Staff Profile

Publication details for Professor Jonathan Rigg

Rigg, J.D. & Salamanca, A. Managing risk and vulnerability in Asia: A (re)study from Thailand, 1982-83 and 2008. Asia Pacific Viewpoint. 2009;50:255-270.

• Publication type: Journal papers: academic
• ISSN/ISBN: 1360-7456 (print), 1467-8373 (online)
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2009.01399.x
• Keywords: Risk, Thailand, Vulnerability.
• View online: Online version
• Durham research online: DRO record

Author(s) from Durham

• Professor Jonathan Rigg

Abstract

In the 1980s, rural settlements in the Northeast of Thailand were farming focused, and strategies of living were structured around the need to secure subsistence in the face of a capricious environment and a weak developmental state. More than half of households in the region lived below the poverty line, and the immediate prospects for 'development' were not bright. Drawing on a 25-year longitudinal study of two villages in Mahasarakham, the paper describes and reflects on how risk and vulnerability have been re-shaped during a quarter of a century of profound economic and social change. From largely environmental and local, the pattern of risk and opportunity have become increasingly economic and non-local as external events wash across the shores of rural settlements like Ban Non Tae and Ban Tha Song Korn.