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Some of the outcomes of the survey were quite surprising. First of all, there are already widespread private ownership claims to plots of land both of rice fields and of dry fields, contrary to the general understanding―and persistent claims by local informants―which suggest predominantly communal ownerships (i.e. controlled by lineage houses―the tongkonan). Secondly, both ownership patterns and cultivation patterns of rice fields and dry fields are skewed with significant percentages of landlessness. The top 5% of largest rice field owners own more than 55% of total rice field, while the top 5% of largest dry field owners claim about 60% of all dry field. When it comes to actually working on the land, the degrees of concentration are somewhat less with 5% of largest rice field operators cultivate 38.55% of rice fields, and the 5% top dry field operators operate slightly more than half of all dry land. While tenancy in the forms of sharecropping and pawning are common, fixed-rate tenancy is not. There are about 30% rice field owner-operators, and about the same number of rice field tenant households, who own no rice field. More than half of dry land operators, however, are owner-operators. Extra household laborers are used for various works in the fields but especially for harvesting in rice fields. The presentation will be concluded with some preliminary notes on agrarian differentiation in Tana Toraja.

In Thailand, during the recent decades, transnational marriage between rural Thai women and ? predominantly European ? Western men is one a striking social phenomenon in current Northeastern (locally known as Isaan) Thai society. A preliminary survey conducted by the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) in 2003 indicated that 19,594 women in 19 northeastern provinces married to foreigners. Statistics also indicated that in some rural villages women around one-third of the total households are engaged in these transnational relationships. Although intermarriage is not a recent phenomenon in Thai society, the current phenomenon of transnational marriages, however, provides a different scenario. The most obvious difference is the drastic increase in terms of quantity ? particularly in this recent decade. It is also observed that there are many more women from rural communities, particularly in Isaan, engaging in these relationships than women from any other region or social class. The dynamics of these relationships also differ in that it is more common now for women to not permanently leave their families and communities of origin to earn a living in the husband’s country. Meanwhile, there are also growing numbers of Western partners who move to live with their wives in rural villages for some period of time every year. In these contemporary situations, then, the couple is mobile more often than in the past.

This research aims to explore the development and dynamics of cross-cultural marriage in Thai society and its relation to the current phenomenon of transnational marriage between rural Isaan women and western men. It also seeks to review how this phenomenon has been conceptualized under the dynamics of the Thai as well as global contexts. Based on documentary studies, the research is divided into two major parts. The first part deals with cross-cultural marriage, particularly between Thais and Westerners, in social history of Siam. The second part focuses more on dynamics of the phenomenon and the analytical approaches applied to capture the phenomenon.