“ซอแรง”: การปิดล้อม การต่อต้าน และการสร้างส่วนรวม

Abstract

This research aims to examine methods of the Southern Farmers Movement in the struggle for land to and sustain their livelihood without claiming the original land ownership. This research contains 3 research questions. First, what are the causes and characteristics of the conflict in land management between southern farmers and government policies? Second, why is the Southern Farmers Movement retaliation against the state through land raids? And the last question is what model the Southern Farmers Movement applies to manage labor and inputs? The findings from this research are; First, the state policy in the third context (1989 to present) which promotes the expansion of the private property local production affecting the phenomenon of land loss in the south. Because land is essential for the farmers, but they cannot access due to the changes by the state policy. When land has become commodity and marketable, it situates a flow of enclosure, causing farmers in the south to lose their land. Second, farmers responded to the loss of land by forming a Southern Farmers Movement, seizing land and allocating the confiscated land as common. Therefore, farmers have a place and land to live and cultivate. Third, the Southern Farmers Movement has turned the land into common for farmers to utilize, in which people who want to use the land must jointly confiscate the land and use labor to build various infrastructures in the land with others without claiming the original community rights. In this sense, the concept of common is the process of adjusting power relations. Farmers who used to contest in the political dimension can create a system of land and labor management on their own without needing to refer to any proprietary system. These findings invite us to rethink the concept of common as being more constructive than claiming property.