SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis is an attempt to present a detailed exposition of certain changes occurring in a social system during its transformation from subsistence to commercialized agriculture. This transformation has been accelerated by the introduction of an irrigation system. The analysis is constructed from general theoretical literature and data collected from an irrigated lowland Northeast Thai village. In Chapter One I discuss the distribution of certain factors of production, and the means by which they are acquired. I attempt to show how these factors previously organized through social channels are slowly becoming commercialized. 1 also show how the imposition of an irrigation system conflicts in certain areas with the traditional system of land tenure. In Chapter Two I discuss the Domestic Mode of Production and identify certain factors influencing the economic intensity of households. I argue that due to the availability of irrigation water to certain farmers, production levels previously related to household composition are now more a function of resource endowment. Chapter Three discusses opportunity response and choice. I begin by considering the different types of response to opportunity both agricultural and non-agricultural, and I show how different response patterns are related to such factors as household composition, kinship ties and resource endowment. I then continue with an analysis of the way in which certain features of the social system are conducive to or inimical to economic change. Village expenditure patterns are then examined, and the choice - whether to re-invest in production, or to purchase consumer goods, are discussed. Chapter Four examines the relationship between economic and social power and prestige. Notions of status, socio-economic differentiation, village leadership and the ideology of wealth are discussed in order to comment on the possibilities of an emerging class structure.