Salt, Fish, Rice Fields and Conflicts with Potash Mining in Udon Thani Province

Abstract

This research is a qualitative study on the process and problems of resource mobilization through grouping, forms, and the dynamics of combat tactics and retaliation against the government, perspectives towards methods or solutions to the problems arising in the anti-mining social movement of the Udon Thani Environmental Conservation Group under the concept of eco-political conflict. Data was collected from the target group of 24 people living around the mining project area and the content was analyzed using descriptive narration. The results of the study revealed that the resource mobilization process was a network-building process, starting at the level of the family, then gradually elevating to the community, sub-district, and many sub-districts combined. The formation was characterized as a formal group with a clear and concrete organizational structure. Various activities were conducted in the area. Due to the problems of resource management, the mobilization of resources for the organization’s activities was affected by the overall feelings of the people of Udon Thani who recognized “injustice”, leading to the formation of a dynamic strategy to confront the government with a challenge to the normal political system, such as filing a letter to the relevant government agency and disrupting normal systems, such as through civil disobedience, as well as using protest methods. When other forms of movement did not meet the group’s goals, violence began, resulting in consequences that damaged both property and person. Finding solutions to problems that arose in the area required the government to take into account the participation of people in the affected area in government projects for economic development related to livelihoods and ways of the community.