New Mandala

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Visiting Baan Tiam in Chiang Mai province last week I noticed that many of the garlic storage sheds were full of dried garlic. I was a little surprised. Since I first visited Baan Tiam in 2002 garlic had declined in popularity. There were three main reasons: a decline in yield thought to be a result [...]

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Ever wondered what it is like to give birth in Isan? Well, here is your chance to find out.
This beautifully illustrated volume offers a rare study of Isan-Thai customs and belief associated with pregnancy and birth and how they have changed over almost half a century. It discusses the function of various birth rites while [...]

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From 2004 to 2006, Thailand’s poverty headcount fell by almost 2 percentage points (over 1 million people) with most of the reduction occurring in rural areas. This trend is expected to have continued in 2007 and early 2008. But there is evidence that the urban poor, as well as the rural poor engaged in fishing [...]

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The latest edition of Forced Migration Review (published by the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford) is now available online.  Anybody with concern for the human tragedies resulting from Burma’s civil conflicts will find this volume rewards a download.  All 80 pages are available here.  Readers hoping to get a taste of what is [...]

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One of the aims of this volume is to suggest that sufficiency economy does not just apply to the “remote agricultural sector” but also to contemporary business management. So why did they put such an agrarian photo on the cover? Probably because a photo of the king striding through a cement factory, shopping mall or luxury [...]

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Last year I reported that a new dry season crop had been taken up in Baan Tiam (the village in Chiang Mai province where I have been working for several years). The new dry season crop was the old wet season favourite – rice.  At the time (February 2007) I wrote:
Visiting a couple of weeks [...]

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I was sitting in the house of Jairan, a struggling farmer in Chiang Mai province, when the news came through that the Election Commission had recommended the dissolution of two parties in the governing coalition – Chart Thai and Matchima Thippatai. “It’s just like killing a tree,” Jairan commented. “You don’t just do it all [...]

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One of the pleasures of songkran in northern Thailand is the rowdy processions that present decorated maay kam to temples, where they are used to support the sacred bodhi trees. A close look at this particular maay kam will show that amongst the many sponsors there was one particularly auspicious one!

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I am new to work on Burma, but in my eight weeks of involvement to date I am finding the world of Burma advocacy rigid and doctrinal. There is just one overarching narrative: the struggle of the Burmese democracy movement, led by Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, against the repressive Burmese generals. [...]

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I’m sure it’s just an editorial mis-step but I have, I must confess, been wondering for the past few days – why has The Nation put this article in its sports section?�
On the front page it is filed under “Sports” (above articles like FA extends Mascherano ban and Croatian football player dies following injury sustained in match) and [...]

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