A Community of monastic development practice: the formation of a nationwide collaborative development monk network

ABSTRACT

The importance of development strategies that emphasise local agency and authenticity has long been recognised, but these goals often preclude the access to the extralocal resources and knowledge systems available to large-scale top-down organisations. This paper presents the case of development monks in Thailand, who have recently begun selectively adopting the practices of their state and civil society collaborators. Modelled after the organisational structures of development NGOs, government agencies, and the Thai Sangha, development monk networks facilitate a community of monastic development of practice, through which practitioners’ skills are honed, resources are procured, and knowledge and meanings are shared and negotiated.

KEYWORDS:

• Development monks
• community of practice
• alternative development
• Thailand
• participation
• methods
• Southeast Asia

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Phrakhru Phothiwirakhun and all of my other informants, whose patient endurance of my interminable questions has made this research possible. This work was supported by a research grant from Khon Kaen University International College.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The term “community activism” may be more accurate, as many of the practices the word encompasses would not typically be considered “development,” but I have opted to use the local term here.

2 Lapthananon [2012a; 2012b], for example, has extensively catalogued the projects of those in the northeast.

3 A government owned and operated bank established to help rural farmers procure loans, employing a system of joint liability in lieu of collateral, in which individual failure to repay negatively affects the credit of their cooperative group (see Fitchett [1999]).

4 I give a detailed account of PKP’s digital centre in [reference anonymised].

5 For detailed accounts of this practice see Delcore (2004), Darlington (2012).

6 The word, tayad is typically translated as “heir” and was often used to refer to younger monks whom development monks attempt to recruit to carry on their projects.

7 They used the English term.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dylan Southard

Dylan Southard is an anthropologist with a PhD in Human Sciences from Osaka University. He is currently a lecturer in International Affairs at Khon Kaen University International College in Thailand.