• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Usage et tenure des terres chez les Lua' (Thailande)
  • Contributor: Kunstadter, Peter
  • Published: PERSEE Program, 1974
  • Published in: Études rurales, 53 (1974) 1, Seite 449-466
  • Language: French
  • DOI: 10.3406/rural.1974.4865
  • ISSN: 0014-2182
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: <jats:p>Land-Use and Land-Tenure among the Lua ' (Thailand). </jats:p> <jats:p>Lua' farmers in the hills of northwestern Thailand organize their villages around the activities of swidden agriculture. Their traditional farming methods allowed them to conserve their land resources and maintain permanently settled villages with a relatively high standard of living. Since the middle of the 19th century they have faced increasing competition in the hills from growing populations of Karen and Meo swiddeners. They have lost the security of their land titles granted them by the princes of northern Thailand, and have been subject to increasing regulation of their land-use by the central government. Lua' individuals have responded to these outside changes by supplementing their swidden production with irrigated agriculture, seeking wage work for lowland employers, adopting less expensive forms of religion, and by changing their ethnic identity and migrating to the lowlands when life in the hills becomes too difficult. </jats:p> <jats:p>These responses have allowed Lua' hill villages to reduce population growth, maintain their ethnic identity and persist as land holding units despite continued loss of land. They have done so while losing their position as lords of the hills, and with a steady decline in their standard of living.</jats:p>