This research article aims to explain the changes of livelihoods strategies in a village in the Northeast region of Thailand after the introduction of rubber as cash crop. Northeast region is considered a new rubber growing area of Thailand, the world's largest rubber exporter. A village in Udornthani province was selected as a case study for a qualitative research conducted in 2012-2013. In order to get a full understanding of these changes, the research studied livelihood changes in the village over the last 62 years or since the village establishment. We have classified livelihood strategies into three periods, based on the dominant mode of production and livelihoods. The first period was the livelihoods before cash crops, in which people were involved in subsistence mode of production. The second period was marked by the introduction of cash crops and market economy into the village in the early 1960s. During this period, subsistence economy had been transformed into market oriented. Forest lands were changed into cash crop farms, so much that the natural capital lost its balance and became less dependable. The third period, starting in 2001, was the rubber period, the focus of this research. Rubber came to the northeastern region as a result of the promotion of the state. Strong research, development and extension supports that used to work well in the Southern region were applied to promote rubber growing here. However, the adoption of rubber was not without problems. People had to adjust themselves to the capitalist standardized farming practices of rubber. In addition, there was a misbalance of and unequal access to capital assets, particularly financial capital. Within the changing socio-economic context and constraining status of capital assets and access, rural households adopted integrated livelihood strategies, including 1) economic diversification or pluri-activities to reduce risks and increase income 2) maintaining rice cultivation to guarantee food security 3) keeping the ownership of agricultural land as an important capital asset 4) investment in higher education of the younger generation of the household. The article also discusses the implication of these livelihood strategies on rural society, and provides policy and research recommendation.

This research article aims to study the impact of urbanization on its hinterlands, by focusing on the perceptions of the household heads in the hinterlands of a small city, which is the major type of the cities in the Mekong region. Khon Kaen city in the northeast region of Thailand was selected as a case study. A questionnaire survey was conducted with a sample of 409 households in 35 villages in the city's hinterlands, defined as the areas of 5 kilometres lying further from a ring road surrounding the city. Data were analysed by descriptive statistics and mean ranking. The research found that the top ten most favorable impacts were on better access to health and educational services, better employment and educational opportunities, women's decision making power and social status, as well as positive impact on local government. As for the negative impacts of urbanization, pre-marriage sexual relationship, co-habitation and inappropriate dressing of village youths were identified as major problems. Apart from youth's problems, other social problems namely gambling and drug addiction were identified, as well as household economic problems including shortage of farm lands, higher household expenditure and debts. Among the top ten highest ranks of negative impacts, only one environmental problem, namely noise pollution, was identified. However, it is remarkable that environmental sector contained the highest numbers of unfavorable impacts that had mean value less than three. In other words, among the seven sectors explored, namely the household economy, the village economy, the society, the political and administration, the ideology and culture, the women and youths and the environment, the research found that environmental sector got the highest number of negative items of urbanization impacts. Based on a Multiple Regression Analysis, the research found that household heads' age (Beta = 0.127) and monthly income (Beta =-0.175) were the factors that influenced their perceptions on the impacts with the R 2 = 0.073.

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