Uneven Development in the Mekong Region, Infrastructure and Gender Relations

Our panel proposal for the 3rd International Conference for International Relations and Development to be held at Chulalongkorn University in November has been accepted. These are the details that I submitted (and may vary slightly for the final version):

Rationale:

Uneven development in the Mekong Region is linked to the distribution of natural resources and the geographic conditions of specific areas. The unevenness of development may be mitigated or exacerbated by the creation of physical infrastructure, including road and rail links, power and telephone lines, dams and river basin management systems. While the impacts of infrastructure development may be evident at a large geographical scale, there may be a significant level of churn at a much lower level – the level of the household. Within households, gender relations may be affected by the unanticipated and sometimes unintended consequences of charges at a higher level. Previous research has shown how the opening of a bridge over the Mekong has transformed cross-border arbitrage opportunities previously available to small-scale female entrepreneurs, intensified problems and opportunities for returning female migrants and created the opportunity for the creation of para-statal areas which are beyond the effective reach of accountable governmental organizations. These changes have been accompanied by a version of the Great Transformation passing across the Mekong Region that has occurred, in part at least, through a process of accumulation by dispossession. Numerous other changes have been brought about at the household and community levels as a result of changes such as these and many are susceptible to observation from qualitative research approaches and measurement from quantitative research approaches. This panel aims to explore the nature of these changes in the Mekong Region and their impacts on gender relations within households using a mixture of methodologies and with a view to helping to understand the interrelationships between changes at the macro scale and impacts at the micro scale.

Panellists will include:

Teresita Del Rosario will present an overview of development and its impact on gender relations with specific reference to the Mekong Region.

Alin Chintraruck, whose paper will explore the processes and purposes of privatization in the water industry in the southern part of Thailand in the context of increasing demand and diverse sources of water and its impact on households.

Petcharat Lovichakorntikul and Sirirat Ngamsang will present the results of a comparative quantitative study on changes in agricultural production in Thailand and Cambodia associated with variations in choice of rice seeds, pesticides and fertilizers and the impact this has on gendered decision-making in the household.

John Walsh will describe the spread and intensification of industrial estates and Special Economic Zones across the Mekong Region, their interaction with the increasing physical infrastructure of, in particular, the Asian Highway Network and the changes this has led to in household and community relations.

Affiliations of Panellists:

Professor Dr. Teresita Del Rosario is Institutional Capacity Needs Assessment Specialistat Asian Development Bank, Thailand, Visiting Senior Fellow at the Center for Asian Law Studies and Visiting Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

Ms. Alin Chintraruck is a doctoral candidate at the School of Management, Shinawatra University.

Ms. Petcharat Lovichakorntikul is a doctoral candidate at the School of Management, Shinawatra University.

Ms. Sirirat Ngamsang is a doctoral candidate at the School of Maangement, Shinawatra University.

Dr. John Walsh is Director of the Research Centre, Shinawatra University, Editor of the SIU Journal of Management and Assistant Professor at the School of Management, Shinawatra University.

Review of Harvey’s Spaces of Global Capitalism

David Harvey has become increasingly well-known in recent years as a public intellectual articulating the connections between geographical space and capitalism, in addition to providing the excellent series of podcasts exploring the first and, now, second volumes of Capital. In this book, which was first published in 2006, a short introduction precedes the three main sections which are joined together to create both a commentary on the contemporary world and, particularly with respect to the second section, an exploration of the state of his thinking with respect to the theory of uneven development and the nature of its relationship with late capitalism.

Read the full review here.

Fighing Climate Change: Uneven Development

The conundrum of uneven development has occupied some of the world’s finest minds for many years without ever being  fully resolved. The basic issue is that some parts of the world are more  developed than others – but not just at the national scale.

Read the full article here.

Why Do People Migrate?

Migration means the movement of people from one place to another: sometimes the  migration involves crossing an international border and sometimes it takes place  within a single country. Sometimes the migration is voluntary and sometimes it  is involuntary. Involuntary migration is usually an example of human  trafficking, which is related to slavery, although it can also happen when the  borders themselves change.

Read the full article here.

Entrepreneurship in the Mekong Region: Uneven Development

One of the most obvious characteristics of the Mekong Region is the diversity. Diversity is evident in the range of different ethnic groups within and across borders and also in the range of incomes and opportunities available to people all across the region. Two principal forces have acted to produce this level and complexity of diversity. These are the unequal distribution of resources and the ability and willingness of people to migrate to take advantage of different opportunities and conditions.

Read the full article here.

The Historical Roots of Uneven Development in Thailand

It is the unequal distribution of geographical and climatic features and resources that are at the heart of uneven development in the past and, consequently, that helps to structure markets and processes that have led to some regions becoming wealthier and some poorer than others. These differential distributions are not fixed in time or in place: new resources can be found and old ones depleted, climatic changes make some places more attractive and others less and so forth. Effects are reinforced or undermined in the course of time, which is one reason why we can find now deserted settlements across the Mekong region and others which are growing rapidly.

In James McCarthy’s description of his time surveying and exploring in Siam, from 1881-93, he provides plenty of evidence for how these processes took place in the country. For example, his description of Nan shows how and why it is growing:

“The rice-fields are cultivated to their full extent, there being an excellent system of irrigation, which is not allowed to fall into decay. Advantage was taken of a large swamp, and by piling earth in a circle a reservoir was formed, which supplies hundreds of acres of rice-fields, the soil being particularly productive. According to a simple calculation, the number of men and women who annually contribute rice to the common store in the city is 60,000 (p.80).”

Meanwhile, other sites were decaying or at least failing to grow owing to the nature of the local conditions (of the route from Luang Prabang to Uttaradit):

“There was no drainage whatever, and after a shower the effluvia were so heavy that one fancied them settling like a log. The fevers contracted are not of the ordinary type; violent retching comes on, and the patients sink and die. In some cases in less than twelve hours the disease has done its work. It was not uncommon for a man to be perfectly healthy in the evening, seized by a fever during the night, and a corpse the next morning. Some go perfectly mad. The Chinese seemed to have a great dread of the place during the rainy season; not a single Chinaman would remain. The traders came from Nawng Khai and Pichai during the dry season, but were off before the rainy season (p.73).”

The presence of foreigners is crucial because of their role in promoting foreign trade in local markets. McCarthy provides this vignette of the market at Luang Prabang:

“The market place of Luang Prabang was rather crowded in the mornings, and it was interesting to stroll through the strange medley of men and women bartering and chaffering in their different jargons.

Rupees were not exclusively used as money, but were melted down, and entered largely into the manufacture of the numerous articles executed in handsome designs by the Lao. These comprised cylindrical boxes, basins, mak sets (for the usual betel and areca nut), and handles for daggers and knives.

There were more than twenty Burmans resident in Luang Prabang, and their headman had been over twenty years settled in the town. They carried on a trade with Maulmein in gum-benjamin, raw silk, indigo, wax, and cardamoms.

Raw silk, of excellent quality, was once plentiful all over the province. Improvement was required chiefly in the winding of the silk from the cocoons as the method adopted produced coarse and knotted threads (pp.60-2).”

Then as now, therefore, the presence of thriving markets provided positive externalities to local people and organizations. At its most basic, this represents revenue raising possibilities for local authorities in taxation and for local service providers in offering food and accommodation for travelling merchants. Perhaps more important, though, was the interaction between traders and local artisans (often as part of the untraded sector) which led to the spread of technology, skills and knowledge, all of which contribute to increased productivity (both in terms of the range and number of goods produced) and this in turn leads to an aggregate increase in income and standards of living. A settlement with decent living conditions and a settled agricultural base and in a location that draws merchants is well on the way to becoming a town or a city.

Uneven Development in Thailand in Historical Context

The Uneven Development of Thailand in Historical Context

At the recent International Thai Studies Conference, I spoke about the industrial estates of Thailand (I posted the abstract previously). One of the research questions concerned the extent to which the presence of industrial estates could positively affect the uneven development of the country. Uneven development is a longstanding phenomenon is Thailand. The origin is in the unequal distribution of resources and in the combination of location with particular types of work. The Chiang Mai Chronicle, for example, contains various examples of kings and princes starting wars with a view to obtaining access to skilled artisans within a specific community. Those people who could be captured en masse and relocated to an area close to the throne so as to bolster the economic base. The link, in other words, between place and specific occupation has existed for centuries.

When the occupations concern access to a specific resource, then different villages can still specialize in a particular type of activity. Gijsbert Heeck, in the seventeenth century, described his journeys in the south of Thailand and included (in translation) these passages:

 

“On the way we passed many large and small villages, hamlets, and other settlements, all the names of which were impossible for us to know. We saw that in some of them there lived none but various types of potters, and in others only cutters of firewood, but most were occupied by farmers who made their living with horses, cows, buffaloes, and pigs, both raising them [for food and the fields] and also to produce and sell milk, butter, and cheese. They also keep many chickens and ducks, though many others have these as well (p.44).”

Some activities are common to all villagers, then, such as basic agricultural practice, while in others ‘various types of potters’ show the degree of specialization in local production. This is emphasized in the following section:

“In some villages there lived only boat-builders, and in some only carpenters or those who had tree nurseries. Since the coconut-palm occurs here abundantly, there were many who made a living from the oil that they derive from it, and large quantities of the oil are traded each year. We also passed a village where only coffins were made; at several of the houses five or six of these stood for sale as finished products (p.45).”

In this case, access to wood has provided a range of different economic possibilities, from trading oil to boat-building to coffin-making. Again, this reinforces the specialization at village level. The advantage of specialization will reside in economies of scope, scale and learning.

However, while specialization occurs at a low level and is prevalent across historical Siam (and probably the whole of the Mekong Region), there were nevertheless distinct differences in regional incomes and development based on geographical and climatic factors, since agriculture was so dominant prior to the second half of the twentieth century. Evidence of this is found in Carle Von Zimmerman’s rural survey of the early 1930s:

 

—  Average income per family in the areas studied:

—  Central      279 baht*

—  North:        176 baht

—  South :        125 baht

—  Northeast:   83 baht

—  (* estimated at 330 baht before the depression year)

There are definitional issues involved in the areas studied which mean that direct comparison between regions cannot be made with modern counterparts but it is clear that the basic pattern of income inequality remains, as shown by these Gross Provincial Product (amalgamated) per capita figures indicate:

	1997	2000	2005
Bangkok	1,835,518	1,787,456	2,045,505
Vicinity of Bangkok	110,571	115,945	218,716
Central	41,481	69,334	86,460
Eastern	62,686	138,492	137,532
Western	30,382	57,748	49,473
Northeastern	29,324	24,783	39,081
Northern	25,492	38,342	36,241
Southern	30,478	64,954	49,334

It is well established that internal income inequalities have resulted in labour migration, both internally and internationally, as well as contributing to some of the political protests that have coloured modern Thailand.

Hence, the research questions, which include the relevance of industrial estates in affecting regional disparities and the application of specialized knowledge in the modern economy.

Review of Althusser’s For Marx

Louis Althusser’s contribution to the development of Marxist thought is considerable and rests, primarily, in the construction of theoretical concepts, ways of thinking and the approach that was subsequently labeled “structural Marxism.”

Read the full review here.