พลวัตทางเศรษฐกิจและความสัมพันธ์ทางสังคมของชุมชน จีนฮกจิวในอำเภอนาบอน จังหวัดนครศรีธรรมราช

Abstract

This thesis proposes that the economic changes in the Hokchiu community in Na Bon District, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, which were closely related to rubber production and trade, impacted social and cultural relations. The migration and settlement of the Hokchiu in a pioneering era of rubber planting was built on the use of “Chinese social relations” underlined by “Hokchiu ethnic consciousness”. This consciousness was linked through social networks formed by kinship, both real and fictive, that reinforced Hokchiu collective identity in Na Bon. Hence, the economic and social lives of those in the Hokchiu community were embedded as one. When the economic life of the Hokchiu changed in relation to the modern rubber industry, the Hokchiu had to form close links with Thai state and market. These changes, conditioned by unequal access to economic resources, led to class diversification in the community and resulted in the classification of the Hokchiu into three groups: high-income, middle-income and low-income groups. The changes brought by the modern rubber industry separated the social and economic lives of the Hokchiu that were once embedded. As “the Hokchiu social relations” that had been the core of ฌ economic interdependence in the community waned, relationships in the community became more commercial. In summary, the rich, middle and poor Hokchiu, were able to adapt to the changes of the constantly changing world of rubber production and trade. In adapting to modern rubber production and trade which was closely connected to the national and international market, they formed an “economic network” which affected relationships in their community. The previously tight social relations became loose. The relations in the Hokchiu community then became superficial and relied on abstract social and cultural norms of Chineseness as social glue. In other words, the relationships in the community that had been based on kinship, both real and fictive, was transformed into more commercial ones under the changing context of the modern rubber plantation and trade industry.