Mr Haughton: The “preferred method” of anthropology (and other social sciences for that matter) may be the “in-depth case study”, however this is exactly why there is so much bad anthropology (and other bad social science for that matter).
Indeed this is a major reason why social sciences are taken so much less “seriously” than “hard” sciences like biology, chemistry and physics. It is not a distinction between methodology, statistics vs. case studies, it is because for the science to be meaningful – that is, predictive – one requires both. Numerous biological, chemical and physical discoveries are made through case studies – mold growing on bread, background radiation noise, commonly used water pumps to name a few classic observations. However, these are then subject to rigorous testing to see whether it is an isolated phenomenon or more widely applicable; and this is where statistical methods are critical to make sure that what you’re seeing in one instance is common and not an aberration. Sadly, many social “scientists” such as DR Walker skip this step and go straight from what they’ve gleaned from their “in-depth case studies” to wider applicability with no applicability testing. This is wrong, it may be dangerous, and it certainly is not “science”, preferred or not. Are there any “classics” explaining how collections of competing anecdotes help in creating useful public policy available from the Chiang Mai University library?
As for “a lot of research” about development, could you point to any that specifically compare communications & increased mobility with “development projects”? It wouldn’t surprise me if it were true, and the hypothesis behind it fits my anectodal experience, but that’s not “research”. But then again, a finding of increased mobility and communications related to improved development would also raise the question of cause and effect – for indeed development does also lead to increased mobility and communications. “Development projects” are vast and varied – are you saying they are ALL “sponsored by the development industry which suffer from all the usual problems of communist-style central planning” and therefore doomed? How would you design a research methodology to compare the two? Selecting a pair of in-depth case studies perhaps?
It’s easy to make offhand comments with a vague air of credence behind them – it’s quite a different thing to call that “science”
I actually have had some direct, albeit brief, experience with the opium question since I actually worked in an interim position on crop substitution project in the Northern Shan State for 2 ┬╜ months.
I think your first question has the formulation wrong; opium isn’t the disease, it is the symptom. The problem is the military regime that has, in my opinion, driven the ethnic minorities into rebellion and effectively destroyed the economy. Years ago, a Kachin friend explained it to me like this: a bag of rice to feed your family for a month weighs something like thirty pounds. You could sell a viss of opium, roughly 3 ┬╜ pounds if I remember correctly, and buy enough rice to feed your family for a month. The Burmese Army attacks your village. Would you rather be running through the mountains carrying thirty pounds or 3 pounds?
Even if the actually fighting has died down, I still suspect people feel far from secure. When I was in the Northern Shan State, a Kachin worker took me to a hill outside the town I was working in, and pointed out all the places where fighting had taken place. As he said as he pointed to just about every side of the town, “There, fighting, fighting, fighting… now, no fighting. No peace, but no fighting.” Now that was ten years ago, but I doubt the situation has changed materially.
This is not to say that if Aung San Suu Kyi were to come to power tomorrow, all opium cultivation would immediately cease and the Shan State would become an economic powerhouse. However, any long term eradication will only work when there is political stability and at least the chance of economic improvement. I think crop substitution projects can be valid, but by and large they are simply laying a foundation for the future. Also, what do you propose to take the place of opium production? It appears the answer is methamphetamine production, so I don’t think it can be characterized as a step forward.
If there is anything to be learned from the Northern Thailand experience, it is drug production is a “dirty” industry, and as economic prosperity increases, it is tolerated much less and eventually has to move. Just like the US where as economic living standards improved, local smoke stack industries or junk car lots were forced to move, in some cases overseas. The Thais will use the drugs, and certainly take the money (just like my fellow Americans do) they just don’t want have the production, and the related problems, in their back yards.
I doubt if Thaksin would have agreed to an interview if it was going to be too hard hitting.
Hopefully, the interview is distributed widely in Thailand so he can be held to his word:
“You will not see me in politics, not just the next generation, but for life. I want to devote myself to charitable activities and some kind of research.”
Charitable activities???
Maybe thats why he went to so much trouble setting up tax haven companies etc to avoid tax – so he has more money available for his charity work.
My brother-in law spent nearly two years down in Bangkok hanging out with Achaans from the Bangkok universities during one of the extended rural poor movement protests, maybe about 10 years ago. He remains an activist up in Mae Rim and was also working for one of the government rural development agencies, O.P.T. or O.P.Ch. or some acronym close. There is a political component to this agency as the local populace votes upon the lead and although my brother-in law lost his bid for village headman under questionable circumstances, his friend became head of the tambon development office and hired him as his assistant.
Feel free to e-mail me if you wish to get in contact with him.
Further up the road from our home in Amphoe Mae Rim is a Mong village that 20 years ago survived primarily upon opium cultivation. I was at one time pretty close to many in the village as I had one sister-in law married to a Mong man from that village. Over the years the opium has been completely replaced by numerous cash crops including cabbage, carrots, and some fruit trees.
I can give no statistics or numbers, but my observations would be that the people are far better off now engaging in a much more open market economy then when they depended upon opium and the rather closed nature of that business. I don’t think the farmer ever received much profit from the opium. The clear improvement in living standards may very well have occurred due to infrastructure improvements and not due to crop replacement. But I don’t think anyone is looking back at the old days. The only major downside has been significantly increased pressure upon the local environment due to deforestation and the increased usage of biocides.
A very negative dimension of the opium/heroin trade often overlooked is that little money transfers hands at the border, but is transferred from one bank account to another. The people who are employed in the menial tasks of productions and distribution are often paid in small amounts of end product, which they can then sell for cash. This leads to increased local usage of drugs, especially heroin, which is often injected with a shared needle by poor villagers. This of course then intersects with other vectors for HIV, and in my opinion was one of the factors for the horrific epidemic of HIV up north in the early 1990s.
So my opinion, and just an opinion, (and look, I like to bite the clouds once a year or so too) is that Burma would be far better off without the opium as long as there are viable open markets for alternative crops.
I’ve lived in the Golden Triangle-Chiang Rai for a substantial fraction of my adult life, it is my permanent home, and my Thai family hails from Maesai. I work for an English language newspaper in Bangkok now, but I used to work in education in Chiang Rai, Maesai, and Tachileik. I also lived in Yangon for two years.
* Without the opium crop in the Shan State would Burma have a better chance of being a peaceful, prosperous country?
* Are efforts to eradicate opium from Burma a first step towards a better future or, simply, a waste of precious time and resources?
It’s a step they have to take sooner or later, so they might as well take it now.
Burma’s biggest bank, the only bank with ATM machines even in Yangon the capital, is/was Mayflower Bank headquartered in the little town of Tachileik across from Maesai.
You can obviously infer that this bank made money from laundering drug money, although my Burmese ex-father-in-law, a long-term Tachileik resident and friends with the owners vehemently denied it and I didn’t want to be “culturally insensitive” and argue with him.
For a region to live off of drug money is not long-term sustainable. One day it had to change and it did change. The Maesai-Tachileik economy deflated with the drug crackdown.
There’s now a fairly quick highway to Kengtung, whereas it used to take three days. An itiphon meud economy of drugs, prostitution, and gambling that led to early deaths from AIDs and drug abuse has been replaced by duty free shopping and Thai tourism. They have a university nearby so more kids can get an education. I knew one family in Yangon that sent their son back to Tachileik to take care of their little apartment building. Living alone, he quickly became a heroin addict.
Bangkok Thai tourists indundate the place on holidays. They can travel to another country there for cheap with the whole family. Remember most of them can’t afford foreign travel like westerners. Bangkok Thais are almost as foreign as Farang are in a place like Maesai.
* What can be learned from the northern Thai experience of opium cultivation and its criminalisation?
My answer only addresses the town.For the Akha hinterland ask Matthew MdDaniel. He knows this area like the back of his hand.
An English-language book on the coup–whether academic, as Giles claims, or political-propagandistic, as is his usual approach–is also being “banned”.
Chula bans second coup book
Chulalongkorn University Book Centre (CU Book Centre) has banned “A Coup for the Rich”, written by a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University.
Assoc Professor Giles Ungpakorn yesterday accused CU Books of going back on its promise to sell his book titled “A Coup for the Rich: Thailand’s Political Crisis”, an academic work.
Giles said the bookshop’s purchasing department had agreed to sell his book and already had 500 copies in stock. “When asked [yesterday] why there were no copies for sale, I was told the management are reconsidering the sale of this book,” he said.
CU Book Centre manager Uraiwan Kornwitthayasin denied they had promised to sell the book. She said it was a sensitive issue as Giles had quoted from Paul Handley’s book “The King Never Smiles”. “We needed other academics and experts to read the book and we are waiting for their opinions,” she said.
Giles defended his book saying it was a collection of his academic work that had been presented at international academic forums on Thai Studies in Northern Illinois and Singapore.
The book contains four chapters: The Thaksin Crisis and the Coup for the Rich; Inventing Ancient Thai Traditions: an analysis of the Monarchy; The politics of the Peoples Movement and the “October People”, and Southern Woes: Why the Thai state is responsible for the violence in the South and problems of the tsunami.
Meanwhile, the CU Book Centre has decided to overturn its ban on, “The September 19th coup: a coup for a democratic regime under the constitutional monarchy”, an anthology critical of the coup, written by leading academics and intellectuals.
The bookstore manager admitted her staff wouldn’t dare to sell the book published by the Fah Diew Kan Publishing earlier, because the publishing house had one of its publications confiscated by the special branch due to charges of lese majeste.
“Now customers can order the book from our bookshops,” Uraiwan confirmed.
However, the publisher, Thanaphol Eawsakul, yesterday told The Nation he had received complaints from many customers that the book was nowhere to be found at Chulalongkorn Book Centre.
A group of academics at Chulalongkorn, and the 19th September Network – an anti-coup group – is organising a seminar on “Academic freedom and freedom of expression” next week at Chulalongkorn University.
Jiles’s book, “A coup for the Rich”, will be launched at the Bangkok Foreign Correspondents Club on March 13.
Nobody who knows the truth about the ANC (‘saint’ mandela included for that matter) should be surprised at this. They only used ‘demockery’ as a Trojan Horse to take power – they are a corrupt criminal terrorist-loving organisation so naturally they would support all other governments of that ilk.
I have only travelled through northern Thailand briefly on a bus, however comparitive experience in southern Pakistan and western Nepal has led me to some conclusions.
Firstly I think that the questions raised are legitimate only in the regards to what is acceptable for a western ethos. Not only would ‘we’ peoples be the ones unofficially encouraging poppy growth, but also it is our official Durkheimian imperitive to eradicate drug related disorders from our society.
So to your first question…
West of Badin (a town east of Karachi and south of Hydrabad) there are farmers growing papaver somniferum in vast quantaties. Before there was Poppy plantations, there was mostly dairy based farming. My friend said that before Poppy plantations being introduced, there were less people travelling through Badin, such is the extent of opium generated interest now. Furthermore from observing Badin and the surrounding villages it seemed to me to be quite a cohesive society. Not at all like Matli (closer to Hydrabad) whose economy is setup around textilee production. I have no factual evidence to back up my claims, however I remember quite clearly the difference between chaotic town and an orderly town.
Therefore the focus and attention on the opium crops in the Shan province is more what could be the driving force behind Burma being regressive and volatile as the negative attention is making innocent farmers into our criminals. I make the analogy with a youth involved in crime. You don’t abuse the youth for his crimes for that would drive him to commit more, no? What do you do instead? Try and be a good example to show them another way… subsequently a solution to our problem is of course to offer better money to the Junta for farmers to grow something else… but we Australians don’t talk to tyrants *cough*
Eradicating our ‘collective’ hypocrisy might be the driving force behind Burma being a prosperous and peaceful country. Or will Burmese selt determine their soveriegnty and join us in hypocrisy? That way precious resources and time are either saved or pooled together! ….
More seriously, I would be very interested in knowing the circumstances under which Shan papaver is grown.
In his review, McCargo speaks of the “ever more vocal cult of Bhumipol.” In her article on the Sonthi/PAD protests, Suphalack wrote, “The royalists have subjected Thailand to the power of a personality cult no less, and perhaps even more, than North Korea has done with its citizens” (Fa Diewgun, April-June 2006, p. 175; my translation).
JH: Yes, it is a Thai-language book. р╕гр╕▒р╕Рр╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╕лр╕▓р╕г 19 р╕Бр╕▒р╕Щр╕вр╕▓: р╕гр╕▒р╕Рр╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╕лр╕▓р╕гр╣Ар╕Юр╕╖р╣Ир╕нр╕гр╕░р╕Ър╕нр╕Ър╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╕Кр╕▓р╕Шр╕┤р╕Ыр╣Др╕Хр╕вр╕нр╕▒р╕Щр╕бр╕╡р╕Юр╕гр╕░р╕бр╕лр╕▓р╕Бр╕йр╕▒р╕Хр╕гр╕┤р╕вр╣Мр╕Чр╕гр╕Зр╣Ар╕Ыр╣Зр╕Щр╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╕бр╕╕р╕В. Bangkok: р╕Яр╣Йр╕▓р╣Ар╕Фр╕╡р╕вр╕зр╕Бр╕▒р╕Щ, 2550. 464 pp.
Curiously, there is a lot of research showing that increased communications (mobile phones) and increased mobility (motorcycles) do a lot more for rural development than many “development projects”, since they greatly extend the capacities and capabilities (to use Sen’s terms) of individuals, as opposed to the project sponsored by the development industry which suffer from all the usual problems of communist-style central planning.
Mr Boothe. The preferred research method of anthropology is the in-depth case study. This means taking the time, over many years, to study one or two particular sites in order to arrive at a thorough understanding of the locale, including the ways in which larger economic issues are manifested “on the ground”. It is not easy to for one researcher, like DR Walker, to combine this with large scale statistical analysis of an entire population. Most researchers are inclined to think of the two methods as complementary – for example, anthropology can aid greatly in the interpretation of statistical results – rather than hurling insults.
For a detailed defence of the case-study method, you may wish to consult Making Social Science Matter by Bent Flyvbjerg. For a case study based examination of the dismal failures of development policy that result from assuming that economic statistics are the be-all and end all, see James Ferguson’s The Anti-Politics Machine, and for a cross-case study analysis of the trend, James Scott’s Seeing Like A State. For an examination of the relationship between anthropological study and economics, try Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood’s The World of Goods. These are all well-known classics and should be available from the Chiang Mai University library.
I forgot to add a third reason: Shumacher came up with the concepts after he was an economic advisor to the newly independent Burma, and we’ve all seen how their economy turned out (I doubt the junta’s buddhist socialism bore much relationship to shumacher’s principles – but then, many people say the same thing about communism and marx).
I find it surprising how INfrequently Buddhism is invoked in discussions of the concept of a sufficiency economy (though perhaps someone here can tell me if Buddhism is explicitly referenced more often in the Thai language media). There has been no effort that I am aware of to link the “sufficiency economy” to the various movements of Buddhist economics (Shumacher’s ‘Small is Beautiful’ is still the best known exposition – people here may also find it interesting that Shumacher, as well as a convert to Buddhism, was a passionate anti-Keynesian conservative economist, who would have hated Thaksin’s economic interventions) which would at least give it a better analytical foundation.
Instead the concept is presented as springing solely from HM King Bhumibol’s brow, like Athena, without pre-existing sources or roots – a case of the dhammaraja eclipsing the Buddha?
Offhand, two reasons for this suggest themselves:
1) emphasising the concept’s buddhist roots would play into the hands of Santi Asoke and the followers of Phra Buddhadasa, who are too radical and anti-elite for the network monarchy and its Sangha.
2) emphasising the concept’s buddhist roots would render it untenable as a pan-national strategy as it would alienate the Muslim south further.
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From the archives: funding funerals
Mr Haughton: The “preferred method” of anthropology (and other social sciences for that matter) may be the “in-depth case study”, however this is exactly why there is so much bad anthropology (and other bad social science for that matter).
Indeed this is a major reason why social sciences are taken so much less “seriously” than “hard” sciences like biology, chemistry and physics. It is not a distinction between methodology, statistics vs. case studies, it is because for the science to be meaningful – that is, predictive – one requires both. Numerous biological, chemical and physical discoveries are made through case studies – mold growing on bread, background radiation noise, commonly used water pumps to name a few classic observations. However, these are then subject to rigorous testing to see whether it is an isolated phenomenon or more widely applicable; and this is where statistical methods are critical to make sure that what you’re seeing in one instance is common and not an aberration. Sadly, many social “scientists” such as DR Walker skip this step and go straight from what they’ve gleaned from their “in-depth case studies” to wider applicability with no applicability testing. This is wrong, it may be dangerous, and it certainly is not “science”, preferred or not. Are there any “classics” explaining how collections of competing anecdotes help in creating useful public policy available from the Chiang Mai University library?
As for “a lot of research” about development, could you point to any that specifically compare communications & increased mobility with “development projects”? It wouldn’t surprise me if it were true, and the hypothesis behind it fits my anectodal experience, but that’s not “research”. But then again, a finding of increased mobility and communications related to improved development would also raise the question of cause and effect – for indeed development does also lead to increased mobility and communications. “Development projects” are vast and varied – are you saying they are ALL “sponsored by the development industry which suffer from all the usual problems of communist-style central planning” and therefore doomed? How would you design a research methodology to compare the two? Selecting a pair of in-depth case studies perhaps?
It’s easy to make offhand comments with a vague air of credence behind them – it’s quite a different thing to call that “science”
HP Boothe
Opium takes to Thai soil?
I actually have had some direct, albeit brief, experience with the opium question since I actually worked in an interim position on crop substitution project in the Northern Shan State for 2 ┬╜ months.
I think your first question has the formulation wrong; opium isn’t the disease, it is the symptom. The problem is the military regime that has, in my opinion, driven the ethnic minorities into rebellion and effectively destroyed the economy. Years ago, a Kachin friend explained it to me like this: a bag of rice to feed your family for a month weighs something like thirty pounds. You could sell a viss of opium, roughly 3 ┬╜ pounds if I remember correctly, and buy enough rice to feed your family for a month. The Burmese Army attacks your village. Would you rather be running through the mountains carrying thirty pounds or 3 pounds?
Even if the actually fighting has died down, I still suspect people feel far from secure. When I was in the Northern Shan State, a Kachin worker took me to a hill outside the town I was working in, and pointed out all the places where fighting had taken place. As he said as he pointed to just about every side of the town, “There, fighting, fighting, fighting… now, no fighting. No peace, but no fighting.” Now that was ten years ago, but I doubt the situation has changed materially.
This is not to say that if Aung San Suu Kyi were to come to power tomorrow, all opium cultivation would immediately cease and the Shan State would become an economic powerhouse. However, any long term eradication will only work when there is political stability and at least the chance of economic improvement. I think crop substitution projects can be valid, but by and large they are simply laying a foundation for the future. Also, what do you propose to take the place of opium production? It appears the answer is methamphetamine production, so I don’t think it can be characterized as a step forward.
If there is anything to be learned from the Northern Thailand experience, it is drug production is a “dirty” industry, and as economic prosperity increases, it is tolerated much less and eventually has to move. Just like the US where as economic living standards improved, local smoke stack industries or junk car lots were forced to move, in some cases overseas. The Thais will use the drugs, and certainly take the money (just like my fellow Americans do) they just don’t want have the production, and the related problems, in their back yards.
Thaksin’s Aussie interview a dud!
I doubt if Thaksin would have agreed to an interview if it was going to be too hard hitting.
Hopefully, the interview is distributed widely in Thailand so he can be held to his word:
“You will not see me in politics, not just the next generation, but for life. I want to devote myself to charitable activities and some kind of research.”
Charitable activities???
Maybe thats why he went to so much trouble setting up tax haven companies etc to avoid tax – so he has more money available for his charity work.
The demographic reach of rural civil society
My brother-in law spent nearly two years down in Bangkok hanging out with Achaans from the Bangkok universities during one of the extended rural poor movement protests, maybe about 10 years ago. He remains an activist up in Mae Rim and was also working for one of the government rural development agencies, O.P.T. or O.P.Ch. or some acronym close. There is a political component to this agency as the local populace votes upon the lead and although my brother-in law lost his bid for village headman under questionable circumstances, his friend became head of the tambon development office and hired him as his assistant.
Feel free to e-mail me if you wish to get in contact with him.
Opium takes to Thai soil?
Further up the road from our home in Amphoe Mae Rim is a Mong village that 20 years ago survived primarily upon opium cultivation. I was at one time pretty close to many in the village as I had one sister-in law married to a Mong man from that village. Over the years the opium has been completely replaced by numerous cash crops including cabbage, carrots, and some fruit trees.
I can give no statistics or numbers, but my observations would be that the people are far better off now engaging in a much more open market economy then when they depended upon opium and the rather closed nature of that business. I don’t think the farmer ever received much profit from the opium. The clear improvement in living standards may very well have occurred due to infrastructure improvements and not due to crop replacement. But I don’t think anyone is looking back at the old days. The only major downside has been significantly increased pressure upon the local environment due to deforestation and the increased usage of biocides.
A very negative dimension of the opium/heroin trade often overlooked is that little money transfers hands at the border, but is transferred from one bank account to another. The people who are employed in the menial tasks of productions and distribution are often paid in small amounts of end product, which they can then sell for cash. This leads to increased local usage of drugs, especially heroin, which is often injected with a shared needle by poor villagers. This of course then intersects with other vectors for HIV, and in my opinion was one of the factors for the horrific epidemic of HIV up north in the early 1990s.
So my opinion, and just an opinion, (and look, I like to bite the clouds once a year or so too) is that Burma would be far better off without the opium as long as there are viable open markets for alternative crops.
Opium takes to Thai soil?
Check this depiction of Laos in a Thai opera controversy:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/02/13/headlines/headlines_30026752.php
This sort of thing already happened to the Akha, but of course the Akha have no public voice to object to it with.
Opium takes to Thai soil?
I’ve lived in the Golden Triangle-Chiang Rai for a substantial fraction of my adult life, it is my permanent home, and my Thai family hails from Maesai. I work for an English language newspaper in Bangkok now, but I used to work in education in Chiang Rai, Maesai, and Tachileik. I also lived in Yangon for two years.
* Without the opium crop in the Shan State would Burma have a better chance of being a peaceful, prosperous country?
* Are efforts to eradicate opium from Burma a first step towards a better future or, simply, a waste of precious time and resources?
It’s a step they have to take sooner or later, so they might as well take it now.
Burma’s biggest bank, the only bank with ATM machines even in Yangon the capital, is/was Mayflower Bank headquartered in the little town of Tachileik across from Maesai.
You can obviously infer that this bank made money from laundering drug money, although my Burmese ex-father-in-law, a long-term Tachileik resident and friends with the owners vehemently denied it and I didn’t want to be “culturally insensitive” and argue with him.
For a region to live off of drug money is not long-term sustainable. One day it had to change and it did change. The Maesai-Tachileik economy deflated with the drug crackdown.
There’s now a fairly quick highway to Kengtung, whereas it used to take three days. An itiphon meud economy of drugs, prostitution, and gambling that led to early deaths from AIDs and drug abuse has been replaced by duty free shopping and Thai tourism. They have a university nearby so more kids can get an education. I knew one family in Yangon that sent their son back to Tachileik to take care of their little apartment building. Living alone, he quickly became a heroin addict.
Bangkok Thai tourists indundate the place on holidays. They can travel to another country there for cheap with the whole family. Remember most of them can’t afford foreign travel like westerners. Bangkok Thais are almost as foreign as Farang are in a place like Maesai.
* What can be learned from the northern Thai experience of opium cultivation and its criminalisation?
My answer only addresses the town.For the Akha hinterland ask Matthew MdDaniel. He knows this area like the back of his hand.
Saprang on the three pillars
An English-language book on the coup–whether academic, as Giles claims, or political-propagandistic, as is his usual approach–is also being “banned”.
Chula bans second coup book
Chulalongkorn University Book Centre (CU Book Centre) has banned “A Coup for the Rich”, written by a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University.
Assoc Professor Giles Ungpakorn yesterday accused CU Books of going back on its promise to sell his book titled “A Coup for the Rich: Thailand’s Political Crisis”, an academic work.
Giles said the bookshop’s purchasing department had agreed to sell his book and already had 500 copies in stock. “When asked [yesterday] why there were no copies for sale, I was told the management are reconsidering the sale of this book,” he said.
CU Book Centre manager Uraiwan Kornwitthayasin denied they had promised to sell the book. She said it was a sensitive issue as Giles had quoted from Paul Handley’s book “The King Never Smiles”. “We needed other academics and experts to read the book and we are waiting for their opinions,” she said.
Giles defended his book saying it was a collection of his academic work that had been presented at international academic forums on Thai Studies in Northern Illinois and Singapore.
The book contains four chapters: The Thaksin Crisis and the Coup for the Rich; Inventing Ancient Thai Traditions: an analysis of the Monarchy; The politics of the Peoples Movement and the “October People”, and Southern Woes: Why the Thai state is responsible for the violence in the South and problems of the tsunami.
Meanwhile, the CU Book Centre has decided to overturn its ban on, “The September 19th coup: a coup for a democratic regime under the constitutional monarchy”, an anthology critical of the coup, written by leading academics and intellectuals.
The bookstore manager admitted her staff wouldn’t dare to sell the book published by the Fah Diew Kan Publishing earlier, because the publishing house had one of its publications confiscated by the special branch due to charges of lese majeste.
“Now customers can order the book from our bookshops,” Uraiwan confirmed.
However, the publisher, Thanaphol Eawsakul, yesterday told The Nation he had received complaints from many customers that the book was nowhere to be found at Chulalongkorn Book Centre.
A group of academics at Chulalongkorn, and the 19th September Network – an anti-coup group – is organising a seminar on “Academic freedom and freedom of expression” next week at Chulalongkorn University.
Jiles’s book, “A coup for the Rich”, will be launched at the Bangkok Foreign Correspondents Club on March 13.
Subhatra Bhumiprabhas
The Nation 13 February 2007
Shrimp versus milk
Thaksin gave a good interview on Foreign Correspondent tonight… did anyone tape it?? I have no such device 🙁
Hopefully it will be on youtube.
Tutu on South Africa’s Burma vote
Nobody who knows the truth about the ANC (‘saint’ mandela included for that matter) should be surprised at this. They only used ‘demockery’ as a Trojan Horse to take power – they are a corrupt criminal terrorist-loving organisation so naturally they would support all other governments of that ilk.
Opium takes to Thai soil?
I have only travelled through northern Thailand briefly on a bus, however comparitive experience in southern Pakistan and western Nepal has led me to some conclusions.
Firstly I think that the questions raised are legitimate only in the regards to what is acceptable for a western ethos. Not only would ‘we’ peoples be the ones unofficially encouraging poppy growth, but also it is our official Durkheimian imperitive to eradicate drug related disorders from our society.
So to your first question…
West of Badin (a town east of Karachi and south of Hydrabad) there are farmers growing papaver somniferum in vast quantaties. Before there was Poppy plantations, there was mostly dairy based farming. My friend said that before Poppy plantations being introduced, there were less people travelling through Badin, such is the extent of opium generated interest now. Furthermore from observing Badin and the surrounding villages it seemed to me to be quite a cohesive society. Not at all like Matli (closer to Hydrabad) whose economy is setup around textilee production. I have no factual evidence to back up my claims, however I remember quite clearly the difference between chaotic town and an orderly town.
Therefore the focus and attention on the opium crops in the Shan province is more what could be the driving force behind Burma being regressive and volatile as the negative attention is making innocent farmers into our criminals. I make the analogy with a youth involved in crime. You don’t abuse the youth for his crimes for that would drive him to commit more, no? What do you do instead? Try and be a good example to show them another way… subsequently a solution to our problem is of course to offer better money to the Junta for farmers to grow something else… but we Australians don’t talk to tyrants *cough*
Eradicating our ‘collective’ hypocrisy might be the driving force behind Burma being a prosperous and peaceful country. Or will Burmese selt determine their soveriegnty and join us in hypocrisy? That way precious resources and time are either saved or pooled together! ….
More seriously, I would be very interested in knowing the circumstances under which Shan papaver is grown.
Thankyou
Shrimp versus milk
Imported Australian Joghurt at Central Chitlom is way to expensive anyway compared to locally-made products.
Shrimp versus milk
I suspect this has something to do with Thaksin’s visit to Australia….
“A hollow crown”
In his review, McCargo speaks of the “ever more vocal cult of Bhumipol.” In her article on the Sonthi/PAD protests, Suphalack wrote, “The royalists have subjected Thailand to the power of a personality cult no less, and perhaps even more, than North Korea has done with its citizens” (Fa Diewgun, April-June 2006, p. 175; my translation).
Saprang on the three pillars
JH: Yes, it is a Thai-language book. р╕гр╕▒р╕Рр╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╕лр╕▓р╕г 19 р╕Бр╕▒р╕Щр╕вр╕▓: р╕гр╕▒р╕Рр╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╕лр╕▓р╕гр╣Ар╕Юр╕╖р╣Ир╕нр╕гр╕░р╕Ър╕нр╕Ър╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╕Кр╕▓р╕Шр╕┤р╕Ыр╣Др╕Хр╕вр╕нр╕▒р╕Щр╕бр╕╡р╕Юр╕гр╕░р╕бр╕лр╕▓р╕Бр╕йр╕▒р╕Хр╕гр╕┤р╕вр╣Мр╕Чр╕гр╕Зр╣Ар╕Ыр╣Зр╕Щр╕Ыр╕гр╕░р╕бр╕╕р╕В. Bangkok: р╕Яр╣Йр╕▓р╣Ар╕Фр╕╡р╕вр╕зр╕Бр╕▒р╕Щ, 2550. 464 pp.
From the archives: funding funerals
Curiously, there is a lot of research showing that increased communications (mobile phones) and increased mobility (motorcycles) do a lot more for rural development than many “development projects”, since they greatly extend the capacities and capabilities (to use Sen’s terms) of individuals, as opposed to the project sponsored by the development industry which suffer from all the usual problems of communist-style central planning.
Mr Boothe. The preferred research method of anthropology is the in-depth case study. This means taking the time, over many years, to study one or two particular sites in order to arrive at a thorough understanding of the locale, including the ways in which larger economic issues are manifested “on the ground”. It is not easy to for one researcher, like DR Walker, to combine this with large scale statistical analysis of an entire population. Most researchers are inclined to think of the two methods as complementary – for example, anthropology can aid greatly in the interpretation of statistical results – rather than hurling insults.
For a detailed defence of the case-study method, you may wish to consult Making Social Science Matter by Bent Flyvbjerg. For a case study based examination of the dismal failures of development policy that result from assuming that economic statistics are the be-all and end all, see James Ferguson’s The Anti-Politics Machine, and for a cross-case study analysis of the trend, James Scott’s Seeing Like A State. For an examination of the relationship between anthropological study and economics, try Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood’s The World of Goods. These are all well-known classics and should be available from the Chiang Mai University library.
Sufficiency Supreme Command Headquarters
I forgot to add a third reason: Shumacher came up with the concepts after he was an economic advisor to the newly independent Burma, and we’ve all seen how their economy turned out (I doubt the junta’s buddhist socialism bore much relationship to shumacher’s principles – but then, many people say the same thing about communism and marx).
Sufficiency Supreme Command Headquarters
I find it surprising how INfrequently Buddhism is invoked in discussions of the concept of a sufficiency economy (though perhaps someone here can tell me if Buddhism is explicitly referenced more often in the Thai language media). There has been no effort that I am aware of to link the “sufficiency economy” to the various movements of Buddhist economics (Shumacher’s ‘Small is Beautiful’ is still the best known exposition – people here may also find it interesting that Shumacher, as well as a convert to Buddhism, was a passionate anti-Keynesian conservative economist, who would have hated Thaksin’s economic interventions) which would at least give it a better analytical foundation.
Instead the concept is presented as springing solely from HM King Bhumibol’s brow, like Athena, without pre-existing sources or roots – a case of the dhammaraja eclipsing the Buddha?
Offhand, two reasons for this suggest themselves:
1) emphasising the concept’s buddhist roots would play into the hands of Santi Asoke and the followers of Phra Buddhadasa, who are too radical and anti-elite for the network monarchy and its Sangha.
2) emphasising the concept’s buddhist roots would render it untenable as a pan-national strategy as it would alienate the Muslim south further.
Saprang on the three pillars
Is this a thai-language book?
The King Never Smiles?
nganadeeleg: keep waiting 🙂