How people have engaged modernity in a northeastern thai village

It was part of a state-sponsored infrastructure development project that will have an inevitable impact on village life.. My thesis engages the use of theoretical discourses of developme

Chapter 1 Introduction

Keeping up with the Joneses 1

During the dry season, my mother has to order truckloads of soil from the excavation service2 to fill our land Fellow villagers are then employed to level

the soil Each year, the expenditure is directly proportionate to the amount of soil that

is available In 2009, my family paid in total 1,700 THB (51.21 USD)3; 1,200 THB

(36.14 USD) for the soil and 500 THB (15.16 USD) for the labour

This practice has been in full swing since our relocation to this piece of land in

1994 We had to expend a large sum of money for these annual landfills for practical

reasons - the annual landfills prevent flooding within the house yard during the rainy

season Flooding within the perimeters of the house was not a natural occurrence

before the construction of an elevated4 inter-provincial highway near our house

However, the high road dyke blocks our natural drainage, resulting in our house yard

to flood during the rainy season

Traditionally, to prevent flooding, houses were constructed on elevated

grounds that were filled beforehand The annual landfill method was an alteration of

1 This term is a 20th century American slang It originated with Arthur (Pop) Momand's Keep Up with

the Joneses comic strip in the New York Globe The strip was first published in 1913 and became

popular quite quickly By September 1915, a cartoon film of the same name was touring US cinemas

The 'Joneses' in the cartoon weren't based on anyone in particular, and they weren't portrayed in the

cartoon itself Jones was a very common name and 'the Joneses' was merely a generic name for 'the

neighbours' ( http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/216400.html retrieved 12 December 2009 )

2 In the dry season, there are many soil-selling services They offer to dig a pond for the land owner for

free and they earn from selling the soil The bigger and deeper the pond is dug, the more soil they can

get A truck load of soil costs 550 baht per truckload (as of May 2009)

3 All the exchange rate uses in this thesis is 1 USD = 33.25 THB ( http://coinmill.com/ retrieved 12

December 2009)

4 The highway was constructed to be elevated to prevent itself from flooding

traditional methods of construction, and was employed only by people who wanted to construct new houses in proximity to the roads With the increasing movement of homes to areas at the roads, more people adopted the annual landfill method in order

to adapt to the new challenges offered by their relocation

The construction of the modern inter-provincial highway had started a trend

It was part of a state-sponsored infrastructure development project that will have an inevitable impact on village life The state upgrades the highway by creating higher ground for the road As a result, the villagers started to adopt the same method in order to fill up their backyards and housing grounds One by one, villagers had to fill

up their land with truckloads of soil to prevent flooding So did my parents It is not hard to observe that people in my village are copying one another in this trend In fact, this trend is fuelled by people‘s desire to be on par with one another economically and

socially In their own way, they have kept up with Joneses, meaning they strive to

match one‘s neighbours in spending and social standing This is a conscious pattern of being active villagers in the contemporary Thai countryside

My thesis engages the use of theoretical discourses of development and modernity to uncover the contemporary situation of a village in rural Thailand

I contextualised my thesis by locating my research in a village named Ban Nongyang The village is located at a natural waterway, running five kilometres from Phanom Din hill The main road which runs through the village, however, blocks the village‘s waterway Grandmother Tut, my neighbour from across the street, told me that she inherited this piece of land from her parents Before the road was built, this land, being outside the village‘s area, was empty Prior to the relocation of her house, Grandmother Tut‘s old house was located close to the village dirt road once

considered ‗inside the village‘s area‘5

When the asphalted road was introduced, more

and more people moved to stay close to the road She said that ‘I wanted to stay near the main road (thanon yai)6 too Hence, my husband and I decided to build a house here‘ In mid 2007, Grandmother Tut hired Uncle Chai and his professional house-moving team to relocate her new home ten metres away from the main road She said that

Staying near the big road became too noisy; my house was too close to the road There are too many cars nowadays The cars keep running pass my house all day and all night When the trucks run at night, it is too noisy and it shakes my house

The construction of the inter-provincial highway plays an integral part in influencing the development of the village and of its villagers‘ lives The trend of relocating houses in proximity to the road compels villagers, like Grandmother Tut, to adopt the landfill method; landfill had to be performed in order to level their land against the highway‘s height Before conducting interior renovations to her home, flooding was not a concern In 1980, Grandmother Tut decided to pave her ground with cement This was part of another trend within the village; cement paved floors at the ground level started to become popular amongst the villagers During the mid 1990s, teacher Khempet, a school teacher, started building his house in the empty land next to hers To build the large, two-storey cement house and prevent the ground floor from flooding in the rainy season, Mr.Khempet filled up his land and built his house higher than Grandmother Tut‘s ground, by about 20 centimetres With her house being lower than her neighbour‘s land, Grandmother Tut needed to raise her land

5 This dirt road was the most important road connecting the inner village with main road However, in early 1980, the state cut a new road to connect the inner village with the inter-city road The new road became more popular, as it was bigger and more convenient People ignored the old cart road and very few people now use it as a short cut within the village only

6 In Thailand, there are various kinds of roads ranging from cart roads, dirt roads and asphalt roads Previously, there was only the inter-city road paved by asphalt It was bigger than the dirt road that normally connected villages together Thus, the word ‗thanon yai‘ or literally translate as big road refers to the main road or inter-city asphalt road

further to avoid flooding This time, she determined to raise her land higher than her neighbour

Running after Development: Engaging Modernity in a Northeastern Thai village

In Thailand, development has been part of people‘s lives for more than half a century In order to gain a fuller understanding of the impact of development, we cannot limit analysis to the institutional level Instead, we must look at the actual impact of development that has penetrated, re-defined and transformed individuals‘ lives at the village level Evaluating the real-life impact of development is made possible through the perceptions and actions of villagers The process of rural modernisation can be clearly understood through villagers‘ experiences and their everyday life practices The main research question is how the individual villager defines the way to achieve development and modern life In addition, the research question extends to examine how the villager is transformed to become a modern actor who acquires a new consciousness of their social position in the society

Today, villagers are ready to reject being out of date, being old fashioned, and

ready to embrace the new experience of being up to date Being modern became associated with a luxurious lifestyle, better education, infrastructure, and a higher standard of living These ideas of modernity are introduced to their village through various forms of development projects In essence, everybody is running after development in order to achieve a modern status The processes of change and their impacts emerge on individual and community levels

In this thesis, three key words; development, modernity, and everyday life, will

be discussed Phatthana 7 is as an active verb which means ‗to develop‘, ‗to progress‘

or ‗to advance forward‘ In the Thai context, it is often used interchangeably with

modernisation The Thai state officially set up the development policy based on the

‗paradigm of modernisation and growth‘ (Boonmathaya 2000: 15) More often than not, development in Thailand means introducing physical infrastructure projects such

as roads, electricity, running water, irrigation and so on to the rural areas (Rigg 2003:

52) Hence, rural development (kanphatthana chonnabot) more accurately means

bringing advancement and modernisation to rural areas (ibid)

Modernity is popularly conceived and measured through Western-centered standards and connotations of what is modern Bruno Latour (1993) interprets the modern as ‗the extension of scientific and intuitional networks defining themselves as rational and true‘ (Latuor 1993 in Bunnell 2006: 16) Anthony Giddens defines modernity as a mode of social life that emerged in Europe from the nineteenth century onwards (Giddens 1990:1) Modernisation is the process of exporting the (always-already modern) Western institutions and formations to cultural setting of non-West (Bunnell 2006: 16)

In my thesis, I endeavour to interrogate the Euro-American-centred conceptions of modernity In addition, I seek to discuss alternative perspectives that are available outside the boundaries of the West As Appadurai (1996) proposes,

Modernity now seems more practical and less pedagogic, more experiential and less disciplinary than in the 1950s-1960s The megarhetoric of development modernisation such as economic growth, high technology, agribusiness, schooling, and militarisation are still with us But it is often punctuated, interrogated and domesticated by the micronarratives of film, television, music and other expressive form,

7 Development, or kanphatthana in Thai stresses the economic, social/ human development are more

exactly referred to by the word Watthana, but this is rarely used in the mainstream development studies context – although it is popularly employed by grassroots activists Kanphatthana = modernisation and

is delivered by the state (Rigg 2003: 51)

which allow modernity to be written more as vernacular globalisation and less as a concession to large-scale national and international policies (1996: 9)

Hence, I question how modernity and development contest and situate themselves in people‘s everyday life? ‗Everyday life‘ refers to everyday actions done

by ordinary people and which happens in common places and events ‗Everyday practice‘, on the other hand, is a summation of the activities that are performed in everyday spaces that have coherence in and of themselves It constitutes or makes up daily life in normal living (Rigg 2003) The everyday life can be seen and studied by the anthropologist I adopt Eric E Thompson‘s (2007) work on ‗everyday‘ to help me

to examine how villagers ‗mediate‘ development and modernity The contemporary situation and the powerful institution such as education system, road networks, and western medical practices permeate the practical in people everyday experience These are conveyers of the mediated modernity and development, ‗are a part of, not apart from, the local condition and everyday life in the rural village‘ (Thompson 2007: 154)

In the quest of achieving something, rural people have to earn and invest more

to acquire it Keyes (2002) sees it as the commitment to development to the pursuit of

the progress of the villagers The stories of how people experience rural modernisation are the focal point of my thesis Instead of exploring institutional arrangements or the re-organisation of development projects, my work focuses on the human experience of development My work sees a very close connection between development and modernity I take development as a form, or way, to achieve modernity Indeed, development is a process of planned change or directed transformation It is a guided transformation with some desirable expectation

The term development signifies a process of improvement: a movement to a

better place Modernisation and development have encouraged people to expect more

from life Keyes comments that the pressure of needs is intensifying and expanding

time over time However, in the process of many development projects, villagers have

both benefited from and become victims of development (Keyes 2002)

Development has shaped and transformed people‘s lives and perspectives like never before In my thesis, I opt to analyse how development came about and become institutionalised through schools, roads and health clinics which are situated in the village Furthermore, I consider how the villagers define, interpret and respond to development and modernity in their everyday lives I concur with Ferguson‘s statement on the failure of development projects that ‗failure does not mean doing

nothing; it means doing something‘ (Ferguson 1994: 276) and ‗even a ‗failed‘

development project can bring about important structural change‘ (ibid: 275)

My thesis aims to evaluate development at the micro-level; how it works and operates At the same time, I also place high emphasis on villagers‘ definition of development The villagers do not simply contest, resist, or reject the development and modernity But rather, they seek to adapt these notions of development and modernity, and integrate these notions into their lives This reaffirms the role of development and the way villagers perceive and live with development North-

easterners have been influenced by the discourse on development through the state-led

development efforts (Boonmathaya 1997) However, they have their own ways to rework top-down notions of development based on their own culture and tradition Just like the case of my parents and our neighbours having to catch up with the inter-provincial highway improvement, the relationship and the interaction between development and the villagers are not walking with or chasing up but it is the way

people run after development

Thesis Organisation

Our prime objective is to strive to make the public aware and agree

with the fact that the nation must develop, people must progress, and

tomorrow must must be better today ( Sarit Thanarat speech in 1960

in Chaloemtiarana 1979: 148)

Back in 1960s, development was among the top priority of Thailand‘s national policies Development has transformed Thailand not only virtually butalso people‘s mentality In this thesis, I look at the impact of development in people‘s everyday life and how villagers embrace development Modernity based on development creates new identity, modern Thai people Thesis marks the development in everyday life by explaining in 4 subject matters namely road, migration, education, changing in kitchen landscape Story about an educated man, who became the full-time famous spirit medium, shows how people acquired the importance of modern education with

an old traditional belief In the mode of experience; it is interesting to see how villagers connect modern and traditional world together Moreover, I discuss about a new rarely-used gas stove, which can only become a symbol of modernity but cannot

replace an old often-used charcoal stove, as it fits more with local dietary

The contents of this thesis are divided into several chapters Chapter 1

Introduction provides an overview of the thesis It draws the contemporary picture of the villager and raises argument about how development and modernity encourage

villagers to participate The form of participation is what I call running after

development Chapter 2 starts with the review of the development, modernity and

development and modernisation theory In the second half of the chapter, I discuss methodological reflections with an aim to illustrate how fieldwork was carried out

Chapter 3 deals with the historical context of the region Topics discussed

include the creation of Northeastern Thailand and state and development The thesis starts the discussion from the administrative reform in nineteenth century in the reign

of King Chulalongkorn (reign 1868 -1910) To show how Thai state has integrated the Northeastern region into the geo-body of the Thai state This chapter also highlights the process how development has become a tool of the state to involve the northeastern region in the global economy

Chapter 4 begins with the background of Ban Nongyang as a community in

the context of village settlement and the creation of the Thai political unit It unveils the history of state-sponsored development in the village and discusses the village in

transition chronologically

In the second part of the chapter, I look at the arrival of the development at the village level, using roads as a case study, and demonstrate how roads have become

very important symbols of development and modernity I use a cartographic map as

the tool to reaffirm the notion of the road, which is the most distinctive feature in every villager‘s map Sample of maps are read as signs of the development and modernity in Ban Nongyang The meaning of the maps show what people want to highlight and what people want to omit in the imagination of their village

Chapter 5 discusses how villagers experience the world outside the village

through rural-urban migration Urban migration became popular among village men and women, especially during Thailand‘s economic miracle in 1980s Villagers migrated to work in the big cities Migration in itself is about seeking new opportunities It is a phenomenon that allows people to engage themselves in the modern world It had consequences when they returned home and reproduced the modern ideas in the village

Chapter 6 focuses on emerging ideas of the ‗secure life‘ The discussion

focuses on how people struggle and chase a better life and better status, a new social

status created by the bureaucratic system and capitalism This desire can be achieved

through education, which paves one‘s path to a secure job and better life in the rural

areas comes from not only an individual but from the entire the family

Chapter 7 describes the consequences when the traditional kitchen was

supplanted by the modern kitchen Using the kitchen landscape and its politics as a

metaphoric case study, this chapter shows how conspicuous consumption and

positional economics could explain changing village consumption behaviour and how it reflects understandings of being ―modern‖ and its incorporation into the

villagers‘ daily life

The key theme in Chapter 8 is the villagers‘ experiences with development

With this focus, this chapter illustrates the conversation between the villagers and

development through private narratives I present the life stories of three informants

from three generations and discuss what development means to them

In the concluding chapter, the big picture of the social transformation and

changes in the Ban Nongyang could arguably represent thousands of villages across

the Thai countryside as a result from state-sponsored development since 1960s This aims to conclude and show the way the villagers have transformed and adapted

themselves through state-led development and how people have negotiated with

development and modernity, viewing the process of such transformation from below

Chapter 2 Theoretical Frameworks and Research Methodology Reflections

The theoretical framework is aim to examine development as a form of modernity The development and modernity theories are adopted to explain the development era in the Thai context The theory helps to understand the (Euro-American centric) development; how does development as a process of modernisation work in the Third World

My thesis adopted the anthropological approach to examine the everyday situation in the rural village in Northeastern Thailand The participation approach was employed to investigate the engaging with development and modernity of villagers

In addition, informal talks and loosely-structured interviews with the informants were carried out

Towards the end of the chapter, I also penned my methodology reflection The bulk of my reflection is centered on my complex positionality as a researcher studying her own village After critically assessing my own reflections, I suggest some learning curves for a local-born researcher interacting with villagers who are both informants and observers, simultaneously

Theoretical Foci

The theoretical assumptions about ‗modernity‘ and ‗development‘ have been discussed for a long time in academia In fact, ‗modernity‘ and ‗development‘ are the two main theories that I use in my paper Both theories are important tools that will aid the understanding of transformation and current phenomena in the village in Northeastern Thailand

Development Theory

‗Development‘ can be understood as an idea, an objective and an activity (Kothari and Minogue 2000, Nederveen Pieterse 2001) As an idea, discourses on development have been introduced by the Western countries Subsequently, these paradigms are increasingly adopted and practiced by the rest of the world The idea then becomes an objective, where development became the Western-led agenda for the Third World It was drawn up to fit the new ‗rising expectations‘ during the era of post-colonial independence Thus, development can be understood as the reconstruction of the world based on Western norms and institutions The central idea

of economic development is progress as determined according to the market forces of

supply and demand (Mehmet 1999: 2) Western sciences, especially social sciences,

idealise Western institutions and perceive the other as inferior and constantly struggling to catch up with the superior West by imitating it (Ibid: 10-11)

Western theorists defined development as ‗modernity‘, which itself was defined as ‗the passing of traditional society‘ (Lerner 1958 in Mehmet 1999) or

becoming modern (Inkeles and Smith 1974 in Mehmet 1999) This concept embraces

the Western political institutions and norms as a universal reference (Mehmet 1999:

60-61) Economic development generally refers to capitalistic growth through industrialisation which depends on Western technology and equipment Western Multinational Corporations (MNCs) were encouraged to enter the developing countries as agents of economic development that would bring prosperity to all (Mehmet 1999: 88) In fact, to read the development theories is to read a history of hegemony and political Eurocentrism (Pieterse, 2001: 8)

Development as a Discourse

In the 1950s, the mainstream development discourse outlined science,

technology and capital as the main components required to bring about industrial

revolutions to Third World countries The discourse of underdeveloped societies was

totally reconstructed Underdeveloped subjectivity is considered as powerlessness,

passivity, poverty and ignorance The advanced societies of that time aimed to

achieve a high level of industrialisation and urbanisation, technical aptitude,

modernised agriculture, rapid growth of material production and living standards, and

widespread modern education and cultural values This development discourse was

sold to the people in the Third World countries as the new way to achieve developed–

world status Escobar, a well-known developmentalist (1995), redefined development

as the new form of colonialism in terms of discourse He employed Foucault‘s

conceptualisation of knowledge and power to examine the representation of social

reality and how it created the representation of the Third World In essence, the

development discourse speaks of economic growth as a tool; economic growth, as a

tool, is used to transform poorer parts of the world

The critique of the development discourse began in the mid 1980s After almost 30 years of practice, Third World countries became increasingly modern

and developed Yet, it brings us to the new dependency The anthropologist in Latin

America questions that ‗(in Latin America) have to stop being what we have not been,

what we will never be, and what we not have to be‘ (Escobar 1995: 221)

Modernity and Development

In the nineteenth century, following the Enlightenment, ‗modernity‘ emerged

as a concept within European society This logic of modernity rejected anything irrational Hence, previously-held views on religion became increasingly challenged with rationality The Occidental rationalism transformed societies which were

dependent on religion to the modern societies which exist today Thus modernity has

become the popularly accepted standard and worldview through which people

evaluate their and other people‘s degrees of progress or backwardness (Masquelier

2002: 847) Escobar (1995: 11) contextualises the era of development within the overall space of modernity The functional conception of development was conceived

of as the transformation of traditional into a modern society Fagerlind and Saha

(1995) emphasise that

The process of modernisation can be charecterised as revolutionary (dramatic shift from traditional to modern), complex (multiple causes), systematic, global (affecting all societies), phased (advance through stages), homogenising (convergence), irreversible and progressive (Fagerlind and Saha 1995: 16)

Modernity can be examined by looking at the practices and symbols that produce and regulate social life (Escobar 1995) The conceptualisation of

‗development‘, which engages with modernisation, was introduced to the Third World countries aggressively by the developed Western countries The indigenous

population had to be modernised And, in this light, modernisation meant the adoption

of the right values These were embodied in the ideal of the cultivated European as

well as in programmes for industrialisation and agricultural development (ibid: 43) Arce and Long (2000) pointed out that the drive to develop these countries is a legacy

of colonisation as it exemplifies ‗the spread of ‗civilised standards‘ of modernity and

the way that local people blended the influence of modernity into their own

‗traditional‘ idiom‘ (Arce and Long 2000: 10)

Hence, development is inherently tied to the western paradigm of modernity

Positivist thought in development reduces development into a linear progression,

encouraging developing countries to follow the developed economic model; by

shifting from a society based on agriculture to one based on industry The growth of

economic scale would lead the country to become developed and modern Rostow‘s

universal stage theory of economic growth is one of such theories that exemplify

positivism Development is conceptualized and assumed to be laying on the linear

stage of five basic stages of economic growth, from a traditional society to a society

of mass-consumption Thus, if a country seeks development and modernity,

development projects have to be implemented to restructure the traditional agrarian

societies Less-developed countries then have to follow the universal stage while the

developed countries play the role of the mentor As a result, the aid industry emerges

for the global North to help the global South to be modern and developed by using

their development models

Modernity is the ultimate goal, while development is the process In addition,

modernity is an age of standardisation and reproduction Thus in the twentieth century

concept, modernity is the process of the Third World catching up with the West

At the same time, the West as the leader does not need to catch up to anyone Hence, in this thesis, the main argument is how the Third world borrowed and reinvented modernity through the process of development My central focus is on the

ground level: how the village articulates modernity and development that was given to

them by the exodus (external factor/agent) Thai villages experienced (Western)

modernity through the Thai state Schools, roads, teachers and civil servants are

agencies of modernity introduced by the state

Modernisation Theory

The process of modernity could be measured by the spread of modern

institutions, like schools or (modern, Western) medical facilities, and maps as a

modernisation surface The modernisation theory has encouraged backward countries

to only copy the already-proven example of the West in order to develop their

societies (Fotsyth 2005: 454) Modernisation theory not only stresses the process of

change, but also the response to that change It also looks at internal dynamics related

to the social and cultural structures and the adaptation of new technologies

Furthermore, it demonstrates the relationship between knowledge and power in the

creation of development theory; the western countries have authority to create the set

of discourse that makes the Third world countries become the other (Scott 1995: 127)

However, modernisation is not a singular process (Rigg 2003: 14) The modernisation process is to create commodity markets and transfer technology,

knowledge, resources and organisational forms from the more developed world to the

less developed world Norman Long noted that in this way, traditional society is

paralleled into modern world and the transformation of the economic and social

patterns to be modern (Long 2001: 10)

Modernisation and Development in the Anti-mainstream Development

The development of superstructures serves two key purposes; to enhance the

‗hardware‘ (infrastructure) of the society and to develop the ‗software‘ (its people) of

the society For the latter, the construction of superstructures is a catalytic process

used to inculcate its society with notions of ‗development‘ and ‗modernity‘

However, in it is an irony in the developing world that modernity is the state and village paradox Villagers have committed themselves to the pursuit of the progress Hence, they try their best to cope with the existence of their daily life In Thailand there are many alternative forms of resistance We do not need to do what

other people want us to do This leads to the negotiation between the state and

development The most prominent and well-known example of a new form of resistance to the modernity of Thai society is the emergence and popularity of the Sufficiency Economy theory Much like how Singapore and Malaysia had promoted

―Asian values‖ as a rejection of ―decadent‖ Western values that is seen to be tied with modernity; these phenomena help us to understand that partial resistance is the way to confirm the existence of modernity Development is seen as the negotiation of the linear step of the economic and social development with the possible resistance

Post-development: the Encountering of Mainstream Development

There are many critics of the singular (Western) modernity (Bunnell 2006: 19) model of development Herbamas (1980) sees modernity is an unfinished project Max Weber argues on the sociology of religion about the problem of universal

history Weber quested that

Why, outside Europe, ‗the scientific, the artistic, the political or economic development….did not enter upon that path of rationalisation which is particular to the occidental (Habermas 2000: 1)

The post-development school believes that development is the new form of

colonialism In other words, development is alternative word used to justify the right

for northern countries to come and exploit southern countries, much like during the colonial era In addition, the discourse of development serves the western political purpose to expand beliefs of democracy which would allow them to control the so-

called Third world countries more easily Development does not provide the

sustainable way to solve the problems in the underdeveloped world

The idea of post-development goes along with the idea of anti-development

and beyond development This school argues that development fails to allow the

Third world countries to achieve the development form framed by the Western world

According to Nederveen Pieterse, ‗post-development overlaps with Western Critique

of modernity and techno-scientific progress‘ (2001: 99) Post-development parallels

dependency theory in seeking autonomy from external dependency, but is taken

further to describe development as a power/knowledge regime (ibid: 104) Moreover,

post-developmentalists see

Development as a system of knowledge, technologies, practices and power relationships that serve to order and regulate the object of

development‘ (Lewis et al 2003: 545 in Lie 2007: 53)

Post-development emerged after the ‗mainstream‘ development seemed to fail

Arturo Escobar (1995) argues that the studies of development are often taken as

‗telling the story of the (development) dream and how it progressively turned into

nightmare‘ (Escobar 1995: 4) The post-development scholars situate themselves

outside the institutional structure of development (Lie 2007: 53) In this case, the

anti-politics machine is the emerging and strengthening of bureaucratic power like

never before instead of limiting their role as facilitator of the development process

Post-development considers development as a hegemonic discourse

Post-development tried to find the alternative to development The post-development

school highlights the study on people is the emergence of counter-discourses from

‗below‘, affecting actions and outcomes from people who have to encounter the

development

The Critique of Post-development: Tradition is Not always Pretty or Comfortable

The argument of the post-developmentalist is post-development is only

critique but no construction (Nederveen Pieterse in Ziai 2007: 116) Jonahthan

Rigg(2003) also argued that post-developmental has played a ‗discursive trick, a rhetorical ploy of equating development with Development‘ (Rigg 2003) It sees development is as a monolithic discourse (Ziai 2007: 112) Post-development only see development as a passage to modernisation, modernisation with Westernisation and Westernisation with the unthinking application of (bad) Science and Technology (Rigg 2003:327)

Moreover, the main device to debunk development is the development promise of universal prosperity which post-developmentalist calls it as a ‗deceitful mirage or malignant myth‘ (Ziai 2007: 113) Post-development also ignores the fact that modernity and development do bring in numerous positive changes into peoples‘ lives (Rigg 2003, Corbridge 1998 in Ziai 2007: 115) A critic of Escobar on the failure of development such as the debt crisis, famine, increasing of poverty, malnutrition and violence that Escobar does not acknowledge that all these incidents have existed since the past (Ziai 2007: 117) Finally, post-development is another blueprint that based on reverse; anti-Western values but still, post- development also practice the same way as the mainstream development that to tell people what the villagers should do or follow (ibid: 115)

Methodological Reflections

My thesis is contextualised in Ban Nongyang, a village in Isan With these

problems on development in mind, I embark on my fieldwork in a place where people

speak a different language and have a different culture from their counterparts in

central Thailand I carried out four months worth of fieldwork From December 2008

to March 2009, I resided in Ban Nongyang as a researcher

Writing ethnography involves establishing trust and intimacy between parties

involved The ethnographer must establish a long-term relationship between himself

or herself and the informant The most important thing in writing ethnography is to

stick to the words and terms that the informants used and perceptions they expressed

as much as possible (Boonmathya 1997: 7) With my linguistic mastery and social

embeddedness as the member of the community, it was easy for me to build up

relationships with the informants I personally knew the most of the people whom

I interviewed prior to research Some of them are my relatives, my parents‘

colleagues, and my friends In short, everyone I interviewed can be linked to my

personal life It was easy for me to immerse myself within the local context and

access community documents Still, my conversations with people are full of

malleable opinions, gossips, and conflicts of interest

The stories discussed in the thesis come from my four months of fieldwork

and life-long experience as a member of the community However, I have struggled

with a conflicting stance between the role of a researcher and an insider I sometimes

sensed that informants were afraid to speak their minds, as they probably thought that

it would affect them if I reported what I wrote to a state authority For example, one

afternoon, I was interviewing the food stall owner about his level of satisfaction of

development in the village compared to that of Bangkok My uncle-in-law, who is a

government teacher, walked into the stall I greeted him by ‗wai‘ and said hello to him He knew that I was in the middle of an interview, and he reminded the stall owner to ‗give good answers‘ (top di di) Thus, I realised that, at times, the barrier does not come from my status but from people around me

There are several limitations to insiderism as well Knowing the background

of villagers did not mean that I automatically gained their trust and obtained accurate data After spending time in the village, I realised that my experience was limited I looked at things only in one side, the middle class point of view Most of the stories about the village‘s current affairs were recounted to me by my mother Her picture of the village, through the stories conveyed, is shaped by her experiences and her middle-class social standing This thesis represents an overview of everyday life of villagers and state-sponsored development However, it will convey my (biased) reflection of development and the community though my own lens as a member of the community

Encountering and Engaging with Villagers

As a member of the community, it seems like I share the village problems with other members of the village Once I was asked by Aunty Tan, my distant relative,

‗how I would help the villagers to get out from debt and become rich?‘ My answer was that I would improve the irrigation system to be more efficient by deepening and broadening the irrigation canal As a result, farmers would have enough water to farm Aunty Tan laughed loudly at my answer She said that the canal is useless The earth bank is broken so it cannot retain water in the rainy season When it rains, the canal bank will collapse as a result of there being too much water The water flow will erode the canal‘s bank Furthermore, the canal has no water in the dry season and

floods in the rainy season Hence the canal sometime causes more problems than it is worth I listened and agreed with Aunty Tan I started to re-think about what I have heard from the government and the development at the ground by the villagers for the villagers could make sense

Being an anthropologist in the village was neither easy nor hard It was one of the most memorable times in my life At first, everyone probed about my presence in the village When I responded that I am a researcher, they had different reactions Some of the villagers volunteered to be interviewed Some villagers asked me what would be changed after I finish this project I upset some villagers answering that

‗well, this thesis would pave my way to come back home and develop our village‘

The villagers are always offered themselves to be interviewed and they hope that with their opinion, the state would have something to help them It made me feel even more frustrated when I had to repeat my answer again and again Sometimes, I felt guilty The truth is my thesis cannot help them to get out of the debt or help them about anything

Even though the villagers knew that my thesis might not help them, they were still very friendly to me I talked to people as much as I could, hope to gain some insight into their thoughts I also roamed around with several groups of people each afternoon In the afternoon, the villagers from the same hamlet always go to someone‘s house to roam there I sat there and listened to the villagers‘ opinions, comments and gossips about happenings both within and beyond the village boundaries Sometimes, the villagers laughed at me when I quickly wrote down what they said in my field notes I have gained a lot of useful information and opinions from my village folks during fieldwork and I also have a better relationship with

them

With my extended family, I gained a whole new experience It was harder

to interview my close relatives than the other informants It took me a longer time

to open my close relatives‘ minds, and to accept their opinions about the village

I asked my relatives and cousins for their opinions on some events within the village

I only ever got typical well-constructed and middle-class style answers, which always

came from other people

Every Friday or Saturday night, I would be at my grandmother house Pam, my cousin, always came back home during the weekend In some occasions,

Nuk, my cousin, also came back We would always come together for family dinner

and stay around to chat My two aunts would update what ‗happened in the past week‘

to us I found it interesting, boring and annoying at the same time My two aunts are

teachers in the primary schools Interestingly, they always manage to get updates on

happenings within the village, even when they had to work in school all day The

update is what my sister calls gossip Ae, my sister, always goes back home

straightaway after dinner with her (unspoken) reason that ‗it wastes my time to sit and

listen to aunties gossip about people and even any passerby‘ In the conversation,

aunties always added some spice to make the story interesting and encouraged the

audience to get involved These are very crucial factors in sharpening my cousin‘s

middle class opinion toward other villagers and the village This makes me

understand my position and opinion before I came back to do the fieldwork in the

village, as I had mentioned earlier

I did not expect to hear the truth or to find out the truth from any informant

My main concern is the interpretation of villager‘s response of their opinion Although I am a member of the village, I had to accept the fact that I will never be

able to know the village inside out I had to constantly be updated with happenings in

the village while penning my drafts back in Singapore But I suppose this is an issue faced by every social scientist

Chapter 3 Transforming the Fringe; State and State-sponsored Development

in Northeastern Thailand

Northeast Thailand, commonly known as Isan, is northeast of Bangkok

It is the largest region in Thailand; it covers one third of the total land area of the

kingdom Isan is notable for its high incidence of poverty (Phromphakping 2008:15)

Apart from the difficult physical environment, including poor soil quality, water

scarcity, etc that has impoverished the region, Charles Keyes (1967) also discusses its

geographical isolation from Bangkok Further, the Mekong River serves to isolate the

region from Laos On the other hand, the Phanom Dong Rak Mountains divide

southern Isan from the Kingdom of Cambodia This geographical character has

crafted Isan into a culturally rich region Also, with ethical, cultural and linguistic

differences from Bangkok, Isan inevitably became a fringe region

This chapter discusses the process of state integration of the fringe region from

before the arrival of the Thai state bureaucracy until it became a part of the state in the

early nineteenth century During the early nineteenth century, the state‘s power was

not really visible to the lay citizen However, all of these changed during the age of

development The early National Economic Development Plans brought

infrastructural development to the Northeastern region of Thailand (Phongphit and

Hewison 2001:109) With this visible development approach, the state became

increasingly prominent The nation-wide state-sponsored infrastructure improvements

have become a symbol of the state in lay citizens‘ eyes and rural people‘s minds

These infrastructural improvements helped to expand the virtual power of the state

through roads, schools, and health stations In this chapter, I use education and state policies to examine how the state transform and integrate Northeastern Thailand

The Birth of Isan in the Nation Building of Modern Thailand

Geographically speaking, Isan is located in the elevated vast land called Korat Plateau There are Mun and Chi River, tributaries of Mekong River flowing from the west to the east It is the closed region with the natural separation Mekong River separates the north and the east of Isan from Laos The Pethchabun, Dong Phaya Yen and San Kamphaeng ranges divides Isan from the central region The Phanom Dong Rak range lies as the boundary between Thailand and Cambodia in the south Most of

the Northeasterners refer themselves as the Thai Isan (Keyes 1967: 2) The majority

of population is ethnically Lao and speaks Thai-Lao (Thai-Isan) Khmer and Kui domains are located in the southern part of the region; mostly in Buriram, Surin and Srisaket province (Mikusol 1984:1)

Before the seventeenth century, the territories in northeastern Siam were under the Khmer empire and the Lao Kingdom The Siamese court started to expand its power toward the Korat Plateau in seventeenth century during the reign of King Taksin (reign 1767-1782, who annexed Champasak and Vientiane as vassal states It remained this way until the east bank territories of the Mekong River were transferred

to French Indochina in 1893 (Mikusol 1984:4) In 1900, Northeastern Thailand was subject to drastic changes Prior to this, the Siamese court changed the administration

in the northeast to three Monthon (region): Monthon Isan, Monthon Udon and Monthon Nakhon Ratchasima This area had close cultural, social and economic ties

to the Laos and Cambodia courts (Phongphit and Hewison 2002: 86)

Thailand‘s modernisation and nation-building process began in the reign of King Chulalongkorn (reign 1868 – 1910) In order to transform the Siamese court into a modern state, King Chulalongkorn introduced a series of administrative reforms based on Western ideas and technology (Mikusol 1984: 7) This series of reform between 1892 and 1905 aimed to respond to the threat of Western colonialism - especially the French intervention in the Northeast The French made a strong attempt

to expand their political control, as they had in Indochina, to Northeast Thailand (ibid:

39) In 1898, The French established consul-generals in two important towns of the

Korat Plateau, Ubon Ratchathani and Nakhon Ratchasima (Wipakpotjanakit 2003: 605-606)

A new system of administration called the ‗thesaphiban‘ system (provincial system) was established, which entailed a form of internal colonialism in which the

national decision-making and policy implementation was highly centralised by the elite in Bangkok (Mikusol 1984:7) The local lords were abolished and replaced by officials who were sent from Bangkok, thereby reducing local control and regional autonomy in the Northeast (ibid)

This new system was not successful at first The replacement of the local lords led to several rebellions throughout the kingdom, especially in the Northeast, which

could be understood as resistance by the Isan people to the Siamese Thai (Phongphit

and Hewison 2001) The response of the imposition of a centralised administration system since late nineteenth until the early twentieth century reinforced the sense of being a politically subordinate minority among the Isan people (Keyes 1983: 854)

The uprisings in Isan, especially the Holy Men rebellion (kabot phu mibun) in

1901-1902, could be considered as ‗the most significant historical event shaking power of the Siamese court in the region‘ (Phongphit and Hewison 2001: 92) Mikusul (1984)

purposed primordial sentiment, which emphasised the sense of self based on blood,

race, language, region, etc (Mikusol 1984: 6), to understand the rebellion phenomena

as the reaction to the Siamese court Northeastern people base their dissimilarity on

local historical experience, cultural practice and linguistic difference from the Thai in

Central Thailand (ibid)

Eventually, the Siamese were able to suppress the rebellions In fact, they tried

to improve and change the administrative system until it became the model of the provincial administration today (ibid) The Thai state was successful in

establishing a sense of national identity and integrated Isan people to be a part of the

Thai state The term ‗khon isan‘, or Northeasterner, was created to identify them as a

part of the Thai state, instead of being different ethnically (ibid 205)

Development in Isan; the Tool of National Economic Integration

Infrastructural improvement in Isan started in the nineteenth century At that

time, it was a tool to establish the legitimacy of Siamese Court In 1930, the rail route

to Ubon Ratchathani, the easternmost province of Kingdom, was completed, thus

facilitating travel between Northeastern and Central Thailand The transportation

strengthened the economic connection between the centre and the periphery As a

result, the economy surged drastically (Mikusol 1984)

In 1957, the development focus was shifted to integrate Thailand into the

global economy Prime Minister Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat created the National

Economic Development Board (NEDB), which was later re-named the National

Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) Their aims were to implement

policies and measures that would change the lives of the people, from the conditions

of ignorance, poverty, and pain, to a condition of developed I would argue that the

destination, for this symbolic journey towards a better condition, is unclear, and by its

nature, undefinable This is due to the fact that the point of departure itself is ambiguous, and that the three conditions, ignorance, poverty, and pain are social constructs, inspired by a combination of actual conditions of impoverishment and the

trajectory of the underdevelopment image which the centre of power casts on its

periphery

The results have been ambiguous at best While certain improvements have been made apparent, the picture is skewed by new problems that have emerged from these initiatives They range from environmental issues, such as urban pollution and rural deforestation, to social issues, such as widening income gaps Following Keyes‘ (1967) asserted that ‗the backwardness of the Northeast at least in part to dislike and distrust of the region in official circle, developmental discourses in Thailand must be analysed by scrutinising the relationship between the state and its people Many reasons have been suggested to explain why Isan is always left behind in a circle of underdevelopment and poverty According to Dixon (1997), soils in the Northeast region are sandy in texture, shallow in depth, and low in inherent fertility Their porosity reduces agricultural productivity, which is exacerbated by an unreliable rainfall pattern A second reason is the isolation of the region Isan is on the fringe of the kingdom with strong cultural and ethnic ties to Lao and Cambodia

Conclusion

The transformation process emerged when Thailand had to encounter the Western powers during the colonial period, leading to the appearance of the modern Thai state in the nineteenth and twentieth century The Bangkok administration claims that it has been successful in transforming the awareness of its people The semi-autonomous domain of local (Lao) lords in the northeastern Thailand were

abolished and replaced by state representatives, the servants of the crown This contributed to and reinforced the emergence of an ethnographical identity labeled

‘Isan’ (Keyes 1983: 854) The centralised policy, the modern education system and

the language policy were introduced to create a sense of community These policies

were successful in inculcating the Thai national identity among the northeasterners

(ibid) However, to transform the northeasterner to be a part of Thai state has not been easy As we can see, during the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, a series of uprising rebellions had mushroomed in the north and northeastern region

State-sponsored development began in the nineteenth century, particularly during the reign of King Chulalongkorn The emphasis of development during this early stage was on the construction of infrastructure such as railways and telegraph lines Being at the forefront of the state‘s modernisation program and civilisation efforts, these infrastructures were essential to the survival of Thailand during colonialism Development plans were implemented throughout Thailand again before the end of 1950s and were more intensive in the early 1960s, during the Sarit regime under the supervision of the United States Thailand‘s government adopted a market-led economic development policy This model increasingly engaged the Thai national economy with the global economy As a result, it had significant consequences for the rural transformation

Chapter 4 Mapping Ban Nongyang: the History and the Memory

As the car travels downhill along Patthamanon Road, an inter-province highway from Surin to Roi Et, someone prepares to alight at the 45th Kilometre mark

The first thing that he sees is a big white sign with the name of the village, Ban

Nongyang, both in Thai and English Besides being a deictic sign, it also marks the

boundaries of the village Continuing on this path, the visitor sees a big pond with a temple behind it Ban Nongyang is located on the right hand side of the road There are many houses built along the road, most of being two-storey houses constructed from an irregular mix of wood and concrete The school, district primary health station and sub-district municipal office are located at the fringe of the village which

is marked by territorial markers such as the signage of another village

It does not matter how fast you drive past the village or how much you can see

in the village The symbols and signage of state-sponsored development are apparent Among thousands of communities throughout the kingdom, roads and schools are two

of the most basic markers of state-sponsored development These remind us how much of a role the state plays in people‘s everyday life Since state-sponsored development came into the village nationwide starting from 1960s, there have been tremendous changes in the village landscape

In this chapter, my approach is to understand development as a process of transformation of Bang Nongyang from traditional to modern In the process of development and modernising, there are various features at play in the push and pull

of village transformation Here, I examine how villagers in rural northeastern

Thailand engage with modernity The critical period since the introduction of

state-sponsored development in the 1960s will be the departure point

Rigg (2008) studies the changes in Thailand and proposed two narratives: (1) deep transformation in economy, society and environment; and (2) growing

material wealth accompanied by deterioration in many aspects of well-being In

essence, he studied the interplay between modernisation and development Moving

away from a descriptive representation of the village, this chapter seeks to uncover the

visual and sensual landscapes of the village I suggest that development is a process

which leads to modernity and causes transformation in the village

This chapter describes maps of meaning by the villagers; how do villagers use

maps to illustrate the way they view and experience the village? The discussion will

focus on the history and the memory of the village In the following discussion,

I look at the evolution of the village and community through social memory I divide

into three parts In the first part, I discuss the conceptualised idea of the village and

community and the socio-political background of Ban Nongyang In the second part,

I use roads, one of the most prominent symbols of development to capture how the development is located as a part of people‘s lives seeing from the prominence of

the road network in the village map In the third part, I look at a map drawn by the

villagers, which helps me to examine people‘s imaginations of their own space and

community

Community and Village: Past and Present

Community, with the sense of togetherness, characterises a wide range of people who ‗share the sense of identity, specific interests, values and role of definitions with respect to other‘ (Forsyth 2005: 102) The word ‗community‘ also has social and cultural connotations, while ‗village‘ tends just to be an administration unit and spatial division (Rigg 2003: 50) The village, as a grouping of people, can also be called a community In the social organisation norms, the small peasant village was

characterised as a closed corporate community (Rigg 1994) Rural Thailand has been

used as a playground for the state to control the village since the modernisation reformation in the Chulalongkorn reign The concepts of ‗ban‘ or ‗bang‘ have existed for a long time in the villagers‘ perspective The village used to be a habitat for the people who lived there With the onset of state-sponsored development, it has been changed or rearranged to be the smallest political unit in the bureaucratic system controlled by the state

Hirsch (2002) suggests that the notion of village could be seen as a territorial unit, as administration instrument or as a tool of standardisation (263) The official discourse divides the rural population and territories into ‗ban‘ as the smallest unit (ibid: 265) The Thai state introduced bureaucratisation to the villagers by establishing village headmen, who represent the state as its mouths, eyes and ears in order to help bureaucrats to control or take care of the state‘s interests in the village (Puanghet: 12-13)

Engaging Village with the National Politics

The dominant definition of a modern state entails the following set of criteria:

the presence of a government, sovereignty, citizens and territory In 1890, King

Chulalongkorn‘s reign reformed the Kingdom‘s administrative system The centralisation brought back the power to the King in the centre of the country,

while the local lords and nobility were replaced with a bureaucratic administration

The political village was created by the central government in Bangkok

in order to distinguish it from the traditional village (Rigg 2003: 197) The central

state came in and created or territorialised the village administrative unit The

political territory of Thailand is categorised and sub-categorised through

(Euro-American centred notions of) geographical scale, province, district, sub-district and

village units As such, people who live within the same border or space are registered

as the inhabitants of that village (Vandergeest 1996; 285-286)

The Socio-history and Political Background of Ban Nongyang

Village Settlement

Ban Nongyang, a Khmer speaking village, is located close to the natural

swamp Ban is ‗village‘ in Thai Nong means ‗the natural water reservoir‘ Yang is

‗wild rubber tree‘ Ban Nongyang, therefore, means ‗a village located along the

swamp that surrounded by the wild rubber trees‘ Ban Nongyang was settled close to

the natural water resources for consumption by the villagers and their cattle

(Phongphit and Hewison 1990: 6) The swamp receives the water from the Phnom

Din hill, a small hill in the north direction At that time, Nongyang was bigger than it

is today It was a shallow and wide swamp, which expanded during the rainy season

There were bamboo groves laid on the north of the swap It separated the swamp area

out of habitat area Starting in the 1970s, the swamp was re-engineered twice The

first re-engineering was in the 1970s by human labour The second re-engineering

was in 1990 and was done by machinery sponsored by the Royal Thai Army as a part

of the Isan Khiao Project8 The village pond was transformed from a big swallow and

wide swamp to a smaller but deeper catchment The swamp without obvious borders

became a rectangle pond

From my ethnographic survey, there is no evidence or any legend to tell the village settlement No one is able to tell the village history Most of my informants

agreed on the original family names of the village: Pittngam, Ngamlert, Srikeaw and

Borisut, Pimsri Other surnames such as Phrombutr and Lapjit appeared in the village

since, in the Khmer culture, men married and moved into women‘s families Thus, these surnames are from the men who migrated into the village

Administrative Unit

According to dwellers‘ understandings, originally one unit village was one

whole community gathered with some other small outskirt hamlets Normally, the

villages would situate 3 kilometres away from one another Once the political

administration unit was introduced, Ban Nongyang was registered in Tambon Makmi

(Makmi sub-district) In 1969, Ban Nongyang under Moo 3, Ban Mueangkae,

Tambon Makmi shifted to be under Tambon Buakhok And in 1972, Tambon

Mueangkae was established and Ban Nongyang became Moo 1 of Tambon

8 Khrong Khan Isan Khiao (Isan Khiao Project) is a development project ran by the Northeastern Army

in 1987 - 1990 It aims to improve conditions in farming areas and water sources in northeastern

provinces

Mueangkae Ban Nongyang became moo 1 instead of Ban Mueangkae because the head of a group of villages at that time is Ban Nongyang village head man Later in

1976, the Ban Nongyang, moo 1 was spilt to 3 units; Ban Nongyang unit 1, Ban Takdad unit 14 and Ban Nongtae unit 16

Politics of Village Name

In the government document, Ban Nongyang is only a state administrative unit But in dweller mindset Ban Nongyang is the gathering of 3 political units Phuyai Thanom, Ban Takdad‘s ex-village headman, told me that the villagers were successful in their proposal to split Ban Nongyang into 3 units in 1976 The state asked the villagers to name the two new villages Hence, the names Ban Nongtae and Ban Takdad emerged Theoretically, the area which is now moo 16, Ban Nongtae,

should be moo 1 since it is a centre of the village and it is where the Nongyang is

located However, the house of the village headman at that time was not in that area Thus, the villagers decided to reserve Moo 1 for the land opposite the temple along the highway in the western part of the village Moo 14, Ban Takdad, literally means

‗expose under the sun‘ The village name came from the name of the small hamlet that spilt of from the village The hamlet, located 1 kilometre from the village, appears to be under the sun

Since Moo 1 is already named Ban Nonyang, Moo 16 must have a new name The village agreed to name the new village unit Ban Nongtae Grandmother Kop, a

60 year old farmer, told me that this is because there is one big Tae tree, with the scientific name Sindora siamensis Teijsm, at the corner of Nongyang pond As I

mentioned, there are three political units but people still continue using the old name

of the village, Ban Nongyang

Road, a Symbol of State-sponsored Development

In the 1960s, Thailand primary object is to raise standard of living of the people in Thailand using development and modernisation Field Marshall Sarit Thanarat, Thai Premier from 1959 to 1963 concentrated on building infrastructure as part of the rural development program During his time in government, a network of roads was built across the country, linking villages, markets, and provinces For Sarit, roads were also a tool to defeat the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) and to increase government legitimacy and stability especially in ‗insecure areas‘ (Chaloemtiarana 1979, 154-155) The importance of roads network is reflected in the report from National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) that emphasized ‗the development of transportation and logistics is considered as a very high priority‘ (NESDB 1963) Different kinds of roads, ranging from cart-ways to dirt and asphalt roads, were built during this time The network of roads represents the state‘s imposed developmental scheme that provides people with an infrastructure

to ―chase after development‖ It also provide a physical framework in which development can be viewed as a set to experiences whereby local people make used

of the road, and in their own way, redefined the meaning of the development process the state has intended

Throughout the development era, the physical landscape of the village changed significantly The first way in which this has occurred is through road construction The asphalted road which connects Surin and Roi Et province divides some villages into two parts Moreover, the rural road department built new dirt roads which connect the villages with the intra-province high-way The cart road was abandoned since the new route is more direct More and more people moved to build their houses near the road The arrival of paved roads is a turning point in the social

life of rural villages, as it represents a significant indicator of a community's degree of social and economic progress (Roseman 1996: 837)

Social Memory of the Road and Development

Social memory is the indirect memory formulated by oral or written accounts

of history (Anderlini, Gerardi and Lagunoff 2009: 1) These accounts were passed on through several generations (Anderlini, Gerardi and Lagunoff 2009: 1) The concept

of social memory here helps to examine the emergence of roads and modern infrastructure Here, Road is a level of collective representations though social action, social time and social space both the creatures and creators of social order (De Pina-Cabral 1987: 717)

In the 1960s, the first paved road was constructed It is an interprovincial highway connecting provincial towns together It is named the Pattamanont road, or for the villager, it is the Surin – Thatum (district name) or Surin – Roi Et (province name) road Villagers who were born before the 1960s always told me about how excited they were when the paved road was constructed My father told me that

When the road was first constructed, it was not as big as what you see today It was a simple two-lane asphalted road At that time, cars were too expensive There were only buses that ran between Thatum town and Surin Town; we called them ‗safety bus‘ (rot plod phai)9 and another bus started from Ban Pring; an inner village to Surin town called ‗sty bus‘ (rot khok mu)10

Buses ran between town and come back daily There were not so many cars then every time a car passed by, the children would run to the road and smell the tyre smell

Interestingly, I get similar reactions from people of my father‘s generation when I speak of ‗tire smells‘ while conducting fieldwork They would smile at me and

say ‗yeah, I remembered That time, there were not as many cars as today Once one

car passed by I would ran to the road and smell the tire smell‘

Roads as Modern Infrastructure

To build road means to build new relationship to the state Road put villagers

in direct contact with the world of trade stores, outdoor markets, schools, and the

government station Road not only physically connect people to the outside world but

also create more emotional attachment with the state, it also changes the landscape of

rural Thailand

Sarit believed that two basic needs for raising standard of living of rural

population is roads and water (Chaloemtiarana 1976: 151) thus in his office

Infrastructure building especially road became top priority This is the essential

political aims behind Sarit‘s roads building policy is to focus on increasing the government‘s legitimacy and stability In this respect, roads construction project

was implemented through official recommendations, rather than a response to the

need of local people

I asked the villagers to draw a village map Quite distinctly, roads are featured

in every map Through these ‗maps‘, we can see how the road frames the villagers‘

imagination of how the village map appears It frames the experience of the place In

this case, the road limits one‘s experience; a place that cannot be accessed by the road

becomes unimportant for people Sharon R Roseman (1996) proposed that roads are

symbolic constitutional history at the local level Roseman employs the opposition

between the existence and the absence of paved roads linking the countryside to the

cities and thus to economic and technological progress It reaffirms the symbols of

modernity as opposed to backwardness

Figure 1 The village maps shows the village’s road network

(Mental) Maps and People: Understanding the Village and Villagers from the Map

A map is a graphical representation of geographic space where location and attribute (where something is located and what it is) are

combined into a single visual product (Wentz 2006)

Maps can be read as a form of geographical imagination (Massey 1995) Every map conveys different meaning It shows the individual interpretation of the

village landscape The map becomes a juridical territory; it facilitates surveillance

and control Maps are still used to control our lives in innumerable ways (Harley

1989:12) Maps are means of representation and every individual map embodies a

particular interpretation of the place it is depicting Their design shows what they

include and what they omit It reflects different experiences, priorities and

interpretations (Massey 1995: 20) In this sense, the map reflects the worldview of

the mapmakers on what they view as important