ゴムを植えることにした人たち --タイ東北部農村から見るグローバル化--

Abstract

The rapid expansion of rubber cultivation in a village in northeast Thailand since the early 2000s, spurred by the economic growth of emerging countries, is dramatically transforming the livelihoods of farmers and their link to the surrounding natural ecosystem. This article analyzes how the changes are integrating the ecological network of the villagers’ living world into the network of the global rubber industry, applying the framework of actor-network theory while considering power relationships among the actors. It then discusses how the farmers can overcome their subordinate status in the global network. The knowledge of rubber cultivation provided by outside agencies works as an interface to absorb the farmers and various elements of their living world into the global rubber industry. The doctrine of effective rubber production is also reconstructing the farmers’ living world as a whole. The ecological link between the villagers and the natural world is broken, and the environment is reconstructed as part of the global network of the rubber industry. This changing process makes villagers anxious. At the same time, the villagers find it difficult to resist the allure of rubber because of the powerful prospect of a rich life. Thus, they do not welcome all aspects of the transformation in their environment. In order to overcome their subordination to the global network and subjectively design their own living world, the villagers have to relativize the powerful doctrine of effective rubber production. In terms of balancing rubber cultivation for cash income and other livelihoods based on the local ecosystem, such as paddy cultivation and the use of natural resources for daily life, the villagers’ own notion of how to adapt rubber into the ecosystem of their living world and practical ways to do this should be developed so that their lives as a whole can be secured and stabilized.