Villages In Thailand Research Articles

Subjectivities of Older Spousal Caregivers in Rural Northern Thailand: A Qualitative Study on Sociocultural Influences

The aging society and changes in living arrangements significantly impact family caregiving patterns, particularly in older spousal caregivers. This study examined how the subjectivities of older spousal caregivers have been shaped by social discourse and practices. A qualitative research approach was adopted in rural northern villages in Thailand. Data collection included 1) narrative interviews with eight older primary spousal caregivers and eight family members and neighbors, 2) in-depth interviews with ten healthcare providers, and 3) participatory observation. Both thematic and inductive methods of data analysis were applied. The finding demonstrated three distinct subjectivities regarding caregivers: older persons, medical, and sociocultural discourse. Medical and older people’s discourses influenced negative subjectivity on older caregivers regarding their physical decline with age; however, positive subjectivity of being a compassionate and capable caregiver was regarded as a valuable role. The findings reflected the changing sociocultural discourse in the northern region of Thailand. A caregiver is perceived as kon jàa, which refers to the committed role of both wife and husband, who care for their spouse for the rest of their lives. The implications of this study can benefit community-based care systems by enhancing the understanding of social and cultural discourse on caring and couplehood and incorporating caregiver needs into the care plan of older people with chronic illnesses.

A temporal–spatial analysis on the socioeconomic development of rural villages in Thailand and Vietnam based on satellite image data

Obtaining accurate and timely estimates of socio-economic status at fine geographical resolutions is essential for global sustainable development and the fight against poverty. However, data related to local socio-economic dynamics in rural villages is often either unavailable or outdated. To fill this gap, predicting local economic well-being with satellite imagery and machine learning has shown promising results. While most state-of-the-art analyses focus on predicting the levels of socio-economic status, finding temporal changes in rural villages’ economic well-being is essential for tracking the impacts of public policies (targeting e.g., poverty alleviation or access to various public services). In this paper, we propose an approach that utilizes pixel-wise differences in satellite images to classify temporal changes in average and median consumption expenditures (and income) in rural villages in Thailand and Vietnam between 2007 and 2017. This approach is shown to be able to distinguish between “Decline”, “Stagnation” and “Growth” in these outcomes with an F1 score of up to 63.2% using an Extreme Gradient Boosting Classifier model. In addition, we employ regression-based approaches which achieve an R2 of up to 39.5% when predicting actual changes in these outcomes with an Extreme Gradient Boosting Regressor. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of satellite-based estimates for measuring changes in local socio-economic dynamics.

HR Transforming Model for Future-Ready Professional Accountants Abilities to Successfully Manage SMEs Tourism Industry and Business that Follow the Creative Industry Village in Thailand

HR Transforming Model for Future-Ready Professional Accountants Abilities to Successfully Manage SMEs Tourism Industry and Business that Follow the Creative Industry Village in Thailand

Associations between caregiver stress and child verbal abuse and corporal punishment in Thailand’s impoverished Deep South region during the COVID-19 pandemic

The objectives of this study are: (1) To describe the levels of parental stress, self-reported child verbal abuse and corporal punishment among caregivers, and; (2) To assess the extent that having moderate or higher levels of parental stress is associated with self-reported child verbal abuse and corporal punishment. We randomly sampled 12 villages and sampled 40 households per village in Thailand’s impoverished Deep South region in June 2020. Study participants included 466 caregivers residing in sampled households. Trained enumerators used the standard ST-5 questionnaire to measure stress level and asked the participants to self-report the study outcomes. We analyzed data using descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression analyses. Approximately 19.1% of caregivers reported moderate, high, or severe level of stress. Caregivers with moderate and higher levels of stress were more likely than caregivers with low level of stress to report child verbal abuse (48% vs. 23%, respectively; Adj. OR = 3.11, 95% CI = 1.90, 5.11) and corporal punishment (28% vs. 8%, respectively; Adj. OR = 2.62, 95% CI = 1.36, 5.04). We found associations between caregiver’s stress level and self-reported verbal abuse and corporal punishment of children in the household. However, social desirability, lack of details in the answers, and potential confounding by mental illness co-morbidities were notable limitations of the study.

Fields of Life and Death: Cholangiocarcinoma, Food Consumption, and Masculinity in Buddhist Rural Thailand

The Mekong region presents a record incidence of cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer). Scientists identify correlations between the development of this aggressive disease and the consumption of raw fish in local dishes. While made aware of these correlations by comprehensive health campaigns, some villagers in Thailand’s notoriously neglected Northeast refuse to cook the fish before consumption: a phenomenon that puzzles medical experts and policy makers. Based on ethnographic data, this paper suggests that practices surrounding the consumption of raw food in the area have become taboo. Rather than disappearing, they now play a key role in bonding rituals where rural masculinities are expressed via spectacles of risk taking that transgress normative ideals of manhood as epitomised by urban men and Buddhist monks.

Enunciating ambiguity: Thailand’s phi and the epistemological decolonization of Thai studies

ABSTRACT Why are ostensibly paradoxical statements so common when villagers in Thailand’s lower Northeast are asked to recount their personal encounters with the nonhumans known as phi in local language games? Inspired by the anthropology of ontology and drawing on Wittgenstein’s linguistic phenomenology, I set out to explore the epistemic appropriateness of the paradox in ethnographic accounts of villagers’ narratives about these encounters. In an attempt to epistemologically decolonize the debate on Thailand’s phi, I use interlocutors’ ostensibly paradoxical narratives about their encounters to reflect upon the multiple worlds that intersect in villagers’ everyday lives. While an analytic reconstruction of the various language games this multiplicity produces and their partly irreconcilable ontological registers may help to dissolve the paradox of villagers’ accounts analytically, I ask whether the scholarly inclination to identify and resolve paradoxes through the acknowledgment of epistemological multiplicity reproduces the hegemony of naturalism. An outline of animist collectivity and its identification as the social ontology of everyday village life finally suggests that the ostensible paradoxes that encounters with phi produce are not only what makes them socially meaningful, but also enunciations of the concept phi itself.

Characteristics of social relationships in a group of captive Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in the elephant village in Thailand

Wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) form complex fission–fusion societies centered on matrilineal groups. In captivity, unrelated females remain in the same group and create social relationships. To better understand well-being in captivity, it is important to investigate the social relationships between females. However, to date, little information is available on this topic. The goal of this study was to clarify the social relationships between captive female Asian elephants using social network analysis. Our subjects were 13 captive Asian elephants at the Elephant Study Center in Surin Province, Thailand. We investigated variations in the frequencies of affiliative behaviors between dyads. Individuals that stayed in the group longer tended to play a more central role in terms of group member connections. We found that two individuals played an important role in strengthening connections, and that their removal influenced group cohesion. Our results revealed that individuals that stayed in the group long-term and that had existing relationships with others in the group tended to build better social connections, regardless of their age. In addition, the existence of some young individuals that show frequent affiliative behaviors may be important for bond strength and therefore, overall group cohesion.

From Sipsongpanna to Chiang Kham: The Reconstruction of Lue Identity in Contemporary Thailand

ABSTRACT A new Tai Lue identity is produced when Tai Lue people in Chiang Kham District, Thailand involve in local cultural revival and economic development. This new identity is a Thai-Tai Lue identity: “Lue Muang Thai”, as they call themselves, and is constructed based on their situations in and expectations of contemporary Thailand. Sipsongpanna, as an important cultural symbol of Lue, still plays an important role in constructing the new Lue identity, but Chiang Kham Tai Lue elites clearly know differences between Lue Sipsongpanna and Lue Muang Thai. For ordinary Chiang Kham Tai Lue, their Lue identity comes from the Lue villages in Thailand without any reference to Sipsongpanna. Lue identity is a strategy for them to gain more resources and capital. This is why Lue identity has been strongly performed in public spaces, while it is hard to find any performances of “Lue” identity in their family life. The “Lue Chiang Kham” identity emerges as one product in the process of constructing a new Tai Lue identity. Keywords: Thai-Tai Lue identity; Lue Muang Thai; Localized Lue identity; Lue Chiang Kham

Reflecting of the two significant consciousnesses inherited in Thai society: The “Dhamma-democracy and sufficient economy” which enabled the praxis of spiritually active citizenship in 2 case studies of different settings, the K-12 school students and the village juveniles

This article will cover 3 major parts. The first part will discuss the different perspectives of active citizens from the Buddhist interpretation of "Dhamma-democracy" and King Bhumiphol Adulyadej's principle of "sufficient economy". The second part will present 2 critical praxis cases of both inside the school (K-12) and the juvenile groups in the villages in Thailand. Whose roles were being catalyst of active citizen movement by nurturing the self actualization within themselves and their closed partners; teachers and parents, along with creating and sharing positive social engagement experiences with several communities throughout the country. The third part will reflect and elaborate the incredible results to either students or juveniles themselves of being spiritually active citizens.

Consumer Attitudes Toward E-waste Reuse and Recycling in Selected Villages in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and China

Consumer attitudes toward e-waste management systems were studied by questionnaire surveys of residents from two villages selected in each of Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and China. Villagers from Japan scored highest in having a positive attitude toward extracting gold from e-waste for Tokyo Olympics medals. The attitude of the villagers from Kamikatsu, Japan was consistently more willing to support and volunteer to improve their environment than that from Tokushima; but more resistant to involvement in improper e-waste dumping and having solutions to the problem. Similar attitudes were also found in the villagers of Hong Ren Old Village and New Village, China. Among the villages with the e-waste management practice, the villagers of Bui Village (Vietnam) and Hong Ren Old Village have demonstrated more of their positive attitudes than those of Kamikatsu and Village #3 (Thailand) toward improving their environment, satisfying with e-waste-related laws, and supporting for extracting precious metals from e-waste. Among the villages not adopting the e-waste management practice, however, the villagers of Duong Xa (Vietnam) demonstrated the highest positive attitudes in their satisfaction with e-waste-related laws, and led with Village #5 (Thailand) and Tokushima in their commitment to improving the environment and support for extracting precious metals from e-waste.

A Comparative Good Governance Experiences on Local Governments Cope with COVID-19: A Case Studies Between Indonesia and Thailand

: This article aimed to analyzed and compared good governance experiences on local government cope with Covid-19 between Indonesia and Thailand. The methodology of this article was a qualitative approach based on the secondary data from case of local government of Indonesia in Tegal City and Thailand in Chang Puak Sub-district. The finding of this article was in Indonesia case could argued that the effectiveness, openness, and transparency of the government in coping with Covid-19 are the keys to improve the people economy in Tegal City. Also, the administrators Government of Tegal should be responsive to evaluate ineffective methods in preventing the spread of Covid-19 and switch to more effective and efficient ways. In the meantime, in Thailand case, sorely local government could not cope with Covid-19 pandemic, but the cooperated between Thailand Village Health Volunteer and local government were the best operation to stop the Covid-19 outbreak. Moreover, the most foremost hinder in both Thailand and Indonesia were the central government that centralize authority. In Indonesia, the central policy was the obstacle to allow local government acted, while in Thailand the emergency decree was the main hinder for local government management. Finally, both local government in Thailand and Indonesia were struggled and tried to cope with Covid-19 in a right way of good governance track even though they had a limited authority and willing to support their community.

Coronavirus seroprevalence among villagers exposed to bats in Thailand.

A serological survey of human coronavirus antibodies among villagers in 10 provinces of Thailand was conducted during 2016–2018. Serum samples (n = 364) were collected from participants from the villages and tested for coronavirus antibodies using a human coronavirus IgG ELISA kit. Our results showed that 10.44% (38/364; 21 males and 17 females) of the villagers had antibodies against human coronaviruses. The odds ratio for coronavirus positivity in the villagers in the central region who were exposed to bats was 4.75, 95% CI 1.04–21.70, when compared to that in the non‐exposed villagers. The sociodemographics, knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of the villagers were also recorded and analysed by using a quantitative structured questionnaire. Our results showed that 62.36% (227/364) of the villagers had been exposed to bats at least once in the past six months. Low monthly family income was statistically significant in increasing the risk for coronavirus seropositivity among the villagers (OR 2.91, 95% CI 1.13–7.49). In‐depth interviews among the coronavirus‐positive participants (n = 30) showed that cultural context, local norms and beliefs could influence to bat exposure activities. In conclusion, our results provide baseline information on human coronavirus antibodies and KAP regarding to bat exposure among villagers in Thailand.

Assessing environmentally sustainable practices of smallholder highland farmers: a case study of maize production in Northern Thailand

Promotion of sustainable maize production in Northern Thailand, the country’s largest maize-producing region, is crucial to securing the supply of the nation’s feed manufacturing, as well as protecting environmental resources, enhancing social welfare, and improving the livelihoods of farmers and communities. This study aimed to investigate the various sustainable practices of the smallholder highland maize farmers and determine their environmental perceptions of sustainable practices. Face-to-face interviews with local maize farmers in two northern villages of Thailand showed that the farmers performed more sustainable cultivation practices i.e., avoiding the use of prohibited chemicals, but less post-management practices, i.e., managing residues and disposing of agrochemical waste. In addition, the Chi-square test was employed to determine the correlation between various socio-demographic factors and the farming practices. The surveyed farmers perceived the positive environmental impacts of organic fertilizer application and alternative management methods of residues to slash-and-burn, but they did not perceive the same positive impacts for proper agrochemical waste management on the environment. The results of the constraints to the environmental practices identified by the farmers suggested that additional tangible support from the government, such as agrochemical waste disposal facilities and engagement of policymakers and development practitioners, would result in more local-specific interventions that would promote a sustainable highland agriculture system.

Perceptions of residents toward e-waste reuse and recycling in selected villages in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and China

Perceptions of residents toward e-waste reuse and recycling in selected villages in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and China

Seasonal dynamics and molecular differentiation of three natural Anopheles species (Diptera: Culicidae) of the Maculatus group (Neocellia series) in malaria hotspot villages of Thailand

BackgroundAnopheles sawadwongporni Rattanarithikul & Green, Anopheles maculatus Theobald and Anopheles pseudowillmori (Theobald) of the Anopheles maculatus group (Diptera: Culicidae) are recognized as potential malaria vectors in many countries from the Indian subcontinent through Southeast Asia to Taiwan. A number of malaria vectors in malaria hotspot areas along the Thai-Myanmar border belong to this complex. However, the species distribution and dynamic trends remain understudied in this malaria endemic region.MethodsMosquitoes of the Maculatus group were collected using CDC light traps every other week from four villages in Tha Song Yang District, Tak Province, Thailand from January to December 2015. Adult female mosquitoes were morphologically identified on site using taxonomic keys. Molecular species identification was performed by multiplex PCR based on the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) and sequencing of the cox1 gene at a DNA barcoding region in a subset of 29 specimens.ResultsA total of 1328 An. maculatus (sensu lato) female mosquitoes were captured with An. maculatus, An. sawadwongporni and An. pseudowilmori accounting for 75.2, 22.1 and 2.7% respectively. The field captured mosquitoes of the Maculatus group were most abundant in the wet season and had a preferred distribution in villages at higher elevations. The phylogenetic relationships of 29 cox1 sequences showed a clear-cut separation of the three member species of the Maculatus group, with the An. pseudowillmori cluster being separated from An. sawadwongporni and An. maculatus.ConclusionsThis study provides updated information for the species composition, seasonal dynamics and microgeographical distribution of the Maculatus group in malaria-endemic areas of western Thailand. This information can be used to guide the planning and implementation of mosquito control measures in the pursuance of malaria transmission.Graphical

Perceptions of residents toward e-waste reuse and recycling in selected villages in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and China

The perceptions of residents toward e-waste management systems were studied by questionnaire surveys in two villages selected in each of Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, and China. Analysis of the respons...

Beehive fences as a sustainable local solution to human‐elephant conflict in Thailand

AbstractAs human‐elephant conflict (HEC) increases, a better understanding of the human dimensions of these conflicts and non‐violent mitigation methods are needed to foster long‐term coexistence. In this study, we conducted household questionnaires (n = 296) to assess the prevalence of HEC and attitudes towards elephants in four rural villages in Thailand. In addition, we evaluated a pilot beehive fence as a sustainable solution for HEC. The majority of the households reported seeing or hearing elephants near their property at least once a week (84.9%) and experienced negative impacts from elephants in the last 5 years, (81.0%). The beehive fence deterred 88.4% of individual elephants (n = 155) and 64.3% of elephant groups (n = 28) that approached the fence. Most elephants (70.7%) exhibited behaviors suggesting heightened attentiveness or alarm. The farm owner reported economic and social benefits of the beehive fence. By contributing to farmer income and reducing crop damage caused by wild elephants, beehive fencing may provide an important locally‐managed complement to regional HEC mitigation methods.

Optimal microgrid controller design of a hybrid microgrid for Khun Pae village in Thailand

Optimal microgrid controller design of a hybrid microgrid for Khun Pae village in Thailand

Pro-rural policies and people’s capacity to aspire: Observations of the use of financial resources in the villages of Thailand

Pro-rural policies and people’s capacity to aspire: Observations of the use of financial resources in the villages of Thailand

Cognitive impairment and associated factors in the elderly at Pracha Niwet Village in Thailand

Cognitive impairment and associated factors in the elderly at Pracha Niwet Village in Thailand