Politics of space: A Study of spatial practice and social movement of the Hmong in Thailand

Abstract

This research focuses on the politics of space concerning spatial and discursive practices within Hmong society in responding to Thailand's political environment rooted from political history by studying contemporary social movements of the Hmong people, mainly in the Khek Noi community. To understand this political context, I started by investigating political discourse constructed by the state in claiming its power to control upland communities which I found that "hill tribe discourse" root from "civilizing discourse" was the main one to play this politics of geobody that can be traced since the age of colonial period when the French and British influenced this region. However I found that the Hmong has conducted movement and spatial practices to counter the discourses through their cultural practices which are social memories and form of stabilizing their identity and society. They have adjusted themselves since opium production via using opium as mediator to negotiate with the Thai state official and lowland Thai people before opium was eradicated and labelled, via the state authorities, as uncivilized space, even though it used to previously be part of Thailand's civilizing propelling under the Opium Department. The power of hill tribe discourse obviously represented during the Cold War situation as the power of exclusion in excluding the Hmong from the lowland society as non-Thai nationality even if I found that they received Thai nationality before the national concept of hill tribe was officially notified in 1959. The operation of tribal discursive practices came out in the form of books, articles and researches together with non-discursive practices of tribal institutions like Tribal Research Center to Tribal Research Institution and the Nikhom with their highland projects. The situation of the Cold War made the Hmong lose their homeland, their communities that were already registered as official Thai villages, because all mountainous spaces turned to the battlefield of both sides between the CPT and the government. In responding to this political environment the Hmong participated with both sides of the CPT as the fighters and members of the Productive Unit of Communist Villages and of the government as the buffer zone and militia to fight against the communist action. After the fighting ended in 1982 via the amnesty and compromising Policy of 66/23 and 66/25, development projects were launched as strategies to win communist action. Post-war land allocation and management were operated for the Hmong of both sides but it was systematic and successful for equality. This led to contemporary social movements conducted in four groups namely, the group of Phuruam Phattana Chat Thai (PPCT): the group of Khek Noi Veteran Club: The group of Khek Noi Land Committee in solving the conflict of Ratchaphatsadu Land: and the Group of Poor Farmers. I found that the result of the movement let the government pay attention but not much in solving all problems. Some monetary compensation was given to some members of the PPCT and land allocating was given to some members of Khek Noi Veteran Club. But the case of Ratchaphatsadu Land that the Hmong need the government to abolish has not been considered yet. The Group of Poor Farmers and some members of the PPCT who request land instead of money has not been resolved yet. This research reflects the assembling form of social ontology of the Hmong and their society in heterogeneous sense, which makes the society dynamic against functional and static when the social forms are changed due to the detachment of the members under the new political environment they have countered in modern Thai politics. One of its distributions is to explain how the Hmong organize their communities in response to state governing systems in the region of provinces namely, Phitsanulok, Phetchabun, and Loei to insist and prove their Thai official nationality emerged before the fire broke out in 1968.