Rural Alaska Issues - Part 2 View from Rural Thailand

[Sunday, March 1, 2009, 9:24 pm Thai time]

This is the follow up to a previous post in which I commented on some of the stories coming from Alaska blogs as a prelude to thoughts I have on rural Alaska issues while working in rural Thailand. There are a lot of similarities between how Alaska Native peoples are treated and the way the various 'hill tribe' peoples of Thailand are treated. I did share this with a couple of people at work including a hill tribe member, but let's treat this as a rough draft, a starting point for thinking.

Factors	Northern Thailand	Alaska
Geographic Proximity	Connected by road, easy motorcycle ride, 30 - 120 min to Chiang Mai	No roads to major cities. Local and hub villages connected by snow machine, river, air. Expensive air to Anchorage.
Ethnicity	Ethnicities, languages different from dominant Thai.Different ethnicities, languages different from dominant Caucasion.
Language	Most speak own languages and Thai, and some limited English. Some younger may not speak either well.	Older people speak own languages and English. Younger speak English and less and less traditional languages. A few villages speak more traditional languages and have new school programs to teach traditional languages.
Clothing	Wear various combinations of traditional clothing and Western clothing.	Traditional clothing now usually for special occasions.
Food	Mix of traditional and Thai. (Thai food more similar to traditional food than Western food is to traditional Alaska Native)	In villages eat mix of traditional and Western food.
Physical Appearance	Could pass as Thai.	Easily recognized as ‘different’ from dominant Caucasian population, even if dressed Western.
Historical Settlements	Nomadic with temporary (2-3 years?) settlements	Nomadic with seasonal camps and moving to follow game.
Health compared to national average	Life span of some groups higher than Thai. Other health stats probably lower	Most statistics worse
Income compared to national average	Significantly lower. Includes subsistence farming and hunting. (Ethnic Thai farmers do the same.)	Significantly lower average. Includes subsistence hunting and fishing. (Some Caucasians do the same.)
Government policy	Lip service to cultural diversity, de facto policy = Settle in one place. Assimilate into Thai culture	Lip service to cultural diversity, de facto policy = Settle in one place, Assimilate into US culture.

The way dominant societies treat ethnic minorities, especially marginalized minorities that have not fully assimilated into the dominant culture - at least in this case - looks pretty similar. We probably have a lot to learn from each other's situations.

What impresses me here is how my organization here, and the various networks they are part of, have a very well thought out philosophy of intervention into the villages which focuses on community involvement, development of local leadership abilities, and giving the villagers information as well as documenting data from the village. There is a strong emphasis on helping the villagers understand the macro dynamics that are affecting the villagers future and helping them to determine how they want to deal with that. They are almost adopted villagers themselves.

I don't know that there is a similar coordinated effort happening in rural Alaska. While there are plenty of State, University, non-profit, Federal, and Native organizations that are working on Alaska Native issues, I suspect that there is not the same sort of long term involvement, trust, and empowerment that I see with my organization here and the villages they work with. My organization is part of several national and international networks all committed to a basic process of development.

If I understand this right, the irony may be that a lot of the inspiration comes from Western funded NGO's (non-governmental organizations). Certainly, one of the issues that I think most of the Thai organizations don't take too seriously, but all have in their missions if they have Western based international funding, is "gender issues." It's there because the funders require it. But the community development aspects they take very seriously, and at my organization, they realize the importance of the gender issue, but they just aren't sure quite what to do with it.

As I compare Alaska and Thailand on this (and my Alaska knowledge here is based on a lot of glimpses into what's happening, but no serious, comprehensive study) I'm struck by one significant difference.

In the US, the focus for improvement is based on the individual. The individual must learn how to get a job, how to support a family, etc.

With my organization here, the focus is on the macro environment and how it affects life for Thai villagers. This includes things like how International Trade Agreements affect the price of rice or corn or rubber. How the importation of Western financial systems has changed how Thais think about land - from the source of life to commodity - and how this affect farmers. This is the sort of thing Phil Munger is doing when he talks about the fishing industry's likely role in the decline of salmon for subsistence in the Yukon. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the story, there aren't enough facts or links to supporting data. But the focus is right. And the approach of the organization I'm working with is that the answers have to be community answers. [The link to Phil's post isn't working for me, but I could get there by going to February 2009 and scrolling down to Tale of Two Rivers.]

These are broad generalizations. There is pressure to individualize problems here in Thailand too now. And Alaska Native organizations often emphasize community solutions. But I think, generally, this is a significant difference in approach. And my guess is that Europeans also think less in terms of individuals and more in terms of societal impacts on the individual. We know that Alaska Natives survived on their own for thousands of years before Caucasians came into their land. US organizations, like mine here in Thailand, would be emphasizing how changes brought by the US government, by missionaries, by State government, and industry have impacted Native abilities to survive on their own. Members of my organization have close relationships with villagers maintained through regular visits to the villages, multi-village leaders meetings, and visits to the Chiang Mai office by villagers. The villagers understand the organization has goals, but also that their well-being, independence, and ultimately sustainability are the goals the organization is seeking to help them achieve. I don't know that such efforts are going on like this in Alaska.


As you can see, these are still very much developing thoughts. But I do think that Alaska Native leaders might learn a lot by coming to Asia to see what organizations like mine are up to with local villages. My guess is that the approach is more sophisticated and better coordinated than what's happening in Alaska. But I also think that local villagers here would benefit from visiting Alaska Native villages.

The villager that J is tutoring in English is headed for the Asian Rural Institute at the end of March for nine months of training in sustainable and organic agriculture as well as 'servant leadership' and community development training. I would guess that Alaska Native villagers would benefit from that program as well. A similar program that focuses more on the climate of the north might be more appropriate, but I'm not sure what exists.

There are no easy answers. But my organizations understands that power and politics are important parts of the equation and they have attorneys helping with legal matters and they negotiate with government officials on policy.

OK, I'm rambling. Time to stop. Consider these thoughts that are still in the preparation stage, but I'm putting them out here to try to make sense of what I'm seeing.