Labor Groups in Thai Rice and Fishing Villages

Abstract

The paper analyzes technical imperatives and constraints for recruitment and reward of extra-household work groups for commercial rice cultivation and for commercial fishing. On the basis of this analysis, a characterization of these respective kinds of groupings is derived using a modified version of Eric Wolf's scheme for classifying peasant coalitions. This procedure allows direct comparison of the two types of groups and facilitates an exploration of some implications of the structural differences they exhibit. The modified version of Wolfs scheme is very general and is applicable to groups which are formed in the kinship idiom as well as to those which are not. Moreover, it allows direct comparison of kinship and non-kinship groups. When viewed in this light, non-kinship based fishing groups appear to be structurally more similar to rice-farming households than to the extra-household transplanting and harvesting groups.