More Than the Soil: Rural Change in Se Asia by Jonathan Rigg

Author:Jonathan Rigg [Rigg, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, City Planning & Urban Development, Science, Earth Sciences, Social Science, Political Science, Geography, Human Geography
ISBN: 9781317877677
Google: gEOgBAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 23318804
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

While Thailand may offer some of the most striking examples of what has been termed the 'geriatrification' of rural areas (see Redclift and Whatmore 1990: 185), the same trends are evident elsewhere in the region — although with important differences. Writing on the 'brawn drain' from the Muda area of Malaysia, Wong writes that 'Young men are drawn as individuals out of their households, rather than the household as such out of the village' (Wong 1987: 164 (she places all the sentence in italics)). This drain of young men from the village, in terms of scale, has been 'astounding'. By 1980 37 young men had left the village and only 22 unmarried young men remained. Moreover, the drain was not confined to a single social group. In Wong's case the selective migration of men can be linked to strong cultural controls on the migration of women — although work conducted since 1980 has, once again, shown how culture is both malleable and evolving.

The presence of social networks has been highlighted to explain the now of migrants from often (apparently) remote rural communities to job opportunities, usually in urban areas and sometimes abroad. Such networks facilitate movement even when government policies are specifically intended to restrict citywards migration, and they also explain the discrete manner in which villagers from one locality (often community) are channelled into particular jobs and factories (see Hugo 1997: 280—82 and Rigg 1997: 212—14). 'Inter-personal networks founded on geography, ethnicity, kinship, friendship, membership, patronage and clientage mould the human landscape' (Rigg 1997: 212).12 From the perspective of the discussion here, these social networks also, however, illustrate how tightly migrants remain tied to their villages of origin.

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