extent the existing state institutions. However, almost all these projects covering large areas in the highlands ended in the first half of the 1990s. What we observe, is the come-back of state institutions on the foreground. The holistic approach of these projects could nowadays give way to the come-back of a sectoral approach, bringing back all the contradictions State institutions carry along (among themselves and within each of them). Such an hypothesis is taken seriously by local populations and the emergence of networks of villages constitutes at least partly a response to this concern. These associations, which go across ethnic boundaries, aim at being a partner acknowledged by state agencies especially in the fields of social and economic development, land use and resource management. Furthermore, the degree of uncertainty is very high among villagers and their strategies is, at least partly guided by the lack of transparency of the process. Access to information thus becomes a crucial stake and actors able to monopolise it are in a better position to deal with this new context.
The objective of the research is to analyse the social interface between development projects, state institutions and 'local society' in a specific context, from a socio-anthropological point of view, that is by applying anthropological concepts and methods to a traditionally non-ethnological object. This approach will be combined with a historical perspective aiming at analysing the different phases of highlands development policies, in order to grasp the roots of the current politics of development policy. A basic knowledge on local social structuration will be required, too.
A first step will thus consist in assessing the development and extension approaches of the development projects that have been working (sometimes for quite a long time) in the area, as well as the roles and strategies of state agencies involved in the highlands development policy. The different points of view of the actors involved are to be explored, in terms of practices and logics as well as of perception and evaluation: discrepancies between objectives and implementation of a project, seen as failures by project workers or decision-makers, can result from active strategies of target groups, and thus epitomise the dynamics of the local society and not its so-called resistance or archaism. Furthermore, the triangle development project-state-local population is not made of three homogenous blocks. An actor oriented approach will allow us to identify differentiated strategies within each group as well as the specific role of state institutions: on the one hand, beyond the political and administrative division of state labour, state agents develop and achieve their own strategies which does not simply reflect the tasks they are ascribed to. The local state appears then as a sort of (differentiated) 'actor among others'. On the other hand, local perceptions and practices of state can oscillate between this part of reality and the view of state as an external factor. These issues and how they interplay have to be empirically explored. Six research subfields have therefore be identified:
Highlands development projects: assessing changing approaches
State agencies and highlands development projects: understanding negotiated relationships
The state’s internal heterogeneity
The Royal Development Projects within the field of development
The local field of development: analysing social interfaces
Local societies: analysing social structures
A second step will analyse the current transition phase. This study of this transition raises specific questions, even though answers partly ensue from the analysis of previous phases. We structure these questions in three groups corresponding to the three corners of the triangle development-state-local populations (even though one must keep in mind the internal heterogeneity of each one).
Highlands development projects withdrawal management
State agencies strategies vis-à-vis the transition
Local societies structuring and diversification: dealing with insecurity
The F3 project has close connections in terms of problematic and object with the F1, A1, E3, D3 projects, and common field research will be led (especially with F1 and E3). Exchange of information on the basis of a clear complementarity of research domains have to be considered with these subprojects, too. The link with natural sciences projects will be based on a mutual sharing of expertise. On the one hand, the understanding of decision making or strategies towards projects require the knowledge of other disciplines. This demand of expertise will be supplied by scientists working in natural sciences and economical projects. One the other hand, a function of the F3 project will be to provide colleagues firstly with information on local societies including local social and political structures, and secondly with explanatory models based on inductive inferences (and not statistical inferences) regarding processes of social and technical change. The overlapping of research sites will strengthen the effects of the co-operation between subprojects.
Section overview
Subjects
- Agricultural Sociology
- Agroeconomics
