The Framing and Mobilization of Social Movement against the Wang Hip Project in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province

Abstract

This research aimed to study the formation of the movement and the causes of the mobilization against the Wang Hip project, and to study the framing process and the conditions affecting the sustained strength and the success of the movement against the Wang Hip project. It was qualitative research, with data collected from relevant documents, non participant observation, and in-depth interviews with the relevant stakeholder groups, comprising both government officials and the villagers’ core leaders who opposed the project.

The research found that: 1) The movement against the Wang Hip project, under the name of the Wang Hip Watershed Forest Conservation Group, was formed because this project impacted villagers’ ways of life and their livelihoods. The cause of the mobilization lay in state agencies’ destruction of the villagers' trust in the project itself, in its substantive, procedural, and relational aspects alike. 2) The movement constructed a diagnostic frame, diagnosing the problems that led to the mobilization as: development policy not consistent with community ways of life; the problem of injustice in the state's management of natural resources; the problem of unequal power structures in water resource management; and the problem of interests in implementing the Wang Hip project. That diagnostic frame gave rise to a prognostic frame, namely the proposal of other alternatives for water management, and ways forward for the struggle, by declaring a stance prohibiting entry to the area for surveying, building networks, and using bodies of knowledge to build bargaining power with the state. As for the frame for motivating participation in the movement, it motivated by employing rousing words, namely “No talking, no negotiating,” together with raising the issue of family values, that this project would cause families to break apart. As for the conditions affecting the sustained strength and the success of the social movement, the main factors were found to be organizational strength, cognitive liberation, and political opportunity structure. Although the Wang Hip Watershed Forest Conservation Group had limited resources and a high level of grievance, it was nevertheless able to mobilize until it achieved success.