Modern Siam and the Map title Deed

2004

In 1982 the population of Thailand was about 48 million and there was increasing pressure on land resources. This paper describes how the Department of Lands designed and implemented a 20 year Land Titling Program (LTP) to grant secure tenure to agricultural landholders. The success of the land-titling program in Thailand has been due to a number of factors. A major factor has been the clear vision for the project, the long-term plan to achieve this vision and the commitment of RTG and the key stakeholders to project implementation. There was a strong policy, legal and institutional framework for land administration in Thailand. Thailand had a long history of land titling and a well developed legal framework that required minimal changes. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect official views of the

Land Research Action Network (LRAN) Briefing Paper Series No. 4 : New Challenges and Strategies in the Defense of Land and Territory, 2018

This article examines the experience of two communities in Thailand that show how the use of a community land title can serve to counter the centralized land management in the country. Community land titling is a process pursued by local people to become empowered by managing their resources and eventually initiating participatory development and exercising democracy.

From time immemorial until the decree of 7 April 1861, all land belonged to the Thai king. This paper explores what this meant in practice, over time. In pre-modern times, land ideally could be inherited, but this could be overruled by the king. Taking and exploiting a piece of land meant that the owner would be registered and taxed. In the Chaophraya Delta, where waterways were the dominant means of water transport, two separate types of housing developed: the house-boat and houses on rafts. The latter form of high-density living on the water was only abandoned in the second half of the nineteenth century. Finally, the question of occupying land is looked at from the perspective of the commoner.

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2016

Political Geography, 2007

This paper explores the geopolitics surrounding the “modernization” of the formal property rights regime in land in Thailand (formerly Siam) from the mid 1850s to the late 1930s. The paper argues that this weak, peripheral state, in pursuit of international recognition of territorial and jurisdictional sovereignty, employed a strategy of “counter-spatialization” in order to mitigate or deny claims for control over natural resources and population groups by imperial powers. The intertextual dimensions of this “spatial” mode of resistance are elucidated through a close reading of the ways in which diplomatic negotiations of a series of unequal treaties, beginning with the Anglo-Siamese treaty of 1855, shaped—and were shaped by—the formulation and implementation of regulations governing formal property rights in land in Siam. The political economy of land rights at the large scale (local implementation of land titling) and the medium scale (enactment of national land laws) was nested within a process of geopolitical contestation over land rights at the small scale (international recognition of Siamese territorial sovereignty).

The 13th International Conference on Thai Studies: Proceedings, vol. 2, Chiang Mai: ICTS 13 Conference Secretariat, pp. 739–753, 2018

It has been noted that during the Rattanakosin Period in Siam, as well as during the Konbaung Dynasty in Burma, the central administration tended to grow more literate as well as more dependent on routines. While I have previously examined the processes used to deal with documents exchanged between the Siamese government and provincial officials during this period, actual paperwork, especially written communication within the Central Government, warrants further consideration. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the paperwork process followed by the government during the reign of King Rama III (1824-51), using documents that relate to the receipt of tax-in-kind (suai) sent from the provinces as examples. From the 1820s onwards, the Bangkok government increasingly imposed tax-in-kind on the provinces, especially northeastern Thailand. This was one reason why more documents entered circulation, not just between the government and provincial officials, but also between governmental agencies. Provincial authorities under the jurisdiction of the Mahātthai ministry sent tax as well as reports to their superiors, while Mahātthai officials forwarded tax and another kind of document to a variety of departments referred to as Phrakhlang. After weighing these tax enclosures, departments informed the Mahātthai of the taxed amount by subsequently returning receipts. The aim of this paper is to examine the extrinsic elements and textual formats of documents used in this process, the officials that dealt with them, and relationships between them and tax records. By understanding them, we can elucidate the routines of day-today work, administrative communication between governmental agencies, and the development of archives.

Survey Review, 1987

Society & Natural Resources, 1996

In Thailand, as elsewhere, the administrative definition of forest has changed from one based on classification by species to one based on territory. This process was an important facet of the more general process by which the central government claimed a monopoly on the administration of property rights to natural resources. The process took place in three stages: First, the government declared that all territory not claimed by permanent cultivators or other government agencies was forest under the jurisdiction of the Royal Forestry Department. Second, it demarcated the forests into reserve and protected forests. Third, it mapped all forest land as well as nonforest land according to land use classifications, which became the basis for policies to control occupation and use. These strategies did not allow for local input into land use planning. As a result of this lack of state capacity, and interbureaucratic competition, the Thai government failed to control rural land use.

Journal of Asian Studies, 1997

Review of "Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-body of a Nation." By Thongchai Winichakul. Journal of Asian Studies 56,1: 279-281. 1997