When Farmers’ Life Hangs by a Thread: New Enclosure and Manufactured Uncertainty in The EEC’s Backyard

Abstract

The Prachinburi farmers' life began to uncertain after the land boom, a number of agricultural lands had been transferred and bought by capitalists and local influencers over the past three decades. When farmers have land restrictions or lack of land, it affects the uncertainty in production, livelihoods, and decisions. Understanding the experiences of farmers and the process of transition from an agricultural society to a backyard industrial area, especially to support the expansion of the Eastern Economic Corridor Project (EEC). This work uses the concept of New Enclosure to reflect that the uncertain lives of farmers are not occurred naturally by the market force or the result of the farmer’s actions, but uncertainty is manufactured or created in response to the goals of expanding and reproducing capital accumulation through both economic and extra-economic operations for separating farmers from their land. However, farmers are presenting the global food base landscape as a strategy: to reflect the impact of the new enclosure process and the manufactured uncertainty; and to provide a basis for shaping hope and coping with uncertainties.