The Hmong and Shan: Ethnic politics, labour restructuring and agrarian transformation in a Royal Upland Project in Northern Thailand

This thesis investigates how the creation of people as 'governable subjects' through identity construction shapes labor relations and agrarian transformation. The experiences of Hmong and Shan minority/migrant groups in a Royal Project in Northern Thailand are considered. Interviews and surveys with 40 Hmong employers and 25 Shan workers were conducted in summer 2007. The study reveals that the racialization of Hmong as 'hill tribe' and 'environmental destroyers' enables the Project to continuously introduce new kinds of agriculture such as commercial cash crops and organic farming. Likewise, the construction of Shan identity as 'economic immigrants' allows Hmong farmers and the Project to exploit Shan labor, which eventually facilitates agricultural changes in the area. This thesis also destabilizes the Project's discursive 'success', and illustrates that it has been constructed by veiling Hmong farmers' financial distress and Shan workers' poverty. In addition, it argues that agrarian transformation is not necessarily about whether agriculture and agricultural labor force have declined. Instead, it could be the transformations of agricultural practices and labor relations.