Coffee and ethnic entrepreneurship at Doi Chang in Chiang Rai province

Abstract

Ethnic minorities in Northern Thailand, especially highlanders, have long been subjugated to controls of external powerful entities who claim the sovereignty over territories these minorities have inhabited for generations. This control and stigmatization has intensified since the building of the nation-state, and the significance of the borderland, with its rich resources and strategic geographical position, being recognized by subsequent ruling parties. One the other hand, it is my thesis that many entrepreneurial minds in highland communities, appear to have subverted this value of the periphery facilitated by the ever changing social-economical dynamics of the globalized era. Infused with ethnic values and identities, the coffee entrepreneurial businesses founded in the mountainous area of Northern Thailand have wisely linked the uniqueness of the ethnic value to emergent global values, taking advantage of their access to resources in the borderlands and people’s increased passion in non-materialistic cultural and affective consumption. The co-existence of the structure of modernity and localized (capitalized) value is of particular interest to me and has left a puzzle to me to unravel through this research. My research focused on two emerging coffee businesses initiated by ethnic people from a village in the area of Doi Chang, Chiang Rai province, which is a renowned mountainous area for its coffee plantations and related businesses. Through an analysis of these two case studies, I have managed to achieve some understanding of how these e two businesses took up different models and creative strategies towards changing political, social and economic dynamics for the purpose of social-economical betterment of both the entrepreneurs and their communities, and the impacts of each on the community. Their ideologies and practices imply a morph of capitalist market paradigm prevalent in Thai society infused with traditional local values under the context of Doi Chang and globalization.