Last Friday, in return for a very tasty Vietnamese lunch, I made a presentation to one of Canberra’s international consulting firms. This is one of the firms that is contracted by AusAID (and others) to implement international development projects. My presentation was about local perspectives on “projects” based on work I have been doing in northern Thailand. I am interested in understanding the local Thai preoccupation with projects (krongkaan) in their diverse forms. I have a lot to say about this, and will provide further details in future posts, but here is a brief extract as a start. Comments and suggestions from others caught up in the world of krongkaan are very welcome!
The local Thai sense of “the collective” (suan huam) can be largely understood in terms of the numerous projects (krongkaan) that appear to be the key preoccupation of village politics. These krongkaan are usually local initiatives aimed at mobilising funds for local development activities and are typically justified in terms of their collective character. During the period I have been working the village I have become aware of a large number of these projects. Here is a sample: the community shop, the wood carving project, the music group, a community rice mill, support for children with disabilities, lighting for public events, construction of visitor facilities in the nearby national park, a new concrete pavilion for the village territorial spirit, the handicraft centre, uniforms for the women’s group to wear on public occasions, new stoves for the temple kitchen, a village history project, dolomite for the paddy fields, funds for the leaders of one of the irrigation groups to travel to the irrigation office to request further funds for renovation of the irrigation system, a toilet for the community shop, the banana group, the proposed village cultural centre and the community rice mill. These are communal projects; they are regularly referred to as suan huam activities that provide for generalised benefit (prayort). The word “community” (chumchon) is sometimes deployed to make them attractive to potential donors in the government and non-government sectors. But it is crucially important to note that these suan huam projects bring together quite specific coalitions of interests and are the focus of ongoing conflict within the village about the allocation of resources and the distribution of benefits. Most projects are subjected to withering criticism and gossip—including regular allegations of financial mismanagement and misappropriation—by those who support other elements of collective activity.
Here is a good example of one of these projects – the “community rice mill.” The subtle nature of this “community” became evident to me as it became clear that the rice mill was set up to undercut the prices set by the three existing rice mills already established in the village. The symbolism of community is a potent weapon in localised economic and political struggles.
6 responses so far ↓
1 chris white // Oct 22, 2006 at 11:53 pm
Hi Andrew. I have thought long and hard about your post and felt that I had to say some thing. I hope that you don’t take it as criticism of what you are doing but as the response of someone who has experienced something different.
While the world of krohng gaan is not really my thing (cultural production/reproduction is more like it) though, I have been caught up in some projects that I could comment about. I’d love to read more of what you have got to say as you have obviously done a lot of work in this area. Further more, in this brave new post coup world, that we are now entering, the sort of ‘communities’ that you are working in are going to feel the brunt of any proposed changes.
However just a couple of comments:
1. While I understand that the notion of ‘community’ that you are referring too is not this ‘bounded thing’ where power relationships are equal but rather, perhaps, a more malleable construct of shifting allegiances that pragmatically band together out of reasons of self-interest (and I would essentially agree with you here – but would probably add, without any real evidence at all, that gossip is probably the only ‘true’ ‘universal’ trait of village life.) However, when you say that community projects “are the focus of ongoing conflict within the village about the allocation of resources and the distribution of benefits. Most projects are subjected to withering criticism and gossip—including regular allegations of financial mismanagement and misappropriation—by those who support other elements of collective activity” my first response is to wonder which village and what projects that you are referring to (its not Port Keats in the Northern Territory is it?). My experience of community projects (except in Port Keats) is not as bleak as yours and I can point to and describe some projects where, generally, the residents of a village would consider that the project was of positive value to the ‘community’. Perhaps in other parts of Thailand things are done differently by different people – and that is the joy of working in such a diverse multi-ethnic country.
2. In your post you refer to many of projects but I guess I’m interested in the village rice mill in the photo and the comments made about its purpose to undercut 3 other rice mills operating in the village. I guess the mills your referring to are similar in scale to the type of mill in the photo – a small type of mill essentially designed to produce polished rice for domestic consumption. Have you been able to look at the economics of production of these types of mills? In villages I’m familiar with the ‘price’ to mill a fertilizer bag of rice is a small quantity of polished rice (measured out in tin that originally held 400 grams of infant formula) and the byproduct of the milling process (about 50 grams of cracked rice, about 250 grams of rice bran and perhaps about 500 grams of rice hull.) If you totaled it all up and converted it to cash the ‘price’ wouldn’t reach 10 baht per sack of rice – 8 baht would be closes to the price. On the opposite side the ‘cost’ to mill the rice not includes the power but the cost of replacing all the moving parts and the ‘consumables’ (which include the cast resin and stone disks used for cracking off the hull, the cast resin and emery drums that polish the bran off the grain, the vulcanized rubber blocks that hold the grain against the polishing drums as well as the V belts that make everything shake and rattle along. I just recently saw a small mill in pieces that was being refurbished after 2 or 3 years of not particularly heavy work. The cost of brining the mill back to ‘new’ condition was estimated by the ‘tradesman’ to be some where between 16000 and 20000 baht. Now to make your money back, just for the refurbishment, (without even thinking about paying the power bill or of making a wage) I estimate that you would need to mill 2000 to 2500 bags of rice. It doesn’t seem like good business sense to me.
I’d really like to know if the mill in the photo is still operating after 12 months or so and if it ever succeeded in its aim in undercutting the price of the local millers.
2 Andrew Walker // Oct 23, 2006 at 6:04 am
Thanks Chris for your thoughtful and detailed comment. When I am a bit more organised after my overseas travels I will try to respond in more detail. You clearly have some very detailed information on rice milling. I will look through my notes and try to find some of the data on milling prices etc. The rice mill in the photo is still operating and is charging a lower price than the “private” mills in the village. In the short to medium term at least it doesn’t really have to make good economic sense as the community mill was 100% funded with an “SML” grant.
3 chris white // Oct 23, 2006 at 6:20 pm
No problems – thanks for the Holly High’s article. It is a very good description and discussion of some of the dynamics of social life and village organization. It really does resonate with experiences I have had amongst in a small group of ethnic Lao villages in northeast of Thailand.
I’m not that familiar with a lot of the acronyms used in development circles. Can you pleas explain what a “SML” grant is?
4 James Haughton // Oct 23, 2006 at 9:19 pm
I think all that quarreling, accusation, founding opposing groups, etc IS community.
5 Andrew Walker // Oct 24, 2006 at 6:20 am
Chris, SML is one of the Thaksin government’s “populist” policies whereby grants were made to villages for local development projects. The size of the grant depended on whether the village was small, medium or large (thus the English abbreviation SML which is regularly used in Thailand).
6 Kithsiri Senevi // Jun 12, 2008 at 5:38 am
It is a strange coincidence that I came across the article
by Mr.Andrew Walker re the community rice mill, on the eve of my
efforts to set up such a mill in a very poor area in Sri Lanka
The aims & goals are the same as you had mentioned
I would be grateful if you could please advise me as to how I could
get in touch with Mr,Walker as I have many questions re the set up , running of the mill etc etc
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