This new edited volume is the result of the Sino-Thai Summer School that has been taking place between Yunnan University’s School of Ethnology together with RCSD and the Center for Ethnic Studies and Development (CESD) of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University since 2019. The summer school has offered Yunnan University students and Chiang Mai University students the opportunity to collaborate for an intensive summer school focused on the situation and transformations happening in the ethnic communities of Northern Thailand, focused on their livelihoods and related issues of land, capital, markets, and changing socio-economic relations.
For this volume, students were able to join field work in four different communities of Northern Thailand: the coffee-growing community of Doi Chang in Chiang Rai; Mae Tha in Chiang Mai, a community focused on organic agriculture and agri-tourism; the mixed Hmong-Karen highland community of Pang Hin Fon and their livelihoods also closely focused on organic cultivation; and the Karen community of Mae Ngud in Hod, Chiang Mai, dealing with multidimensional challenges wrought by megaprojects like dams and a proposed water diversion scheme that have changed the landscape, to which local farmers have adapted by cultivating longan and reaching out to markets.
Download the full edited volume here, or contact RCSD by email to obtain hard copies.