Advancing adaptation or producing precarity? The role of rural-urban migration and translocal embeddedness in navigating household resilience in Thailand

Do translocal networks matter for agricultural innovation? A case study on advice sharing in small-scale farming communities in Northeast Thailand

“…At the same time, increasing variability in rainfall patterns in Northeast Thailand is placing stress on agricultural productivity, thereby increasing the need to adapt and explore alternative agricultural crops and practices (Mikhail et al 2010; Naruchaikusol 2016; Choenkwan and Fisher 2018). Typical of Northeast Thailand, internal and international labor migration is a major livelihood strategy in Ban Chai, resulting in increasing translocal connectedness and multi-sited household footprints (Rigg and Salamanca 2011;Peth et al 2018;Porst and Sakdapolrak 2018). With its exposure to climate change, its high rate of migration and the rapid change of its agricultural systems, the sub-district of Ban Chai provides a good example for studying the role of translocal networks in agricultural innovation.…”

“…Understanding why particular changes are more likely to be facilitated through migration-related knowledge transfers also requires considering the kind of knowledge migrants acquire during migration and its applicability to rural livelihoods. As the majority of migrants from Northeast Thailand work in in the construction sector or in factories in the metropolitan areas of Thailand or abroad (Peth et al 2018;Porst and Sakdapolrak 2018), they are unlikely to gain knowledge about different agro-ecological environments during migration (Isaac et al 2014;Matous and Todo 2018). Even in the case of migrants working in modern agriculture, e.g.…”

Gendered translocal connectedness: Rural–urban migration, remittances, and social resilience in Thailand

“…Ensuing issues of belonging and often restricted investment in social life in favour of remittance transfers impede the establishment of a social security net in BMR. This in turn reinforces the need to retain the connections to one's home, which includes remittance relations(Porst & Sakdapolrak, 2018).Sirichanyaporn, for instance, a 25-year-old accountant in Bangkok, links her contributions to her parents' agricultural activities in Ban Chai-that is, monthly remittances of 5,000THB and an additional amount of 3,000THB for the bank loan repayment-with both her lack of a social support network in Bangkok and her plans to utilise her mother's support in child-rearing in the future.From the receiver's perspective, remittances involve an increase in financial stability through an additional income source, including implications for the household's socio-economic status in relation to other households, as well as the emotional value of feeling supported and also the incorporated symbolic value of one's own children fulfilling their filial obligation and honouring their parents through remitting. These perceptions are reflected, for instance, in a couple's explanation-Narong and Piyarak, farmers in Udon Thani-of their daughter's remittances: We have to pay for the car loan, so she has to send us money [laughing] […].…”

Migration influenced by environmental change in Africa: A systematic review of empirical evidence

“…Furthermore, the one-sided focus on mobile populations has been supplemented by research on different forms of immobility, including trapped populations (Zickgraf 2018;Ayeb-Karlsson, Smith, and Kniveton 2018). On a conceptual level, the adoption of concepts such as mobility (Boas et al 2018) and translocality (Porst and Sakdapolrak 2018), the acknowledgement of the temporal (Barnett and McMichael 2018) and emotional (Parsons 2018) dimensions, and the role of nonlinearity and thresholds (Adams and Kay 2019;McLeman 2018) has enhanced our understanding of the migration-environment nexus. Indeed, in the past couple of decades, the field of environmental change and migration has achieved scientific progress both theoretically and empirically.…”