This paper examines social development as a process and as a historically produced discourse before and during the crisis in Southeast Asia. Using the case of Thai social science in different historical periods — from distanced social science to socially engaged social science — to illustrate its relevance to social development, this paper argues that new modes of knowing is necessary to challenge, rethink, and reconstruct the role of social science based on situated knowledge and contextualised views expressed.
Thai Baan research was developed in the late 1990s as a counter-hegemonic, emancipatory means of knowledge production. Originally developed in the context of protests against a hydropower project, it aims at empowering socially and economically marginalized actors to create and represent their own knowledge and to regain authority in social struggles. This decolonial methodology, conceptualized by Thai academics in collaboration with non-academic actors, has remained largely unnoticed by Northern collaborative or transdisciplinary debates. Transdisciplinary research, although engaged in collaborative research designs, often remains silent on issues of power imbalances as constitutive of research processes. Criticizing the compartmentalization and limitation of academic knowledge production, transdisciplinarity realigns the scientific system of knowledge production to deal with 'real-world problems'. During the last three decades, transdisciplinarity has unfolded into a collaborative and integrative methodology implemented in a number of fields, such as sustainability, public health, and development planning. This article systematically introduces Thai Baan and transdisciplinarity as two approaches to collaborative research practice. It introduces the context of their emergence, sheds light on the respective notions of knowledge and science, and discusses their respective methodological designs. It is argued that both would benefit from a stronger epistemological foundation in decolonizing, liberating philosophies of science to enhance collaborative action, overcome North-South divisions, and foster global dialogues in emancipatory knowledge production. (ASEAS/GIGA)
A series of events following the 7 November 2010 election in Burma triggered a large-scale displacement of majority Karen people from eastern Burma to the Thai side of the border. The authors were involved in a research project in which narratives were collected from these people to gain an understanding of the impact of this displacement on their lives. The essentiality of spirituality within their religious belief was a significant theme that arose from the data. This article relates to this theme and highlights the importance of developing culturally competent, spiritually sensitive responses into social work practice when working with people who have experienced displacement and subsequent trauma in their lives.
Résumé Dans la culture karen traditionnelle, c'est essentiellement au sein de la famille que s'effectue l'éducation des enfants. Quand, au début des années 1970, Jonni Odochao a noté que ces derniers ne parvenaient plus à communiquer avec les anciens et qu'ils ne les respectaient plus, il a supposé que le problème venait du système éducatif moderne et de son influence grandissante sur les valeurs, les comportements et le mode de pensée de la jeunesse. Soucieux de contrer cette influence, il a mis en place une double stratégie. Inspiré par un vieux dicton karen, il a fédéré un large éventail de personnes aux compétences complémentaires afin de plaider pour une réforme de la législation. En parallèle, il a favorisé une réflexion sur la culture karen qui a connu un renouveau grâce à l'intégration de ses savoirs ancestraux dans le programme des écoles locales. À travers cette démarche, les Karen visent avant tout à mieux se faire comprendre de la société dans son ensemble et à réaffirmer leur rôle de gardiens de la forêt.
In Karen culture, the family is traditionally the basic unit for the education of the child. In the early 1970s, when Jonni Odochao began to notice that children could not relate to their elders or respect them, he surmised that the problem stemmed from the modern education system and its increasing influence upon youth values, behaviour and ways of thinking. To counter this trend he set in place a two‐pronged strategy. Inspired by an old Karen saying, a wide‐ranging alliance of persons with complementary expertise was established to advocate legislative change. In addition, Karen culture was reflected upon and revived by integrating traditional knowledge into the curricula of local schools. For the Karen, the ultimate goal is to be better understood by the society at large and to re‐establish their role as guardians of the forest.
In Karen culture, the family is traditionally the basic unit for the education of the child. In the early 1970s, when Jonni Odochao began to notice that children could not relate to their elders or respect them, he surmised that the problem stemmed from the modern education system and its increasing influence upon youth values, behaviour and ways of thinking. To counter this trend he set in place a two-pronged strategy. Inspired by an old Karen saying, a wide-ranging alliance of persons with complementary expertise was established to advocate legislative change. In addition, Karen culture was reflected upon and revived by integrating traditional knowledge into the curricula of local schools. For the Karen, the ultimate goal is to be better understood by the society at large and to re-establish their role as guardians of the forest. Adapted from the source document.
