Urban Expansion, Agrarian Shifts, and Decentralized Governance in Thailand's Isaan Region

摘要

The Thai government has increasingly sought to expand urban growth in provinces characterized by agricultural production. However, urbanization's structural changes alter natural resource availabilities, encumbering agrarian families, and constraininglivelihood options. In an effort to map state development and urban growth objectives to local conditions, the Thai state has supported regional autonomy by decentralizing decision-making powers to localities. Here, we seek to explore the ways in whichdecentralized governance provides avenues for agrarian families located in urbanizing spaces to negotiate anxieties and desires with the Thai state, including broad concerns of sustainability, livelihood rights, and market opportunities. We consider howagrarian households understand the economic and ecological effects of urbanization, shifting the focus to agrarian families' agency—how families diversify household livelihoods and employ migration to enhance economic portfolios. Ultimately, by doing so, we examine the intersections between urbanization, development, and agrarian livelihoods, situated within practical and theoretical discussions of decentralized governance in Thailand.