The sociology of agricultural development in West Malaysia: an analysis of peasant producers\u27 rural-rural migration within the context of integrated agricultural development setting

摘要

This dissertation employs the discriminating behavior and social integration model to differentiate the characteristics and behavior of spontaneous rural-rural migrant peasant producers from their non-migrant counterparts in West Malaysia;The data for the analysis came from the interview of 100 actual migrants currently residing in the Trans-Perak IADP area of the state of Perak and 100 non-migrants currently living in the villages of origin of the migrants in the district of Yan, the Muda area of Kedah, between January and March of 1985. The migration process took place around the year 1970;The study revealed that migrant peasants differ very significantly from their non-migrant counterparts with respect to their political commitment, perceived access to development accelerators, perceived kinship closeness, perceived social integration, poverty status, and perceived political participation. The findings confirmed the argument that economic factors alone do not explain why some people move while others do not. In addition to their function of differentiating between the two groups of peasant producers, these variables also act as important predictive elements of internal migration behavior;Including both actual migrants and non-migrants in the study for the comparative-contrast analytical purposes, it was also revealed that among the rural-rural migrants, educational levels of attainment, perceived political participation, and perceived access to development accelerators were not consistent as determinants of internal migration. However, except for perceived access to development accelerators, the levels of educational attainment and perceived political participation among the non-migrants did not contribute to their perceived social integration into their community;While the migrants were found to be less socially integrated into their community of origin compared to their non-migrant counterparts, perceived political participation, perceived access to development accelerators, and political commitment indicated certain influence on their perceived social integration. In summary, the study reaffirmed that the socio-structural elements within a community effect the decision to migrate among its members.