Social space of the Kachin community networks through the Kachin celebrations in Baan Mai Samakki, Chiang mai, Thailand

Abstract

The research examines the Kachin ethnic community’s social network in Thailand by exploring the social processes and phenomena of the Kachin group from Myanmar that exist within the Thai sovereignty. The study focuses on the production of the social space of Baan Mai Samakki (Kachin Village), Chiang Dao District, Chiang Mai Province, Northern Thailand. The Kachin community is assimilated and contested under the discourse of domination and power. The local Kachin community in Baan Mai Samakki maintains its power by setting up a space for social networks in Thailand.

The migration of Kachin to Thailand was linked between the Kachin Independence Army and the Royal Thai Army from 1965 to 1980. In 1982, the Royal Project Development Center was established at the Baan Mai Samakki (Kachin Village) as the Kachin people’s single entity community in Thailand. The research found that Myanmar’s internal sovereignty and political difficulties worsened as a result of investigating the reasons and determinants of the migratory phenomena and process. It investigates the Kachin representational level of social space in which group identification has manifested among the community by establishing ethnic community and cultural identity, symbol, belonging, and social memorial inside Thailand’s nation-state. It also looks into the Kachin kinship system, which plays an important part in the creation of social space and is an underlying system in Kachin organisation and structure. The Kachin kinship system is a social space for social interaction in Kachin social organisation and structure, as every social category is a kinship category. The study indicated that the Kachin kinship system is essential to how Kachin community are organised and structured. This research studied how the physical space of the Kachin kinship system influences the Kachin community in Baan Mai Samakki.

In Kachin village at Ban Mai Samakki, the dialectical approach to the social network is to examine social interactions such as micro-bridge and macro-bridge networks between individuals and groups, as well as between the local and the state level in networking. Significantly, the resource access and networks, such as water management and celebrations, create the social space for the Kachin migrant community. According to the findings, local institutions are the main pillars of social networks and capital for the Kachin community in Baan Mai Samakki. This study examines how the Kachin ethnic in Baan Mai Samakki performed their duties as Thai citizens and established a Thai national identity.

The concept of collective actions is used to examine the role and participation of local residents in social events that have power over institutions and society. The study discovered that Baan Mai Samakki's villagers' unity, willingness, trust, and collaboration formed a collective identity, as well as the dynamics of collective action functioned while gathering in social events. The Kachin community is a single unit that retains local community networks and power. The Kachin community practiced the ethnic cultural identity as well as Kachin community networks in Baan Mai Samakki. The research also showed that the Kachin community in Baan Mai applied the dynamic local-based institutions and networks that form the collective identity and ethnic identity.