The Return of Village Daughters from the West

Abstract

The study was undertaken in preparation of an MA thesis in the social sciences at Khon Kaen University by a retiree student. It examines the general social situation in Isan villages in the past, present, and in possible futures.  The development of national sustainable sufficiency in Thailand during the next thirty years will depend upon re-strengthening the social (economic, political, and cultural) capital of the villages. The thesis describes a scenario of geopolitical impacts on Thailand causing its rural-to-urban drift to reverse, and of this reversal revitalizing the villages, to the benefit of the rural areas, provincial cities, and the nation’s capital. Furthermore, it appears feasible that, led by Isan, Thailand and the other Mekong Region countries could lead by example and show the world one way forward through the epoch of declining industrialism to the era of sustainable sufficiency.  Enquiries were made among Western men whose Thai wives are living, and often working, in the West. Some of those couples intend to return to the wife’s girlhood village for their retirement years. These wives can be expected to play a small, but significant role in contributing o the increasing social capital of the villages.