Communal irrigation, state, and capital in the Chiang Mai Valley (northern Thailand): twentieth-century transformations

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 86-110

  Cohen, Paul T ^a   Pearson, Ross E ^a  

^a MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE; COMMUNAL AREA; ECONOMIC CHANGE; IRRIGATION SYSTEM; POLITICAL ECONOMY;

CHIANG MAI VALLEY; THAILAND;

EID: 0031660685     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463400021494     Document Type: Article

References (105)

1. William Rosebeny, "Political Economy", Annual Review of Anthropology 17 (1988): 172.
2. Phrek Gypmantasiri et al., An Interdisciplinary Perspective of Cropping Systems in the Chiang Mai Valley: Key Questions for Research (Chiang Mai: Faculty of Agriculture, University of Chiang Mai, 1980), p. 40.
3. Yoshikazu Takaya, "Land Reform and Rice-Growing" in Thailand: A Rice-Growing Society, ed. Yoneo Ishii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1978), p. 178.
4. Shigeharu Tanabe, Ecology and Practical Technology: Peasant Fanning Systems in Thailand (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1994), pp. 32, 130.
5. The destruction of the weirs was functional during heavy flooding in that it reduced water levels in the canals and thereby prevented severe flood damage to rice plants during panicle formation. Tanabe, Ecology and Practical Technology, p. 128.
6. Ecology and Practical Technology, Ibid., p. 29.
7. Most of these customary regulations were formalized in the Phraradchabanyat Kanconprathan Ratsadon, 2482 (People's Irrigation Act, 1939) (Bangkok: Ministry of Agriculture).
8. Tanabe, Ecology and Practical Technology, p. 29.
9. There is some evidence that traditionally the state was called upon to intervene occasionally in upstream/downstream disputes between weir communities. For example, the Khun Khong weir in present-day San Pa Tong district (see Map 1) was originally built by Lua villagers who had migrated from Hang Dong. In the 1840s a bitter dispute developed between these villagers and a Shan (Ngiaw) community downstream before the weir was completed. Eventually the dispute was taken to a senior aristocrat, Cao Hor Muang Kaeo, who decided in favour of the Shan, Paul T. Cohen, "The Politics of Economic Development in Northern Thailand, 1967-1978" (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1981), p. 36.
10. Yoneo Ishii, "History and Rice-growing" in History and Rice-Growing, ed. Yoneo Ishii, pp. 21, 22;
11. Kraisri Nimmanahaeminda, "The Irrigation Laws of King Mengrai", in Ethnographic Notes on Northern Thailand, ed. Lucien M. Hanks, Jane R. Hanks and Lauriston Sharp, Southeast Asia Data Paper No. 58 (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1965);
12. Vanpen Surarerks, Historical Development and Management of Irrigation Systems in Northern Thailand (Chiang Mai: Department of Geography, Chiang Mai University, 1986), pp. 81-100.
13. Sharon Calavan, "Aristocrats and Commoners in Rural Northern Thailand" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1975);
14. Paul T. Cohen, "Irrigation and the Northern Thai State in the Nineteenth Century" in Patterns and Illusions: Thai History and Thought, ed. Gehan Wijeyewardene (Canberra: Richard Davis Fund & Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Second Edition, 1993).
15. Jack M. Potter, Thai Peasant Social Structure (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 84,102.
16. Ishii, "History and Rice-Growing", p. 23.
17. J.B. Lieberman, Burmese Administrative Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest c. 1580-1760 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 278-92.
18. Anan Ganjanapan, "The Partial Commercialization of Rice Production in Northern Thailand, 1900-1981" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, Ithaca, 1984), pp. 32-43.
19. Cohen, "The Politics of Economic Development in Northern Thailand", p. 40.
20. Elaine McKay, "Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries: The Significance of the Coming of the Europeans" in Studies in Indonesian History, ed. Elaine McKay (Carlton, Australia: Pitman, 1976), p. 113.
21. Calavan, "Aristocrats and Commoners", pp. 136-37;
22. Cohen, "Irrigation and the Northern Thai State", pp. 60-62.
23. Peter A. Coclanis, "Southeast Asia's Incorporation into the World Rice Market", Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 24,2 (1993): 253.
24. James K. Ingram, Economic Change in Thailand, 1850-1970 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), p. 34.
25. Shigeharu Tanabe, "Land Reclamation in the Chao Phraya Delta" in Thailand; A Rice-Growing Society, ed. Yoneo Ishii.
26. Cohen, "Irrigation and the Northern Thai State".
27. Between 1910 and 1925 rice exports from Northern Thailand to Burma ranged from 5,000 to 20,000 piculs. A picul is a unit of measurement which was equivalent to 60.48 kilograms until 1923 when it was changed to sixty kilograms. Ingram, Economic Change in Thailand, p. 40.
28. Ingram, Economic Change in Thailand, p. 38.
29. Ratanaporn Sethakul, "Political, Social and Economic Changes in the Northern States of Thailand Resulting from the Chiang Mai Treaties of 1874 and 1883" (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, Dekalo, 1989), pp. 326-27.
30. Economic Conditions in Siam, Reports (London: HMSO, 1923, 1924, 1926, 1938).
31. David Feeney, The Political Economy of Productivity: Thai Agricultural Development, 1880-1975 (Vancouver & London: University of British Columbia Press, 1982), pp. 77, 80.
32. Prani Sirithon na Phathalung, Phet Lanna (Lanna Luminaries), 2 vols. (Chiang Mai: Suriwong, 1963), p. 294.
33. One rai = 0.16 hectare.
34. For details of land allocations see Paul T. Cohen "Aristocracy, Irrigation and the Early Commercialisation of Rice Farming in Northern Thailand", ASSESS (Australian Studies in Southeast Asian Issues) Journal 2 (1996): 10-21.
35. The proportion of non-glutinous rice exported increased markedly after about 1920. By the early 1930s, thirty per cent of the land around Chiang Mai was planted to non-glutinous rice, Zimmerman 1931 cited at Anan, "The Partial Commercialization of Rice Production", p. 155. By this time non-staples were also increasingly relied on in an attempt to diversify commodity production (BCR 1934: 27 cited at ibid.). The need for diversification arose because the rice boom of the 1920s had drawn households increasingly into debt with Chinese traders and with the onset of the depression and lower rice prices in the 1930s, debt repayment became more difficult.
36. The Partial Commercialization of Rice Production Ibid., p. 153.
37. Vanpen, The Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, p. 202.
38. The Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, Ibid., pp. 210-11.
39. The Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, Ibid., p. 204
40. The cost and scale of the two northern projects was low relative to national expenditures on irrigation, particularly those in the Central Plain, Ingram, Economic Change in Thailand 1850-1970, p. 84.
41. Vanpen, The Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, p. 216.
42. The name of the country was officially changed from Siam to Thailand in 1939.
43. Somsak Tambunlertchai, "Economic Prospects and External Economic Relations in Thailand", Asian Development Review 1,2 (1989): 88-112.
44. The Economics of Watershed Management: A Case Study of Mae Taeng (Bangkok: Natural Resources and Environment Program, Thailand Development Research Institute & Harvard Institute for International Development, 1995), p.16.
45. Vanpen, Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, pp. 203-216;
46. Phrek et al., An Interdisciplinary Perspective of Cropping Systems, Table 2.4, p. 20.
47. Nevertheless, this represents a significant increase since the early 1980s when state projects irrigated about one third (34 per cent or 322,900 rai) compared to almost two-thirds (64 per cent or 600,000 rai) irrigated by the communal systems, Vanpen, Historical Development and Management of Irrigation Systems, p. 2.
48. Feeney, The Political Economy of Productivity, p. 113.
49. E.C. Chapman, "An Appraisal of Recent Agricultural Changes in the Northern Valleys of Thailand", paper prepared for a meeting of the Sixth Academic Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society of Thailand at Kasetsart University, Bangkok, 1967.
50. Phrek et al., An Interdisciplinary Perspective of Cropping Systems, Fig. 3, p. 66.
51. Benchavan Tongsiri, Pichit Lerttamrab and Alan R. Thodey, Agro-Economic Characteristics of the Chiang Mai Valley, 1972-1973 (Chiang Mai: Faculty of Agriculture, Chiang Mai University, 1975), p. 58.
52. Ecological conditions have also played a role in multi-cropping in these districts. San Pa Tong district is well-known for its good soils and reliable water from the Mae Wang watershed, while low-lying areas of the alluvial plain in Saraphi district are more advantaged than others in terms of water reliability.
53. Phrek et al., An Interdisciplinary Perspective of Cropping Systems, p. 21.
54. An Interdisciplinary Perspective of Cropping Systems, Ibid., p. 89.
55. Peerathep Theppachonchevin, "Irrigated Agriculture in the Third Development Plan and in the Northern Region", in Irrigated Agriculture in the Northern Region, Seminar Report No. 5 (Chiang Mai: Faculty of Agriculture, Chiang Mai University, 1974), p. 7.
56. Phrek et al., An Interdisciplinary Perspective of Cropping Systems, p. 89.
57. Cohen, "The Politics of Economic Development", pp. 219-46.
58. The Mae Ngat and Mae Kuang reservoirs also have the capacity to generate electricity.
59. Vanpen gives an example of flood damage in 1975 to traditional weirs in the lower plain of the Mae Chaem River which required the felling of 8,000 trees for repair, Historical Development of Irrigation Systems p. 126.
60. Also, Tanabe calculated that, in 1975 (a normal year), requisitions for a single small weir in Mae Rim district for two repairs were 780 large wooden stakes and 24,000 small stakes. He estimates that two to three times this amount would have been needed in years of heavy flooding, Ecology and Practical Technology, p. 146.
61. Traditionally, wood and bamboo for the weir repairs were obtained from nearby dry dipterocarp forests called paa phae, an elevated hilly zone between the alluvial plains and the mountains. This was also an area for the collection of free, subsistence resources such as fuel and edible plants. Since the 1920s, when population pressure began to limit the extension of wet-rice cultivation, this zone has been increasingly used for the cultivation of swidden crops such as sugar, soyabeans, chilli, tobacco and dry rice. After the student uprising of October 1973 and student and peasant agitation for land reform a number of land reform settlements were established in this zone by government agencies (e.g. Agricultural Land Reform Office) to allocate land to poor, landless villagers. Outside these settlements large areas of this zone have been used, since the 1970s, for orchards (longan, mandarins). Often they have been established by absentee, urban investors who have had the capital to build small dams and sink artesian bores.
62. Vanpen, Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, p. 284.
63. Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, Ibid., p.108.
64. Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, Ibid., pp. 231-78.
65. Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, Ibid., pp. 240, 241.
66. Clark Neher, "District-Level Politics in Northern Thailand" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1969), pp. 113-25;
67. Cohen, "The Politics of Economic Development", pp. 230-34;
68. Vanpen, Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, p. 192.
69. Vanpen, Historical Development of Irrigation Systems, p. 192.
70. Cohen, "The Politics of Economic Development", pp. 231, 232.
71. The Nation, 7 Sep. 1996.
72. This paper deals with developments/economic changes up until 1996 and does not attempt to examine the economic repercussions of the recent currency crisis in Thailand.
73. Sornsak Tambunlertchai, "Economic Prospects", p. 89.
74. Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 Oct. 1995, p. 19.
75. The Nation, 7 Sep. 1996.
76. Kosit (1981) cited in Manat Suwan, Udom Kerdpibule and Chukiat Leesuwan, Impacts of Industrialization Upon Villagers' Life in Northern Thailand (Chiang Mai: Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University, 1992), p. 5.
77. Thai Development Newsletter (1991/92): 19.
78. Asia 1996 Yearbook, p. 218.
79. Thai Development Newsletter (1991/92): 19.
80. Francois Vellas and Lionel Becherel, International Tourism (London: Macmillan, 1995), p. 59.
81. Cited in Philip Hirsch "Thai Agriculture: Restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s", RIAP Occasional Paper No.12 (Sydney: Research Institute of Asia and the Pacific, 1990), p. 6.
82. Hirsch, "Thai Agriculture", p. 7.
83. Philip McMichael, "Introduction: Agro-Food System Restructuring - Unity in Diversity", p. 7,
84. William H. Friedland, "The Global Fresh Fruit and Vegetable System: An Industrial Organization Analysis", p. 176,
85. in The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems, ed. Philip McMichael.
86. Friedland, "The Global Fresh Fruit and Vegetable System", p. 178.
87. Longan, 1996 (Bangkok: Department of Inland Trade, 1996), p. 21.
88. Longan, 1996 ( Ibid., pp. 23-25. Export figures for 1996 were not available. However, the 1996 harvest was expected to show an increase of over 65 per cent in excess of that for 1995 which produced a low yield throughout the North due to untimely rains during flowering (p. 1).
89. Longan, 1996 ( Ibid., pp. 1-2. These 1996 projections reflect a marked increase in longan in dried form which has been prompted by a very large harvest and facilitated by the granting of subsidized loans for the purchase of longan drying ovens. Low-interest loans of 50,000 baht repayable of five years have been financed by the Department of Trade and Commerce and administered through agricultural cooperatives and local farmers associations.
90. Confirmed through personal communication with the technical officer for the Agricultural Extension Office within the Lamphun Provincial Office.
91. Jennifer Gray, "The Road to the City: Young Women and Transition in Northern Thailand" (Ph.D. diss., Macquarie University, Sydney, 1990), p. 57.
92. Sophon Thangpet, "The Impact of Urbanization on Local Resource Management: A Case Study of An Indigenous Irrigation Community in Northern Thailand" (M.A. thesis, Sydney University, 1993), p. 49.
93. Statistics for Wet Rice Cultivation, Chiang Mai Province, 1988/89 to 1992/93 (Chiang Mai: Office of Agricultural Economics, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, 1994), pp. 1-2.
94. Sophon Thangpet, "The Impact of Urbanization", Table 11, p. 54.
95. Mark Ritchie, "From Farmers to Construction Workers: Class Transformation in a Northern Thai Village", paper presented at The Northwest Regional Consortium for Southeast Asian Studies - Fifth Annual Conference, University of British Columbia, 16-18 Oct. 1992, p. 11.
96. Mark Ritchie, "Transitional Villages: The Breakdown of Rural/Urban Dichotomies in Northern Thailand", paper presented at the Anthropological Association of America 91st Annual Meeting, 2-6 Dec. 1992, p. 2.
97. Ritchie, "From Farmers to Construction Workers", p. 19.
98. Tanet Charoenmuang, "Resource Conflict and Conflict Resolution: The Governance of Water Allocation in Thailand. Four Case Studies from the Upper Northern Region", Research report prepared for the Thailand Development Research Institute (Chiang Mai: Faculty of Social Science, 1994), pp. 45-46.
99. Tanet, "Resource Conflict and Conflict Resolution", p. 47.
100. Sophon, "The Impact of Urbanization", p. 96.
101. The RID only Finances the construction of weirs classified as "medium" or "large" scale; almost all communal weirs are classified as "small" scale.
102. This solution to the labour shortage is tenuous. The constituency development budgets were expected to be halved by the government newly constituted in 1995.
103. This term is used by Tanabe in his study of early northern Thai peasant resistance to the Siamese state and influenced theoretically by writers such as Antonio Gramsci and James Scott. See Shigeharu Tanabe, "Ideological Practice in Peasant Rebellions: Siam at the Turn of the Century", in History and Pesant Consciousness in Southeast Asia, ed. Andrew Turton and Shigeharu Tanabe, Senri Ethnological Studies No. 13 (Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 1984), p. 79.
104. Tanet, "Resource Conflict and Conflict Resolution", pp. 9-11, 45-46.
105. Chatchawan Tongdelert and Lary Lohmann, "The Muang Faai Irrigation System of Northern Thailand", The Ecologist 21,2 (1991): 106.