ALTERNATIVE ECONOMY AS AN ENGINE OF GROWTH (5 papers)
Chair:
Community Economics: Relations of Production and Cultural Economics Systems of the Upper
Northern Thai Peasant Society
Rangson Chanta, Faculty of liberal Arts, Maejo University
The upper Chiang Mai – Lumphun basin has been an area for the human settlements since the
pre – historical period. Originally they were small communities on the fringe of major political
centers. A settlement of each community was base on its own geographical dimension and
kinship system which were expressed through rites and rituals of spirit worship. This started with
the worship of ancestor spirits and house spirits and then developed into a worship of guardians
of the community and the community pillar. With the introduction of Buddhism in this area, the
worshipped became a stupa that enshrine the Buddha’s relics or community Chedi.
Animism and Buddhism has become the ideological base of community economy. The
Northern Thai peasants organize a variety of community networks, corresponding to both
sufficiency economy and case crop economy, to take care of different community affairs, such as
community development, religious affairs, irrigation system (Maung Fai) cremation welfare, and
local market system. These networks help sustain the community socially and economically
A belief system of ancestor spirits and an offering ceremony of the other supernatural is a
culture that has strengthened the kinship system, provided an opportunity for people in families to
come together and share problems and controlled member of families to conform the same
standards and customs. The system adopts itself for the existence of a village society and their
Community Economics at present time.
Authenticity and Interaction Ritual Chains in the Cultural Marketplace: Observations from
Thailand
Frederick F. Wherry,University of Michigan
I explore how artisans frame as authentic their sites of production and their handicrafts with
varying levels of success and for multifarious purposes. I focus my observations on actual
marketplaces because they have been the privileged locus for exchange, where the communal
actions of observing, bargaining, buying and selling incessantly occur and reoccur. In the
marketplace for woodcarvings as well as furniture reflecting specific cultural traditions, patterned
sets of interactions and understandings are attached to persons, places, objects, and their
situations of exchange. Using the concept of interaction ritual chains as advanced by Randall
Collins, I will draw upon my fieldwork in Thailand to demonstrate that the emotional energy—
defined as “a strong steady emotion, lasting over a period of time…. [that] gives the ability to act
with initiative and resolve, to set the direction of social situations rather than to be dominated by
others in the micro-details of interaction…. [and] to be self-directed when alone” (Collins 1994:
134)-- varies from one site of production and one buying situation to another. I will point to the
ritual ingredients of the various market interactions and their outcomes for price and for
authenticity. This research on how value gets generated within different types of selling
situations has important implications for Thailand is it promotes its cultural exports alongside its
travel and tourism sector.
keywords: alternative economics, culture, identity, economic sociology, cultural sociology
Alternative Buddhist Economics in the Asoke Group
Marja-Leena Heikkilä-Horn, Southeast Asian Studies Programme, Mahidol University
The paper analyses the Santi Asoke Buddhist group, which has practised “alternative economics”
for the past 30 years. The group has several temples in rural Thailand, in places like Nakhon
Ratchasima, Sisaket, Ubon Ratchathani, Nakhon Sawan, Nakhon Pathom and Chiang Mai. New
Asoke centres have been established around the country. Most of the temples are self-sufficient in
terms of daily food, medicine and many other commodities, such as textiles, shampoos, and
detergents. The group has organised one-week training courses for the last 6-7 years for farmers
originating from different parts of Thailand. This way, their teachings about organic agriculture,
recycling, self-sufficiency and Buddhist principles have spread widely throughout the country.
The temples also run primary schools, secondary schools and vocational schools thus reaching the
younger generations of rural Thais. This paper intends to look into the impact of Asoke groups
and their example of alternative economics to the surrounding communities.
Hybrid Space, Technology, and Development Discourse in the Thai Silk Industry
Mark Graham, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky
The Internet is often touted as a panacea for perceived deficiencies in economic development. Its
space-transcending abilities, which can instantly connect producers with consumers, have the
potential to cut out intermediaries and to redistribute economic surplus in a more equitable
manner. This paper asks whether the promises of the Internet are being realized in the context of
development programs in the Thai silk industry. Using interviews and surveys with producers
and sellers of silk in the Isaan region of Thailand, this paper examines: the characteristics of
people and firms using the Internet in the Thai silk industry, the effects that the Internet is having
on the organization of silk commodity chains, and the economic beneficiaries of such changes.
Agrarianism, Education, and Local Culture in the Southern Three Provinces: A Sustainable
Example of Setakit Paw Piang?
Mira Manickam, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
This paper explores the relationship between culture, natural resource-based livelihoods, and
regional education systems in the Southern Three Provinces, using a village case study in Pattani
as an example. The preference of Malay-speaking Muslims in the Southern Three Provinces for
religious education over state-run secular education has been a primary concern of the Thai state,
for whom state-run education is a key tool for national integration. At the same time, Malay
Muslims defend their local systems of education as integral to their culture, which they say places
greater value on religious virtue than economic prosperity. This paper explores the historical
roots of the Thai education system and its links to the creation of a modern industrialized
economy, and the historical roots of the bonok system and the way in which it is linked to a
village economy based on traditional, natural resource-dependent livelihoods. Villagers, religious
leaders, and civil society organizations in Pattani have invoked the notion of setakit paw piang, or
the sufficiency economy, when describing the agrarian livelihoods of many Malay Muslim
villages and the religious invocation to “be content with what Allah has given.” This paper
explores these links as well as the importance of natural resource conservation in the preservation
of a village economy and the cultural autonomy it facilitates.