This paper discusses the role of agricultural extension agents in the Philippine government’s organic farming promotion service. In the late 2000s, public agricultural extension agencies started to expand and promote organic farming, an agricultural innovation, in order to increase farmers’ income and enter the global organic market. However, organic farming is conceptually and technologically broad and incongruous with the government’s strategic promotion of the Green Revolution. Analyses of crop cultivation and food habits in the field reveal a gap between the goals of policies to promote organic farming and the local situation in terms of crops and agricultural inputs. Agricultural extension agents are expected to bridge this gap by generating solutions using existing natural resources and technologies available in villages. Observation of and participation in the extension activities of agricultural extension agents working with local residents suggests the need to move beyond the conventional discussion of a single linear extension model and to consider agricultural extension agents as “collaborators ” with farmers.

Sanitary workers in Sri Lanka are employed by municipalities, and in parts of the country they tend to live together in crowded settlements with line-houses. Since the colonial period, migrant workers from South India have comprised a major segment of the sanitary workforce, and in general discourse they are identified as “Indian Tamils” and “low castes/ untouchables.” Such discourse is also adopted by some scholars to explain the discrimination against them. However, my observation has revealed that many of them refer to themselves not as “Indian Tamil” but as “Sri Lankan Tamil,” defined generally as Tamils who have been on the island for centuries. The only study about the sanitary workers’ community in Sri Lanka (written in English) [Silva et al. 2009] seems to overlook this narrative by the community’s members.

Following an earlier study about the sociality and sense of belongingness of estate worker Tamils [Suzuki S. 鈴木晋介 2013], this article examines the practices and narratives of the members of a sanitary workers’ community in Northwestern Province. It tries to interpret their sense of belongingness without confirming objectively their ethnic identity. This examination reveals that, far from being a false pretense to achieve fake identity as “Sri Lankan Tamils” who are not or less discriminated against, or an incorrect self-representation due to ignorance about the definition of ethnicity, the narrative is a performative articulation of their longing to maintain a relationship with ethnic others with whom they share the everyday local world.

The Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) is a mechanism for supplying foreign workers as technical intern trainees to Japanese companies encountering labour shortages, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. Previous studies reveal that despite the growing number and importance of TITP workers, their lives—professional and personal—and rights in Japan are constrained because of Japan’s rules and regulations. I argue that the mediation between actors at the structural level, from both migrant-receiving and migrant-sending countries involved in labour migration, such as the governments of the two countries, entrepreneurs who receive migrant workers, and recruiting agencies, should be considered transnationally. Through a case study of TITP workers from Thailand—a prominent supplier of TITP workers to Japan—this study analyses the constraints and/or restrictions on the migratory capabilities of Thai workers. These constraints and/or restrictions have continually emerged throughout the course of TITP implementation because of the mediation between concerned parties on both the Japanese and Thai sides. This study has implications for understanding the lives of migrant workers who are conditioned by structural factors.