The Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD), Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University, in collaboration with Tembusu College, National University of Singapore (NUS), jointly organized the program “Southeast Asia Friendship Initiative: Picturing and Seeing Development — Agrarian Transitions at the Border.” Now in its second year, from 12 to 23 May 2026 the program brought together 27 students from NUS and 7 students from CMU for an intensive field course exploring agrarian transition and the experiences of local communities, designed to help students understand development as a dynamic, lived process. Before entering the field, students attended a series of special preparatory lectures and took part in exchange activities with Myanmar students of Chiang Mai University, gaining insight into the lives of migrant students in Chiang Mai.
This year, participants travelled to two contrasting field sites. At Ban Nor Lae, a Dara-ang ethnic community in Fang District, Chiang Mai, students explored the precarious livelihoods of farmers living and working along the Thai–Myanmar border. At Doi Chang in Mae Suai District, Chiang Rai, students traced a different trajectory of agrarian transition — one shaped by the rise of commercial coffee production, organic farming, and the intertwined livelihoods and migration histories of the Akha, Lisu, and Yunnanese Chinese communities.
Across both sites, students documented their observations and reflections using visual video formats as the program’s main output.
