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This paper examines whether children and main caregivers of overseas migrant fathers have fewer or more mental health symptoms compared to those of non-migrant fathers. The sample includes 997 households from the 2008 Child Health and Migrant Parents in South-East Asia project. The mental health measurements are the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Self-Reporting Questionnaire. Compared to children of non-migrant fathers, those of migrant fathers are more likely to demonstrate conduct problems and hyperactivity/inattention. Factors which appear to impact a caregiver's mental health include the physical health status of children, caregiver's education level and household economic status. To reduce the risk of mental health problems on left-behind children, our findings imply the importance of encouraging and educating left-behind families to monitor the children's psychological well-being, especially those in father-migrant families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work foregrounds changing state development policies in Thailand as a way to consider the complex drivers and motivations within internal migration. Using uncertain outcomes of state development and broader socio-cultural divisions as structure, ethnographic data detail the ways personal agency marks one's aspirational character and possible futures in the pursuit of well-being and economic security. Ultimately, I argue that ongoing state development efforts to reduce poverty, increase socio-economic equity, and facilitate people's capacity to cope with daily life confront enduring challenges. Reframing development must address people's existential needs and consider how structural precarity interrelates with persistent socio-cultural inequities and prejudices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examines linkages between childhood exposure to family violence (FV) and adulthood depressive symptoms, directly and indirectly, through adulthood experience of FV among ever‐married Thai women. Background: A growing body of research has shown that childhood experience of FV is not only intergenerationally transmitted but also significantly associated with negative mental health outcomes in adulthood. However, prior research is limited to Western contexts, with little known about how intergenerational pathways of FV operate outside of the West. Method: Data come from a probability sample of ever‐married women living in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2000 (N = 811). The dependent variable is self‐reported depressive symptoms measured by the 20‐item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale and the key independent variables are direct and indirect exposures to FV in childhood. The path models are estimated to incorporate the mediating variables of adulthood experience of FV via the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales. Results: Our path analyses reveal that the intergenerational transfer of FV occurs, regardless of the form of violence experienced by ever‐married Thai women during childhood or adulthood. Moreover, although experiencing FV during childhood tends to exert direct effects on depressive symptoms in adulthood, witnessing FV during childhood affects depressive symptoms in adulthood only indirectly. Conclusion: Taken together, our findings demonstrate that childhood exposure to FV elicits long‐term detrimental effects on women's adulthood experience of FV and mental health in urban Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Thai bureaucracy, viewed as a subsystem of Thailand's self-contained political system, variously manifests cultural uniqueness. Insulated from external pressures as a result of the absorption of major societal interests within the government, the bureaucracy's orientation and preoccupations are conspicuously introverted. Political influence, personalities, and prerogative provide the immediate frames of reference of administrative officialdom. Career strategies, working doctrines, and standards of conduct in the civil service are flexibly calibrated to the particularistic norms of ranking superiors. Authority relationships, structured mainly by impermanent personal clique groupings, are tenuous and unstable. But efforts to institutionalize formal sanctions and channels of accountability founder on a cultural predilection for informal and covert control devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationships among social capital, citizen participation, and public sector performance in Thailand. The findings indicate that social networks, a core component of social capital, tend to increase the motivation and ability of Thai citizens to participate in public affairs and thereby tend to increase the effectiveness of public goods provision. Provincial and local authorities do not tend to improve public goods and services a great deal as government resources increase. In Thailand, where the accountability of the public sector is often weak, social capital and citizen participation therefore can improve public sector accountability and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration by nature can lead to1 integration. This is possible when a nation-state takes a clear stand on the practices of multiculturalism. Most Asian countries have failed to adopt multiculturalism and rather practice the policy of assimilation. Yet multiculturalism has become popular as this concept incorporates recognition of ethnic and national minorities and supports their cultural identity. Due to longstanding conflict in the southernmost provinces of Thailand, various data suggests that many Malay-Muslims migrated to the upper southern provinces of Thailand in recent years. In this context, internal migration occurred mainly for economic as well as security reasons. Consequently, in some provinces demographic numbers have changed. In the near future, there may be changes in Thai society, especially in the upper southern provinces. The main purpose of this study is to ascertain how the government accommodates internal migration especially in upper southern provinces. In order to develop a multicultural society, the Thai government should nurture minority issues in various ways. Apart from the government, Thai civil society—comprising academics and NGOS—has addressed it from their own perspectives. Still, there is no comprehensive approach to deal with this issue. Aside from the lack of cultural and political integration, Thai society may face severe related challenges to migration in the next decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Auntie Duan's life story, a story that mirrors remarkable female Yunnanese Chinese migrants' economic agency in the face of numerous vicissitudes caused by contextual and personal tragedies. Auntie Duan (born in 1938) and her family fled from Yunnan to Burma in 1950 after the Chinese Communists took over China. Being a woman, a refugee, and a widow moving repeatedly among borderlands, she led a life characterized by a multiplicity of peripheral positionings. In order to survive and raise her children, she participated in different economic activities, most saliently as a borderland trader. By focusing on her life story based on her oral narratives, I attempt to illustrate her steps of economic initiation in combating a range of adversities. Furthermore, with a comparison to Anna Tsing's Meratus gendered politics, I look into embedded meanings in gender asymmetry among migrant Yunnanese communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Numerous preceding research studies have analyzed the relationship between strategy and culture through questionnaires and case studies. However, very few regard the input results of a business game’s decision making variables as strategy. Moreover, few conduct an analysis using the same scenario, under a controlled environment from the perspective of experimental business management studies, while using adult subjects with similar characteristics.Aim. This study compared the group decision making of Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Russia, particularly analyzing each culture’s influence on strategy. We verified the relationship between the cultural dimensions used in the GLOBE project and strategies within the business game.Method. This was a mixed methods study on the relation between cultural dimensions and business game entry strategies, based upon data collected by observation using a quasi-experimental approach that includes questionnaires and business games, and utterance analysis by counting the frequency of words.Findings. Countries differ in their tendencies to engage in sharing, with an emphasis on strategies such as, product differentiation differentiation, being marketing emphasized, or cost saving. Further, we could confirm relationships between several cultural dimensions and strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who participates in political violence? In this study, we investigate the issue at the micro-level, comparing individuals who have used violence in political uprisings with those who have not. We develop our argument from the observation that men are strongly overrepresented in political violence, although most men do not participate. Literature on masculinities emphasizes the role of honor and its links to different forms of violence, such as domestic abuse, criminal violence, and violent attitudes. Building on this literature, we discern two separate but related aspects of honor: honor as male societal privilege and control over female sexuality, that is, patriarchal values, and honor as ideals of masculine toughness, that is, the perceived necessity for men to be fierce and respond to affronts with violence or threats of violence in order to preserve status. We argue that patriarchal values combined with ideals of masculine toughness together constitute honor ideology, which contributes in turn to the explanation of who participates in political violence. We present new and unique individual-level survey data on these issues, collected in Thailand. We find that honor ideology strongly and robustly predicts a higher likelihood of participating in political violence among male political activists. A number of previous studies found a macro-level relationship between gender equality and peacefulness in a society. This study provides evidence for one micro-level mechanism linking gender equality and political violence at the macro level. Based on these results, we conclude that honor ideology endorsement is a driver of violence in political conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores domestic volunteer tourism in Thailand and how it relates to moral politics and recent political struggles. Volunteer tourism typically entails middle class Thais, who reside in the country's capital or other urban cities, traveling to remote villages to perform volunteering activities. Through an ethnographic account, the article shows how these trips provide an opportunity for volunteers to experience and embody the ideals associated with the notion of the 'volunteer spirit' and how volunteer tourist trips tend to reproduce the kind of subjectivity and power relations that help to preserve, rather than challenge, the political status quo. In particular, the article highlights the ways in which popular volunteer discourse and practice correlate closely with the politics of 'good people' (khon di), which promotes 'moral rule' by 'good people' rather than a more democratic and inclusive kind of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee camps are frequently perceived as spaces of emergency and exception. However, they are also spaces where millions of people live their everyday lives, sometimes for extended periods of time. As such, refugee camps are political spaces where struggles over the right to influence life in the camps and shape how they are governed are continuously ongoing. In this context, what are the opportunities for political participation for refugees living in camps? How and to what extent are refugees able to carve out political space where they can engage with and affect their lives and their situations? This paper addresses these questions through an analysis of refugee camps in Thailand. Drawing on Foucauldian analytics, the analysis demonstrates how key strategies employed to govern refugees, namely spatial confinement and development interventions are also creatively subverted by refugees and appropriated as bases for resistance and political mobilization. The article provides new insights into the relationship between power and resistance, demonstrating how specific technologies of governance create opportunities for subversion, reinterpretation, and appropriation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conflicts in Thailand’s southern border provinces and Mindanao have not only posed a challenge to the Thai and Philippine governments, but have also affected the respective governments’ relations with Malaysia. From a comparative perspective, this article aims to illustrate how a complicated web of interactions between domestic and international factors has not only shaped domestic decision-making, but also influenced how states interact with one another in regard to the conflicts, which has resulted in a mix of cooperation and contention. It is argued that despite past downturns in bilateral relations, various developments have paved the way for Malaysia to play a role in the current peace processes in Thailand’s southern border provinces and Mindanao. However, Malaysia has been able to accomplish more in Mindanao’s peace process due to several favourable conditions, including the Philippine government’s openness towards third-party involvement, regional security concerns and politics that have been less polarised until 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The problem of drugs is considered to be crucial and it has become a significant issue in Thailand. This study aims to study drug use behavior and causal factors influencing drug use behaviors of children and juveniles in the Juvenile Observation and Protection Center and the Juvenile Training Schools. Quantitative research method was adopted for this study. The sample groups were children and juveniles in the Juvenile Observation and Protection Center and in the Juvenile Training Schools. The results of the study found that, all causal factors; attitude towards drugs use behavior, perceived behavioral control, intention to commit to drug use behavior and outweighing factor could explain the variability of intent at 51% and could also explain the variability of drug use behaviors of children and juvenile at 54%, whereas, independent variables in relation to perceived behavioral control do significantly influence intent towards drug use behaviors. This study recommends guidelines for executives in planning a policy for those involved in the implementation of prevention, providing a therapeutic and rehabilitative solution for children and youths involved with drugs. Eventually, this study will be useful and beneficial for taking care of children and youths in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Natural disasters constitute a persistent threat to economic welfare in many places, particularly in developing countries. Not only can disasters transform living circumstances, but we provide evidence here that they can lead to important changes in individual preferences. In a series of experiments that we conducted in rural Thailand, we find that the 2004 tsunami led to substantial long-lasting increases in risk aversion, prosocial behavior, and impatience. We use GIS data and survey responses to identify disaster impact, showing that both community-level and individual-level experiences appear to affect preferences in theoretically plausible ways. Our findings have important implications for public policy efforts to address natural disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer trust is a key prerequisite for establishing a market for credence goods, such as ‘‘green’’ products, especially when they are premium priced. This article reports research on exactly how, and how much, trust influences consumer decisions to buy new green products. It identifies consumer trust as a distinct volition factor influencing the likelihood that consumers will act on green intentions and strongly emphasizes the needs to manage consumer trust as a prerequisite for the development of a market for green products. Specifically, based on a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods, it is found that lack of consumer trust is a barrier for the development of a market for organic food in Thailand. Two focus groups and ten in-depth interviews revealed low knowledge about and low trust in organic food, certification, control, and labeling. Further, a mall-intercept survey (N=177) revealed that lack of (especially) system trust reduces consumer expectations about benefits of buying organic food, and it makes them less likely to buy organic food. Mistrust in the control system and in the authenticity of food sold as organic has a significant negative impact on self-reported buying behavior. Implications for policy and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to investigate prevalence and related factors of androgen receptor (AR) expression in Thai breast cancer patients. A descriptive study was done in 95 patients, who were admitted to Charoenkrung Pracharak Hospital, Bangkok (2011-2013). Statistical relationships were examined between AR protein expression, tumor status, and patient characteristics. Compared with those from Western countries, ethnic Thai patients were younger at age of diagnosis and had a higher proliferative index (high Ki-67 expression), which indicates unfavorable prognosis. In addition, 91% of the Thai breast tumors that were positive for any of the following receptors, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) also expressed the AR protein, while in triple negative breast tumors only 33% were AR positive. ER and PR expression was positively related with AR expression, while AR expression was inversely correlated to Ki-67 expression. AR status was strongly correlated with ER and PR status in Thai patients. There is an inverse relationship between Ki-67 and AR, which suggests that AR may be a prognostic factor for breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with former prime minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra is presented. When asked about the timing of his reemergence on the public stage he refers to the backward constitution that is being drafted in Thailand. Shinawatra believes that the existing constitution in Thailand does not guarantee human rights or democracy. He comments on the failure of the ruling military junta in Thailand to deliver on reconciliation.

Thailand has experienced dramatic growth of large national and international modern food retailers, such as supermarkets, hypermarkets and convenience stores in large cities and regional centres in the last two decades. Nevertheless, Thai consumers continue to purchase perishables (fruits, vegetables and animal products) from fresh markets (wet markets, talat sot) contradicting predictions from analysts that modern food retail chains will rapidly replace fresh markets as the preferred venue for purchasing all types of foods. This paper examines trust in food retail systems as an under-explored dimension lying behind the continued patronage by Thais of fresh markets to purchase perishable items. It derives from a research program commenced in 2005 that includes fieldwork visits, interviews and questionnaires. In the context of the Thai food retail transition, we propose that trust affects relationships between consumers and (1) individual fresh market-based vendors, (2) the food products sold at fresh markets and (3) the food retail system more broadly. If fresh markets can be maintained in the face of sustained pressure from modern national and international food retailers, Thais will continue to use them. Meanwhile, trust is a relatively unrecognised dimension that is supporting the continued existence of traditional food retail formats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the early 1960s Thai etiquette manual Kritsana son nong: Naenam marayat thi ngam haeng araya samai [Kritsana's instructions to Little Sister: An introduction to the fine manners of the civilised period]. A comparison between this book and its American source reveals literary mechanisms devised by the Thai author to negotiate conflicts arising from the domestication of Western-based manners in Thai society. Kritsana son nong's special emphasis on women reflects a perceived need to control and regulate female social interaction with and in comparison to their male counterparts during a period of rapid and profound socioeconomic change. This study of a Thai ettiquette manual and its historical context demonstrates that manners are a cultural artefact whose meanings are open to contest. This complex negotiation between local and foreign practices is often overlooked in the history of and the discussions about manners in modern Thai society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we explore and offer possible explanations for trends in the incarceration of women and men in Thailand from 2003 to 2013. Women in Thailand are far less likely than men to be in prison but fluctuations in incarceration saw gender gaps expand/contract over the decade. Exploration of variation in the composition of prison populations, arrest and sentencing suggest that regardless of gender, changing responses to less serious types of offending, especially drug crimes, are driving incarceration. More broadly, rather than any fundamental transformation in the offending of women or men per sea, imprisonment is being impacted by shifts in law, policy and criminal justice practice. War on drugs' policies, changes to parole and use of the Royal Pardon provide plausible explanations for the trends we report. The question of whether or not women have been disproportionately impacted by Thailand's punitive approach to drug crime is also explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is soon to become a reality for Southeast Asia. Thailand is, literally, at the centre of this radical change in politics, culture, business opportunities and, most especially, education. Never before has another change in the region ever forecast such a major impact on the Land of Smiles. Equally, never before has Thailand faced an alteration of such magnitude and found itself at a major disadvantage. Countries throughout the region are making sweeping changes in their educational systems to try and prepare their coming generations with the skills and abilities needed to compete not only in the AEC but also globally. Thailand, however, seems to be moving in the opposite direction - most poignantly in adult higher education - thus severely disadvantaging young adults who are expected to impact and lead their country into the future. How can Thailand face the reality of the AEC and forego its own preconceived notions and prejudices so that true, lasting educational progress can be made, avoiding the knee-jerk response of saying something is being done without actually doing anything? What are the nuances of previous hindrances compared with progressive models for improvement? How can competency and quality be selectively and accurately measured for effective change and, again, avoid saying something and not doing anything? This paper covers such issues and establishes a framework for validating not the curriculums themselves but the manner in which curriculum is presented, utilized, and evaluated in a mode that is legitimate and productive for competing on the world stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant workers from Burma[The offici] often experience exploitation, abuse and violations at various stages of travel to and within Thailand and in workplaces in Thailand. Guided by Zimmerman et al.'s conceptual framework, which identifies the potential risks associated with trafficking process, this article presents findings from in-depth interviews with 61 migrant workers living and working in and around Mae Sot, Thailand, on the Thailand-Burma border, to describe the broader context of irregular migration from Burma to Thailand, and trafficking-related risks in this context. Results demonstrate that use of transporters ('carries') and brokers in order to travel to Thailand and find employment can enable trafficking. Moreover, migrant workers are exposed to a range of exploitative experiences in workplaces in Thailand, including violence, coercion, and economic exploitation. This article explores dynamics of migration that can enable trafficking in this context, as well as exploitative working conditions consistent with forced labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the extent to which Thailand's current general or equalization grant program has helped reduce local fiscal disparity. Theoretically, the general grant transfers ought to be inversely related to local revenue-generating capacity. However, based on the 2010–2012 local government financial data from Khon Kaen province, this paper finds that local jurisdictions with high fiscal capacity and income per capita tend to receive more equalization grant per capita than the fiscally and economically disadvantaged localities. Descriptive statistics, the Gini coefficients, and fixed-effects econometric model are used to examine the relationship between general grant transfers and local fiscal capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in community development is the key to promoting efficiency, accountability, and transparency in resource allocations for community development, resulting in fewer problems of social inequality. Many ‘participatory’ development projects, however, have not been successful in arousing participation among community members. In many such cases, cultural values and social norms are key barriers. Approaches developed with little understanding of local contexts may yield no incentive to participate. Nevertheless, the detailed mechanisms that may operate within certain cultural contexts remain under-researched to date. This study examines evidence from Thailand, using examples from communities that have been able to get people's participation despite a hindering culture of compliance to superiors. These examples suggest that the enabling mechanisms include three important factors: actor (self-esteem), action (engagement of community members throughout the development process), and alliance (management of roles, rules, and resolutions). This study contributes to knowledge about the socio-culturally embedded character of community development and suggests ways to promote participation based on an understanding of a specific context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purposes of this research are to explain why Thai university students use social media and how differences between groups of respondents moderate the structure of relationships. Four core latent constructs were investigated in this study: behavioural intention (BI), subjective norms (SN), perceived ease of use (PEOU), and perceived usefulness (PU). Two moderating variables, gender and age, were employed to answer the research questions. Respondents (n = 600) in three universities in Bangkok, Thailand, were selected and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to analyse the data. The results show that behavioural intention is influenced by perceived ease of use, subjective norm, and perceived usefulness respectively. Perceived usefulness is also influenced by perceived ease of use. Moreover, our study affirms that the path from subjective norm to behavioural intention is moderated by age. This path is stronger for older people than for younger people. Discussions, limitations, and recommendations for future research are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article charts the origin of the Wachirayan Library of Siam (as Thailand was called until 1939) and argues that it performed multiple roles. The library helped build not only the modern Siamese nation-state but also the modern Siamese elite by accumulating modern knowledge, serving as the nucleus of a social club, and functioning as a center for recreational education. The library became deeply involved in the society of which it was a part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enjoying royal patronage, the school project of the Border Patrol Police contributed to the construction of a "human border" for Thailand during the Cold War. The project continues to have an impact on current struggles for identity among the country's highland minorities. Historical and anthropological analysis suggests that the hierarchical integration of the border population into the Thai nation resulted in a tension between the national and ethnic identities of the country's highland minorities. This tension challenges the sustainability of the modern nation-building effort of the Border Patrol Police and the Thai royal family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the current state of awareness of privacy in Thailand, with two important foci - general online users, and leading members of civil society related to the area of privacy advocacy. In the absence of a data protection law and amidst long information surveillance practices administered mainly through the security state, Thailand posits a unique setting for a research inquiry into privacy awareness and future advocacy in the area. The study is carried out using two methodologies - a questionnaire-based survey with online users throughout the country, and in-depth interviews with selected members of social activist groups. Survey results show that patterns of privacy perception, levels of awareness, and reaction to privacy threats are variably influenced by factors such as socio-demographics, cultural attitudes, and online use characteristics. Meanwhile, public education is found to be the preferred option for promoting greater social awareness. Civic leaders feel that the main threats to privacy and hindrance against social awareness on the issue lie in the following: lack of fair information practice principles, prevailing discourse of national security, unaccountable use of cybercrime law to probe into people's private data, and cyber lynching and witch-hunts of political dissidents. They also feel that public education focusing on the affected case along with the use of human rights discourse within an international legal framework are preferred courses of actions towards the mobilisation of privacy awareness in Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although alcohol has long been a feature of Thai society, historical evidence indicates that excessive drinking on a regular basis is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the nineteenth century, there were significant quantitative and qualitative changes in both alcohol consumption and production in Siam, due largely to the introduction of new alcoholic beverages and methods of distillation by Chinese immigrants and Western entrepreneurs. As public drunkenness became more common, excessive drinking was blamed for an apparent increase in violent crime throughout the kingdom. This paper examines how the Thai government tried to manage the upsurge in drunken behaviour and the obstacles it faced in doing so. Most of these problems stemmed from the limits on the kingdom's fiscal and judicial sovereignty imposed by the unequal treaties it had signed with the Western imperial powers; as such, they are indicative of Siam's semi-colonial status during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the revolution of 1932 that ended absolute monarchy, Thailand has experienced sporadic military interventions, with 19 coups and coup attempts over those decades. This article explains these military interventions by emphasising the cultural aspects of Thai coup-making at the elite level. Concretely, the article shows that episodic military interventionism—supported by significant and persistent military influence in politics—is now part of a distinctive elite coup culture. In contrast to other so-called ‘coup-prone’ states, Thailand has largely accommodated military interventionism, especially by accepting the defence of the monarchy as a justification for toppling elected governments. Thailand's reluctance to redemocratise, and the haphazardness of the resulting institutional configurations, suggests that Thailand's elite—and, to some extent, the public as well—have deeply internalised the ultimate acceptability of coups. The test of this arrangement may come with the end of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's reign and the potential realignment of military influence in Thai society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the labor and living conditions provided by the Thai government to Myanmar unskilled migrant workers with particular focus on the situation in Ranong, southern Thailand. The article is based on household-level surveys and interviews with different authorities and institutions such as government agencies, the police and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Special attention is also paid to Myanmar sex workers and the trafficking of people.

This article explores the impact of migrant worker registration on access to primary education for the children of Burmese migrants living in Thailand. The first section examines the basis in domestic and international law for migrant children's claim to educational entitlement and questions whether registration affects their claim. This leads to an analysis of NGO and other field-based reports of children and families' lived experience which explores how registration interacts with other intersecting forms of discrimination and disadvantage. The final section proposes a framework for evaluating the impact of Thailand's current Nationality Verification scheme from a children's rights perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The detective figure, literary and real, emerged in Siam between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to bring clarity to increasingly complex social and political situations. In early detective fiction including the Seup saphakan […] Investigating it All] (1892-97) and Nithan Thorngin […] The Tales of Thorng-in] (1904-05) series this was certainly the case -- mysteries were solved, secrets revealed. In real life, however, the state's deployment of an army of detectives did not so much clarify as codify mysteries. This paper examines the links between the literary and the real detective, arguing that the appearance of detective fiction provided the vocabulary for understanding and dealing with social and political change in early twentieth century Siam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For all the attention paid to the economic, social, and moral dimensions of prostitution in Thailand, no scholar has thus far conducted an empirical study of the relationship between the vice and political change in the countryside, where most sex workers come from. Using the case of Phayao Province in northern Thailand, I attempt to redress this lacuna. I show how rampant prostitution, the most acute social issue in Phayao, has ushered in the rise to power of one virtuous woman from an ethnic minority family—Ladawan Wongsriwong. Located on the economic and social margins of Thailand, many village families in Phayao traditionally relied on prostitution for income, causing a massive influx of young girls into the lucrative sex industry in Bangkok and abroad. In the 1990s, however, AIDS started taking a heavy toll on Phayao's small population. Against this backdrop, Ladawan emerged as a prominent female leader in the male-dominant rural society of Phayao by conducting an extensive issue-oriented campaign against prostitution. This case questions much of the literature on rural politics and female leadership in democratizing Southeast Asia that underestimates the importance of social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses the meaning of poverty in different periods, as defined by the use of language. It examines the creation of codes as a representation of escape from poverty. The author shows variations in the meaning of poverty in Thai society as three overlapping layers: deprivation, used to evaluate the poor in a straightforward way; development poverty, used for negotiating with the government in the sense of receiving development benefits; and social poverty, used to set social hierarchies. All three meanings have become integrated and have been selectively used in differing contexts in everyday life. However, they each share the feature of comparing differing degrees of wealth relating directly to divisions in social class. This reflects people's awareness of the poverty gap in Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An estimated 1.5 million citizens of Burma reside as refugees or migrants in Thailand, where harsh treatment, harassment and social stigmas contribute to a climate of precarity. Although one possible course of action for any community under strain is political mobilisation, for migrants from Burma in the northern city of Chiang Mai, high degrees of exploitation and insecurity have generated an overwhelming disinterest in political issues. The article examines this relationship in five main sections. The first presents the two key concepts that structure the analysis: precarity and political mobilisation. The second examines the context of migration from Burma to Thailand, focusing both on the climate of unrest found in much of Burma and on Thailand's treatment of migrant workers, its non-participation in core international legislation and its sub-standard migrant registration system. The third explains how this study of Burmese migrants in Chiang Mai was undertaken and reviews the ethical considerations required in a study of vulnerable groups. The fourth documents the study's findings and presents migrants' testimony. The fifth seeks to explain the link between precarity and political passivity in this case, and considers the wider implications. The concluding section restates the core finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]