Neoliberalism and the Integration of Labor and Natural Resources: Contract Farming and Biodiversity Conservation in Northern Thailand

ABSTRACTED FROM CHAPTER INTRODUCTION: This chapter discusses the impact and likely consequences of the contract farming regime and natural resource conservation policies on the rural landscape of northern Thailand. It points out the extent to which farmers’ choices are bound to historical dynamics that have determined the integration of Thailand into the global markets. As argued by Peluso (2008, 11), the impact of the post–cold war neoliberal order on Southeast Asian nations was not only determined by the complex entanglement established by corporations and state agents or agencies but also by the work of long- established authoritarian powers and national and international NGOs. Late capitalism implied the commodification of labor and nature. We argue that, in Thailand, the state and corporate powers as well as the elite conservatives were the main drivers of farmers’ choices in this post–cold war neoliberal regime. The elite conservatives were represented both by urban-based lay and religious socio-environmental NGOs and by managers and brokers of green developmentalist projects sponsored by think tanks and foundations patronized by the Thai monarchy.

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