The myth of poverty in Thai society: the archaeology of meaning.

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]