In the 1970s, Thailand was developing but poor and largely
agrarian. By the 1980s it had become the fastest growing large
economy in the world and, in the process, made the transformation
from a low-income to a middle-income economy. Fast forward to 2010
and Thailand had climbed yet another rung in the development ladder
to become, according to World Bank criteria, an upper middle-income
economy. Throughout this period of economic and social
transformation, contrary to historical experience and theoretical
models, one thing has remained constant: the central role of Thai
smallholder farming. This conundrum-the persistence of the
smallholder in a time of extraordinary change-lies at the heart of
this book. In More than Rural author Jonathan Rigg explores how
people in the countryside have adapted to their changing world, the
new opportunities available, and the consequences for rural life
and living. The Thai government has successfully ""developed"" the
countryside, but with unexpected results. New household forms have
emerged, women have become mobile in a manner few expected, and
relations between rural and urban have changed. Yet the smallholder
has persisted, and Rigg's attempts to understand why offer a fresh
perspective on Thailand's development. Setting aside the urban,
industrial point of view that we so often privilege, Rigg asks
different questions about Thailand's development. What if, he
wonders, the present changes are not simply way stations,
transitions to the main act of urbanization? What if they represent
a new form of rural livelihood? Rigg's thoughtful, nuanced approach
to agrarian change-viewing the countryside as more than
agriculture, the rural as more than the countryside, and rural
people as more than farmers-offers insights into Thailand's wider
transformations (class identities, intergenerational relations),
its political impasse, and more. Based on over three-and-a-half
decades of fieldwork in seventeen villages, across three regions,
and encompassing more than one thousand households, and a deep
knowledge of primary and published sources, More than Rural is a
significant work with implications for contemporary development
across Asia and the global South.
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