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Gifts and Rights: Cautionary Notes on Community Self‐help in Thailand

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  • Peter Vandergeest

Abstract

ABSTRACT A pervasive assumption in the critical literature and practice of development has been that capitalism and state‐building has undermined relatively autonomous village communities in which there were equalizing institutions of mutual help or gift‐giving. These assumptions tend to retain the dualisms of modernization theories by reversing them. The author argues that we should instead challenge these dualisms, and look for complexity and contradictions within both the past and the present. He then draws on a study in Thailand to show how the ‘village’ was a product of state‐building, and how in the past the idiom of ‘helping’ constituted relations of domination and extraction as well as more egalitarian relations of mutual help. The use of the language of the gift confers power on the giver; since the 1930s, state officials have appropriated and transformed the language of ‘helping’ to coerce villagers into working on ‘development’ projects. Until the 1970s, villagers described ‘development’ as coerced serf labour, but since then, they have struggled with mixed results to redefine development as their right to participate in the national and global product. The author finishes by arguing that, in the context of the current global crisis of accumulation, we should reclaim rural development as a democratic right, opposing neoliberal attempts to redefine it as a gift which government and development agencies can discontinue at their will.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Vandergeest, 1991. "Gifts and Rights: Cautionary Notes on Community Self‐help in Thailand," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 421-443, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:22:y:1991:i:3:p:421-443
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7660.1991.tb00420.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Booth, David, 1985. "Marxism and development sociology: Interpreting the impasse," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(7), pages 761-787, July.
    2. Vandergeest, Peter & Buttel, Frederick H., 1988. "Marx, Weber, and development sociology: Beyond the impasse," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 683-695, June.
    3. Philip Hirsch, 1989. "The State in the Village: Interpreting Rural Development in Thailand," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 20(1), pages 35-56, January.
    4. Corbridge, Stuart, 1990. "Post-Marxism and development studies: Beyond the impasse," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 623-639, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Des Gasper, 1993. "Entitlements Analysis: Relating Concepts and Contexts," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 24(4), pages 679-718, October.
    2. Johnson, Craig & Forsyth, Timothy, 2002. "In the Eyes of the State: Negotiating a "Rights-Based Approach" to Forest Conservation in Thailand," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(9), pages 1591-1605, September.
    3. Wilaiporn Lao-Hakosol & John Walsh, 2019. "Golden Age Residential Healthcare: Opportunities in Thailand," South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, , vol. 8(2), pages 146-154, August.

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