This research aims to examine how people in rural northeast Thailand, particularly landless
farmers, have coped with and survived the market-economy penetration. I call attention
specifically to the formations of community-groups.
Landless farmers have greatly increased since 1970s, as a result of the population increase,
disappearance of frontiers and the continued practice of equal division of land among the
inheritors. Additionally, the highly labour-saving urban formal sector has failed to absorb these
“surplus” labours, leaving most of them surviving in rural areas. In the mean time, the economic
boom of the early 90s accelerated the penetration of market economy into the rural area where
these landless farmers decisively lack the means – cash income – of procuring goods and
services. Thus, how to secure access to goods and services has become a critical issue.
My observations in one village in Khon-Kaen province reveal that the villagers, since the 1990s,
have organized over 15 community-groups such as “community-bank” or “community-market”
as an important means to supplement the lack of cash income. These groups often help the
villagers reduce the transaction costs when they access the market.
By focusing on the workings of social relationship called “Yart-Sanit” or “close relatives”, this
presentation evaluates: 1) how they turn conventional social relations into community-groups;
2)the degree to which the community-groups help reduce the cost of procuring goods and
services for the villagers; and 3)who can and who cannot benefit from this extra market factor.