Deliberative democracy : the social movement of civil society in land conflict management in Thaplan National Park, Wang Nam Khiao District, Nakhon Ratchasima province

Abstract

This study applied mixed-method approach to investigate deliberative democracy and social movements in the social context of land conflict resolution at Thaplan National Park. The aims of the study propose as followed: 1) to understand changes and challenges of social histories over Thai Samakkhi Subdistrict in Thaplan National Park, 2) to gain insights how citizens, civil society groups, and state deliberate on land and boundary conflict resolution through storytellings and narrative arguments on public forums, and 3) to investigate the relationships on the emotion, the situation, and the role of public deliberation. The archived qualitative inquiry and photovoice of qualitative inquiry help to capture how social histories and related evidences such as aerial photographs are essential in bring about land conflict resolution. For the in-depth interviews of 18 participants through storytellings in Chapter 5 Part I, the thematic narrative analysis revealed 4 main themes: a) taking account of reality on land conflict, b) encountering self-sympathy, c) engaging in public deliberation, and d) fostering compassion by deliberation. In addition, Narrative Arguments on Public Forums in Chapter 5 Part II illustrate how citizens, civil society, and state make validity on the sense of justice and rationality throughout the process of justification on arguments enough to affirm justice as fairness without the impacts of coercion on motivated agreement in positive driven-consensus to improve communities’ sustainability. Multiple regression brings about how the affection and situation appraisal of Thaplan NP significantly (p-value 0.01*) predict the role of public deliberation in four dimensions 1) expressing opinions 2) making decision, 3) justifying the arguments, and 4) learning on public forum. This finding pointed to the significant relationship of the affection and public deliberation. The suggestion on land conflict resolution proposed as follows: 1) The prospect of new boundary demarcation B.E. 2543 should be implemented due to the problem of land boundary of overlapped area. 2) The prospect of ALRO 4-01 document as proving land possession should be implemented. 3) The prospect of proving villagers’ right to have their legitimacy to settlement by investigating who have been living before/ after the announcement of national park B.E. 2524. 4) The social evidences of communities’ settlement before the announcement of national park B.E. 2524 were illustrated over the study; 5) The complicated administrative on the departments of the RFD, ALRO, Thaplan NP, and SAO need to be revised due to ineffective management. This study has concentrated on narratives to convey meaning as features of human communications on public deliberation; however, the land conflict resolution might be challenged due to limits of specific cases, lack of time and resources. Future research may consider in inclusion of wide rage population that helps in bring more fruitful to legitimacy of the prospect future.