III. Acknowledgements
7. Conclusions
Second, translocal networks that rural households maintain and in which they are embedded are not only migration-related. As this study has revealed, migration-related translocal networks are more relevant among poor households than among better-off households and are restricted to particular agricultural innovations. Migration-related translocal networks nourish coping and to a certain ex-tent adaptive capacity, but rarely provide transformative capacity for escaping the status quo of mar-ginalized small-scale farming. In contrast, formal translocal networks are particularly relevant among better-off households providing advice and finance required for the transformation towards large-scale crop farming. In the form of top-down-organized extension systems around cash-crop farming, formal translocal networks facilitate rapid agricultural changes. While the market- and policy-driven transition towards cash-crop farming promotes economic growth and income, it comes at the cost of social and environmental consequences that threaten the resilience of the farming sys-tem in the long run.
Third, in order to evaluate the role of migration-related translocal networks in the resilience of rural livelihoods, they need to be seen in the context of ongoing rural transformation in Northeast Thai-land, as well as in many rural areas of the Global South (Rigg 2006: Rigg and Salamanca 2011; Rigg et al 2012), in which delocalization through migration is only one aspect among others. As outlined in this study, In Northeast Thailand, market and state-driven interventions have resulted in the formali-zation of social networks, with massive consequences for rural societies and their natural environ-ment. Accordingly, focusing too narrowly on migration-related translocal networks, while losing sight of formal translocal networks, would lead to a skewed assessment of the potential of migration in resilience-building.
In sum, these conclusions call into question an overly positive view of migration and translocal con-nectedness as a means of resilience-building, which prevails in current scientific and political de-bates. As outlined above, the delocalization of rural livelihoods through migration is only one aspect of rural transformation and does not necessarily provide an avenue for escaping rural poverty. Obvi-ously, in the researched study sites, geographical mobility has resulted in the diversification of rural livelihood resources and in the expansion of social networks far beyond community boundaries.
However, geographical mobility does not monotonically relate with social mobility (Rigg 2006), nor does resilience necessarily lead to increased well-being (Tebboth et al. 2019). Instead, this study suggests that, in the context of the delocalization of rural livelihoods, the status of poor households is shifting from “old” poverty characterized by immobility and resource limitations to “new” poverty characterized by mobility under precarious conditions (Rigg 2006; Rigg and Oven 2015; Porst and Sakdapolrak 2018). This assessment is in line with other critical voices, emphasizing that translocal livelihoods and related translocal networks are a product of structural and spatial inequality and tend to reinforce rather than even out social inequality and spatial disparity (Bott et al. 2020;
Steinbrink and Niedenführ 2020).
Translocal social networks are not only sources of resilience that are unequally viable and unequally beneficial among households, they have consequences for humans the environment in the long run.
In Northeast Thailand, the delocalization of rural livelihoods through migration and translocal net-works fosters social resilience at the household level. At the same time, it accentuates the marginali-zation of small-scale farmers and fosters the transition towards market-oriented crop production which, in turn, challenges the resilience of the overall farming system. This highlights that in SES, social resilience is inseparably linked with ecological resilience (Folke et al. 2010), an aspect which migration and translocality studies all too often fail to address.
As a matter of fact in many rural societies around the globe, networked translocal livelihoods should no longer be ignored by community-centric research or by space-blind development policies.
Although translocal networks should not be overestimated as a panacea for rural development, a
structural understanding of the translocal embeddedness and connectedness of rural households is a prerequisite for building resilient rural livelihoods. A structural translocal social network perspective as applied in the context of this study has proven a fruitful means to this end.
A structural translocal social network perspective also offers itself as a corrective to migration and translocality studies which, despite conceptual claims, rarely refer to social networks as an analytical concept. On the basis of two empirical studies in Northeast Thailand, this study has shed light on some conceptual fallacies underlying social capital and diffusion research, and has revealed blind spots in translocality research, including a preoccupation with networks of strong and bonding ties, a focus on migration-related translocal networks, and a connectionist bias regarding the diffusion of innovations. However, adapting the overly rigid framework of SNA to the multifaceted and complex realities of translocal rural livelihoods is a non-trivial endeavor. Key challenges include, inter alia, the definition of adequate network boundaries, the addressing of spatial and temporal dynamics, net-work context, and gendered power imbalances. First step towards overcoming these challenges have been provided by this study.
In order to better leverage the potential of translocal social networks for building resilient liveli-hoods in an increasingly connected world, more research is needed on how to strengthen the posi-tive aspects while mitigating negaposi-tive consequences of migration and translocal livelihoods. Inspiring examples of how the potential of migration and translocal networks can be leveraged for inclusive community-based adaptation are provided by the recently published practitioner’s guide “Migration as Adaptation” (TransRe 2018).