Networks, translocality, and the resilience of rural livelihoods in Northeast Thailand : Insights from a social network perspective

This dissertation aims to substantiate the ongoing debate on migration and its role in resilience building, and in particular in building resilient rural livelihoods amidst rural transformation and climate change. For a long time, migration has been portrayed as detrimental in its impact on sending and receiving communities and as a last resort to environmental threats. More recently, migration has been prominently propagated as the "new" develop paradigm and as a source of adaptation to climate change. Whilst, today, it is commonly agreed upon that migration is a complex phenomenon, with climate change being one out of multiple drivers, the scientific debate continues to be torn between positive and pessimistic camps depending on the analytical focus and scale of investigation. In the midst of this debate, the concept of translocality has gained momentum as an integrative perspective. Perceiving of migration and mobility as the norm rather than the exception, a translocal perspective overcomes dichotomous divides between "here and there", "the rural and the urban", and "the north and the south". More particularly, a translocal perspective shifts the analytical focus from either the area of origin or the area of destination of migration to the embeddedness of mobile and immobile actors in migration-induced translocal social networks. Facilitating the flow of resources, knowledge, and ideas between multiple places, proponents of a translocal perspective argue, translocal social networks strengthen the capacity to cope, to adapt, and to explore alternative livelihood pathways and, hence, hold potential to promote the resilience of migrants and sending households alike. This dissertation is contributing to a nuanced understanding of the role of translocal networks, by applying a translocal social network perspective to the resilience of rural livelihoods in Northeast Thailand, based on methods of formal social network analysis (SNA). Therefore, this dissertation synthesizes three research articles, i) a comprehensive literature review providing the conceptual foundation, ii) a case study revealing the socio-spatial patterns of households’ network capital and iii) a case study providing a structural and spatial explicit understanding of translocal innovation transfers in small-scale farming communities. Findings highlight the translocal character of today’s rural livelihoods in Northeast Thailand. Whilst livelihoods remain mostly locally rooted, translocal networks are of pronounced relevance for sustaining rural livelihoods and drivers of agricultural innovation. At the same time, findings suggest that translocal networks are not equally available and beneficial among rural households and facilitate different types of innovation transfers with differential resilience outcomes. Households of different socio-economic status rely to different extents on migration-related and on formal translocal networks, providing different resilience capacities and, consequently, resulting in different levels of resilience. This calls into question an overly positive view on migration and translocal connectedness as a means of resilience building. Against this backdrop, the author argues that – regardless of whether one takes an optimistic or pessimistic stance towards migration – translocal livelihoods should be acknowledged as a matter of fact in rural societies, and should no longer be ignored. More research sensitivity to the spatial and social patterns of rural livelihoods and a better exchange between researchers, practitioners and policy makers is needed in order to leverage the potential of translocal social networks for building resilient rural livelihoods.Diese kumulative Dissertation leistet einen Beitrag zur anhaltenden Debatte über Migration und ihre Rolle für die Resilienz kleinbäuerlicher Haushalte im Kontext des ländlichen Struktur- und Klimawandels. Lange Zeit wurde Migration als nachteilig für die Ursprungs- und Zielgebiete und als letztes Mittel gegen den menschenverursachten Umweltwandel dargestellt. In den letzten Jahrzehnten hat Migration eine beachtliche Konjunktur als "neues" Entwicklungsparadigma und als Mittel zur Anpassung an den Klimawandel erfahren. Während heutzutage allgemein anerkannt ist, dass Migration ein komplexes Phänomen ist und dass der Klimawandel eine von mehreren Ursachen für Migration ist, ist die wissenschaftliche Debatte – je nach analytischem Schwerpunkt und Untersuchungsgegenstand – zwischen positiven und pessimistischen Sichtweisen hin- und hergerissen. In dieser Debatte kommt dem Konzept der Translokalität als integrativer Ansatz eine wichtige Bedeutung zu. Eine translokale Perspektive, die Migration und Mobilität eher als Norm denn als Ausnahme wahrnimmt, überwindet Gegensätze zwischen "hier und da", "ländlich und städtisch" und "Norden und Süden". Eine translokale Perspektive lenkt den analytischen Fokus auf Herkunfts- oder Zielgebiete auf die Einbettung mobiler und nicht mobiler Akteure in migrationsinduzierten translokalen Netzwerken. Befürworter einer translokalen Perspektive argumentieren, dass translokale Netzwerke – durch den Austausch von Ressourcen, Wissen und Ideen – helfen Risiken abzufedern, sich anzupassen und alternative Lebensgrundlagen zu erschließen und somit das Potential besitzen zur Resilienz von Migrantinnen und Migranten innen und ihren Haushalten gleichermaßen beizutragen. Diese Dissertation trägt zu einem differenzierten Verständnis der Rolle translokaler Netzwerke bei, indem sie, basierend auf Methoden der formalen sozialen Netzwerkanalyse (SNA), eine translokale soziale Netzwerkeperspektive auf die Resilienz ländlicher Haushalte im Nordosten Thailands eröffnet. Dabei vereint die Dissertation drei wissenschaftliche Artikel, i) eine umfassende Literaturrecherche, die die konzeptionelle Grundlage bildet für, ii) eine Fallstudie, die sozial räumliche Muster des Sozialkapitals ländlicher Haushalte untersucht, und iii) eine Fallstudie, die ein strukturelles und räumlich explizites Verständnis von translokalen Innovationstransfers in kleinbäuerlichen Gemeinden vermittelt. Die Forschungsergebnisse unterstreichen den translokalen Charakter ländlicher Lebensweisen im Nordosten Thailands. Während diese größtenteils lokal verwurzelt sind, sind translokale Netzwerke von ausgeprägter Relevanz für den Erhalt der Lebensgrundlagen und Treiber landwirtschaftlicher Innovationen. Gleichzeitig deuten die Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass translokale Netzwerke nicht für alle Haushalte gleichermaßen verfügbar und vorteilhaft sind und dass verschiedene Arten von Innovationstransfers unterschiedliche Auswirkungen auf die Resilienz kleinbäuerliche Haushalte haben. Je nach sozioökonomischem Status sind kleinbäuerliche Haushalte in unterschiedlichem Ausmaß auf migrationsbezogene und formale translokale Netzwerke angewiesen, was sich in unterschiedlichen Fähigkeiten und Resilienzniveaus widerspiegelt. Diese Ergebnisse stellten eine allzu positive Sicht auf Migration und translokale Netzwerke als Mittel zur Stärkung von Resilienz in Frage. Vor diesem Hintergrund argumentiert der Autor, dass – unabhängig davon, ob man eine optimistische oder pessimistische Haltung gegenüber Migration einnimmt – die Bedeutung translokaler Lebensweisen als Tatsache anerkannt und nicht länger ignoriert werden sollte. Um das Potenzial translokaler Netzwerke für den Aufbau kleinbäuerlicher Resilienz zu nutzen, ist eine stärkere Berücksichtigung der räumlichen und sozialen Muster ländlicher Lebensweisen und ein besserer Austausch zwischen Forschung, Praxis und Politik erforderlich

Migration in a changing climate. Towards a translocal social resilience approach

Climate change and migration are drawing increasing interest from researchers and policy makers as well as from the general public. While in the beginning a simplistic and geo-deterministic comprehension of the environmental impact on human mobility had dominated the discussion, the framing of the relationship has recently become more differentiated. Vast empirical evidence derived from rural livelihoods research clearly shows that migration is an important strategy of households when dealing with multiple risks, including environmental stress. This has led to the growing acknowledgement of the idea of “migration as adaptation” in migration-environment research. We consider this conceptual development an important step for a better understanding of this nexus. Nonetheless, migration as adaptation has several shortcomings. Firstly, it is narrowly focused on migration as an adaptive response to environmental risks and neglects the significant impact of other forms of migration. Secondly, it does not cover other dimensions of how people, communities and societies deal with environmental change: a blind eye is all too often turned to processes of resilience building. Thirdly, migration as adaptation has been found to be interpreted in a way which justifies migration policies with neo-liberal tendencies. In order to overcome such drawbacks, we propose an approach that integrates translocality and social resilience. In this paper we thus introduce the concept of translocal social resilience and reflect on its conceptual implications. We will thereby show how this approach can improve the understanding of the migration-environment nexus, and how it can also shape the concept of migration as adaptation, allowing for nuanced and critical views on the dynamics in the migration-environment context

Social networks and the resilience of rural communities in the Global South: a critical review and conceptual reflections

In the last decades, a growing scholarship has outlined the crucial role of social networks as a source of resilience. However, with regard to the Global South, the role of social networks for the resilience of rural communities remains an under-researched and underconceptualized issue, because research remains scattered between different strands and has rarely been integrated from a resilience perspective. To provide common ground for the exchange between disciplines and to identify steps towards a more comprehensive social network perspective on the resilience of rural communities in the Global South, we present a systematic review of contemporary case studies from three strands of research: (i) natural resource management, (ii) agricultural innovation, and (iii) social support. Although studies in each strand have their own particular strengths and weaknesses in addressing aspects of the resilience of rural communities in the Global South, they all share a static view of the outcomes of social networks, tend to emphasize structure over agency, and neglect spatial dimensions of social relations. To address these challenges, we propose a translocal social network perspective on resilience that views rural communities as being embedded in social networks that connect people and facilitate the flow of resources, information, and knowledge between places

Migration in a changing climate. Towards a translocal social resilience approach

Climate change and migration are drawing increasing interest from researchers and policy makers as well as from the general public. While in the beginning a simplistic and geo-deterministic comprehension of the environmental impact on human mobility had dominated the discussion, the framing of the relationship has recently become more differentiated. Vast empirical evidence derived from rural livelihoods research clearly shows that migration is an important strategy of households when dealing with multiple risks, including environmental stress. This has led to the growing acknowledgement of the idea of “migration as adaptation” in migration-environment research. We consider this conceptual development an important step for a better understanding of this nexus. Nonetheless, migration as adaptation has several shortcomings. Firstly, it is narrowly focused on migration as an adaptive response to environmental risks and neglects the significant impact of other forms of migration. Secondly, it does not cover other dimensions of how people, communities and societies deal with environmental change: a blind eye is all too often turned to processes of resilience building. Thirdly, migration as adaptation has been found to be interpreted in a way which justifies migration policies with neo-liberal tendencies. In order to overcome such drawbacks, we propose an approach that integrates translocality and social resilience. In this paper we thus introduce the concept of translocal social resilience and reflect on its conceptual implications. We will thereby show how this approach can improve the understanding of the migration-environment nexus, and how it can also shape the concept of migration as adaptation, allowing for nuanced and critical views on the dynamics in the migration-environment context