抄録
While the subject of “moral economy” has rarely attracted attention in Southeast Asian studies, the African moral economy has recently been actively discussed by such scholars as G. Hyden and K. Sugimura, who aimto elucidate characteristics of the African economy by examining the locals’way of life as supported by everyday morals. This paper aims to provide another view of the African moral economy by investigating village economics in Southeast Asia, focusing, in particular, on livestock raising in the northeastern region of Thailand, known as Isan.
In Isan, where sticky rice is cultivated as the principle crop, water buffaloes were traditionally raised as draft animals. In the past, water buffaloes played various important roles, such as in economic risk management orin the reinforcement of social relations. However, since the 1970s, Isan villagers have experienced rapid social changes, and livestock raising too has changed. According to the national and provincial statistics, it is said that the importance of water buffaloes has declined through the 1990s and cattle raising has simultaneously emerged as a substitute.
However, such a macroscopic analysis does not reflect the reality of livestock raising in Isan. In this paper, we perform a more microscopic analysis of the change in the livestock population at a household level for theperiod 2001-2011 and try to identify the speculative trend of cattle raising and the durability of and change in water buffalo raising.
