Evolving Pathways of Departure and Return in Rural Thailand
2026-07-10
This paper draws on a forty‐year longitudinal (1982–2022) village study of Thailand to reflect on how circulation persists, but in new ways. We trace evolving migration flows over a period during which Thailand progressed from low‐income to upper‐middle‐income status, and Non Tae and Tha Song Korn from semi‐subsistence rice‐growing communities to increasingly prosperous settlements with multi‐stranded livelihoods. Villagers accumulated considerable educational capital and left the villages in growing numbers to find work in other places and sectors. They also, however, in large part also returned, raising questions about linear and one‐directional theories of agrarian and mobility transition. It is argued that departure and return continue to be co‐produced in response to conditions in the villages and the wider Thai economy. Circulation is a central element in understanding Thailand's truncated agrarian transition, and vice vera.