Publication Code: Y93B
by Paritta Chalermpow Koanantakool and Marc Askew
This report presents a synthesis of documentary and case studies on the various aspects of socio-cultural changes in the ways of life of the people of Bangkok from the Second World War to the present. Its focus is on how the form and nature of personal relationships have been transformed in this period.
In postwar Bangkok, the social system was composed of a small aristocratic elite, incorporating a section of government officials and merchants, with a larger middle and lower middle-class of petty traders, then a broad stratum comprising craftsmen, labourers, fruit and vegetable cultivators and paddy farmers. Control of urban resources, land and access to the civil service which was a source of wealth and prestige was in the hands of the small elite. Thus, despite the heterogeneous nature of ways of earning a living, in general it may be said that forming a relationship with people in control of these resources was a necessary means to survive. So the relationship of superordinate and a subordinate was fundamental in social life. The underlying principle of this relationship was reciprocity, in the form of exchange between people with different levels of status and wealth. In that period urban life was comparatively locality-based, due to the pattern of combining work and living in the same place and low volume of travelling. The units of social organisation in which urban relationships were operational were the household and the community where relationships between parents-children and kinsmen and master-apprentice were the models of such reciprocal relationship.
The modernisation programmes starting in the early 1960's had far-reaching consequences on the life of these urban groups. On the way to modernity, they have been subjected to many levels of rapid relocation, physical-spatial, social and cultural. New forms of wealth, some induced by foreign capital, from commerce, banking, manufacturing industry or the tourism industry, become new resources to be controlled and shared by new groups of people. These new social groups have since emerged and become new actors in the social system. They can be grouped as the business elites, the middle class and the broad category of those less advantaged in the urban order, comprising slum dwellers, workers, and migrants.
New systems of work, mobility, and new patterns of land use all contribute to the reconfiguration of the units of social organisation. Household and community in the past were units based on a specific locality whereas by contrast the tendency in modern life is for interaction to be less and less space-bound. Urban people interact at home, workplace, shopping centres, rural villages, etc. as well as across space by means of communication technology. Thus units of social organisation, where relationships are experienced in a person's life, become more fragmented, and within each one the trend is for relationships to become less personal, more specialised and instant. But transition to modernity is a continuing process and both traditional and modern ways coexist. The new and emerging social groups are continually adjusting to the changing environment and make use of traditional practices for their benefits.
As Thailand moves rapidly into a phase of an advanced capitalist economy, what is experienced by urban people may be described as a set of dilemmas posed by conflicting values. In the traditional social system, based on small scale society and feudal control over resources, the superordinate-subordinate relationship is commonly understood and accepted as a means of building trust and long-term reciprocity between persons which resulted in system of resource distribution. In a new environment, when new forms of wealth and opportunity are open to new groups of actors, the cultural values and meanings of such a relationship are ambiguous. For some, whose chance of capital accumulation is limited and whose place in the economic structure is insecure, the superordinate-subordinate relationship offers livelihood and welfare. Ironically for those who are in control of power and resources, it too can be means of securing more. For those whose place in the economic structure is more secure by virtue of their specialisation, it may be regarded as a form of nepotism destructive to fair competition.
Meanwhile pluralism and complexity in the urban system have necessarily given rise to a whole host of secondary relationships and corporate and bureaucratic interfaces that mediate between groups or facilitate activities and services. This has been inevitable and there is little doubt that such a process will continue.
Coupled with the widening gap in terms of income, opportunity, and security among urban groups, the challenge for government, agencies, communities and individuals will be to maintain some sort of balance between the necessities of change, the inevitability of large scale management of conflicts in the interests of equity in the urban and national arena, and the maintenance of a sense of cultural continuity and meaning.
December 1993