ชีวิตวัยรุ่นปกาเกอะญอในสังคมสมัยใหม่ (

Abstract

This paper attempts to understand the world and life of the Pga k’ nyau youths in a modern society amidst the social and economic changes. This has led the migration of them from their hometowns into Chiang Mai city. It examines how the youth have appropriated the image of Pga k’ nyau which is seen as being marginalized in the Thai society, and looks at how the Pga k’ nyau youths construct cultural strategies and adaptation in identifying themselves between their hometowns and urban settings, including how they redefine their cultural value and attitude in life.

The findings show that under the situation that the Pga k’ nyau youths learn and interact with different groups of people, they have created their world and life experience which are alienated from the majority in the city and from their own Pga k’ nyau society. Therefore, they have developed adapting strategies at both individual and group levels. At individual level, the Pga k’ nyau have renamed themselves in order to sound more fashionable. They tend to gain higher education as well as to collect economic capitals. They employ assimilating strategies through clothing, beauty discourse construction, language usage, consumption, and relationship between men and women. At the group level, the Pga k’ nyau youths build their own space in order to be part of teenager groups and the urbanized society through both formal and informal organizations. Formal organizations are such as religious groups and non-governmental organizations while relative relations and groups of friends or lovers are seen as informal socialization. Furthermore, the attempt to link their life in the city with the village by traversing between their hometowns and the new setting is an aim to seek an acceptation as a member of their family and hometown. This results in contestation of identification of themselves towards the city, their

villages, and their own future life.