LSE Department of Anthropology
Southeast Asia Seminar Series
presents
"Environmental Narratives and Ethnic Minorities in Northern Thailand"
(see below for paper abstract)
Dr. Tim Forsyth (Development Studies Institute, LSE)
Wednesday 4th May
6-8 pm
Seligman Library (6th floor, Old Building)
All Welcome
Paper Abstract:
This seminar presents an analysis of new trends in cultural and political ecology in relation to the well known and widely researched location of northern Thailand. This region has become famous for its history of exotic 'hill tribes,' Cold War intrigue, and opium production, and out of this has emerged various assumptions about environmental problems, and the ways that environmental policy can intervene to overcome these. Over time, however, critics have begun to call these assumptions 'narratives' because they summarize cause, effect, blame and responsibility for environment in convenient ways, yet are increasingly acknowledged as simplistic and even misleading. Such narratives now need explaining and governing. This seminar presents the outcome of some years of work into these narratives, and presents some examples relating to topics such as deforestation, water shortages and their relationship with upland (sometimes shifting) cultivation. The seminar presents different ways of analyzing and then governing these narratives, with reference to the local practices of ethnic minorities, and the framing impacts of national and international environmental politics. By doing this, the discussion also addresses wider concerns in cultural and political ecology to implemenent poststructural approaches to environmental knowledge, and specifically the dilemmas of creating and governing environmental knowledge at diverse scales and within different contested contexts.
For further details please contact Eve Zucker E.M. [log in to unmask] or Florent Giehmann [log in to unmask]
|