From a Refuge to a Tea Place: the Tea Industry and the Emergence of Place at North Thai Borderland
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Hsu, Chun-Yi
Abstract
This paper traces the historical processes of agricultural transfer from Taiwan to north Thai border, especially on the most successful and rich village, Mae Salong. Based on actor-network theory and approach of relational geographies, I argue that agricultural transfer was not only a project which has erased opium production, counterpoised power geometry in highland of southeast Asia, but also a special element which has reconfigured the network of Yunnanese Chinese’ settlements. Moreover, the network reconfiguration has then reshaped the Nature-society relationship. Specially, I follow tea transfer trajectory — including Taiwan experts’ teaching, local farmers’ learning and innovation — to illustrate how the Taiwan oolong tea material and techniques have enacted all kinds of actants including taste of tea, shifting market, Yunnanese Chinese, tea making equipment, local image and community development organizations. Additionally, I argue that place is not an object to be constructed by social or other structures like nation state and market principles, but a performing effect from network stabilization. From the perspective of relationality, tea is not a fixed object to be operated and moved, it is a continually changing“thing” with every element and actant within network. I therefore argue that Mae Salong, as a famous and successful tea place, is more than a predictable outcome of the international agricultural project, but a string of actions assembled from heterogeneous and hybrid networks in contingent processes. By using heterogeneous perspective of Actor-Network Theory, tracing actions and conflicts, rather than by technology determinism and social constructivism, I could symmetrically realize how tea place making in Mae Salong: Rather than the ramifications of Taiwan oolong tea experts teaching or the predictable outcomes between power or international geopolitics and agricultural diplomat, the transformation process from a refugee camp to a tea place is hybrid of several contingent actions, which have been continuously stabilizing connection between tea industry and Mae Salong. Tea place, which performs local meaning, is emerging from a stabilized actor-network.
Subjects
Yunnanese Chinese
Mae Salong
Tea Industry
Place
Actor-Network Theory
SDGs
Type
thesis
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