Walking a new path of life: learning tours, ‘agro‐forestry’ and the transformation of the village of Bann Na Isarn, Thailand

Abstract

Rural areas in both developed and developing countries are being increasingly marginalized through structural changes. Furthermore, the disinvestment in state‐provided supports and services means that rural people are left to their own devices to cope with these changes. Numerous authors argue that the most effective way of dealing with these challenges and changes is through informal learning and local knowledge construction. One way of facilitating this type of local informal learning is through learning tours, which can be best understood as organized conversations. This study asked the question: what impact does participation in a learning tour have on the participants in the learning tour, the non‐participants and the community in general? We begin by developing a theoretical framework that integrates community capitals with the principles of working knowledge. Using this theoretical framework, we then employ a case study design, looking at how one person's learning in the rural Thai village of Bann Na Isarn changes his life, the lives of those around him, his community and other communities in the surrounding area. The study concludes that it is the tension between the individual and the structural that fosters social and community change, that local learning can be an effective strategy for mitigating the impact of capitalist ideology and development while at the same time improving the quality of local life, and that local informal learning is a rich complex process that must be understood as being embedded within a specific context.

Notes

1. Learning tours are a form of informal learning that take place through organized conversations and demonstrations for the purpose of sharing knowledge, practices and techniques. The resource person chooses what to share and how to share it with the participants, and the materials and techniques are drawn from their own experience, and hence constitute local knowledge (as opposed to formal knowledge). In the case of the research reported here, learning tours are organized around themes of agro‐forestry and community development.

2. The model presented by Flora (2001: 10) has been adapted by placing a broken line between natural capital, suggesting a permeable barrier between it and the other forms of community capital. In addition, the other forms of community capital have been placed in a container, indicating that the development of forms of community capital other than natural capital takes place in a context determined by natural capital.

3. Dr. Piyaporn Thacheen, who is a Thai national, conducted the fieldwork for this study.

4. While Dr. Thacheen was involved in some of the community development activities while in Bann Na Isarn, she did not initiate these actives but merely volunteered to assist with assigned tasks.

5. Baht is the Thai currency. At the time that the data were collected, 28 baht were equal to one Canadian dollar.

6. While we only report specifically on Liam's learning in this article, the learning of the other four participants were dealt within in detail in the larger project and each of the individual learning journeys followed a similar trajectory. However, in this article we are interested in tracing the how the initial learning, which in this case came from Liam, spread through the community. Hence we focused on Liam's individual learning rather than the individual learning of the other participants. For a complete description of each individual's learning see Thacheen (2004).

7. 2.5 rai is equal to 1 acre.

8. There is a broad and diverse literature pertaining to the practice of agro‐forestry. Agro‐forestry has been defined in many ways, including ‘the traditional practice of growing trees on farms for the benefit of the farm family and for the environment’ (Sanchez 1999: 275); ‘the practice of focussing on the role of tress on farms and agricultural landscapes to meet the triple bottoms line of economic, social, and ecological needs in today's world’ (Garrity 2004: 6); ‘the deliberate association of trees and other woody species with crops and animals on the same piece of land’ (Asafo et al. 2004: 165); and ‘land‐use systems in which trees or shrubs are grown in association with agricultural crops, pastures or livestock, and in which there are both ecological and economic interactions between the trees and other components’ (Poku 2004: 155). However, given the purpose of this research to look at the learning that took place through learning tours and its impact upon community sustainability, we accept the more parochial definition offered and adhered to by the participants in the study, while acknowledging that there is an extensive research literature on agro‐forestry.

9. For example, prior to practising agro‐forestry, Liam had a debt of 100,000 baht. By practising agro‐forestry Liam has reduced his debt to 57,000 baht by 2002.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Piyaporn Thacheen

Piyaporn Thacheen is a recent graduate of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D, Rural Studies Program, University of Guelph, Canada.

Allan C. Lauzon

Allan C. Lauzon is an associate professor in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph, Canada.