Abstract
Conceptualizing environmental problems as sustainability problems contributing to local and global environmental change requires an understanding of how societies cope with their natural environment. Indicators for society–nature interactions are fairly well developed for national-level analyses. This study adapts some of these indicators to the local level and relates them to a qualitative assessment of economic and cultural change in a single community. Indicators are derived from material and energy flow accounting methods and address two major objectives: Firstly, to identify mutual influences between the global and the local level. Secondly, to assess future potentials of environmental pressures and impacts that can be expected to occur as such communities follow a path of further modernization. This study of a small rice-farming community in Northeast Thailand deals with physical as well as sociocultural aspects in order to produce a broad picture of society–nature relations. The indicators developed portray a society in the midst of transition and rapid modernization. This becomes apparent when comparing the results to those of similar studies in traditional and industrial societies. What we see is a community struggling to adapt to global influences, while at the same time maintaining subsistence with traditional coping mechanisms.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adriaanse, A., Bringezu, S., Hammond, A., Moriguchi, Y., Rodenberg, E., Rogich, D., and Schütz, H. (1997). Resource Flows: The Material Basis of Industrial Economies, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
Ayres, R. U., and Kneese, A. V. (1969). Production, consumption and externalities. American Economic Review 59: 282.
Ayres, R. U., and Simonis, U. E. (1994). Industrial Metabolism, Restructuring for Sustainable Development, United Nations University Press, Tokyo.
Bello, W., Cunningham, S., and Li, K. P. (1998). A Siamese Tragedy. Development and Disintegration in Modern Thailand, Zed, New York.
Bobst, B. W., Burris, A. E., and Hall, H. H. (1980). Enterprise selection and farm employment in Northeast Thailand. Journal of Developing Areas 14(3): 349–359.
Boulding, K. E. (1973). The economics of the coming spaceship earth. In Daly, H. E. (ed.), Towards a Steady State Economy, Freeman, San Francisco, CA, pp. 3–14.
Boyden, S. V. (1992). Biohistory: The Interplay Between Human Society and the Biosphere—Past and Present, UNESCO and Parthenon Publishing Group, Paris.
Bringezu, S., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Kleijn, R., and Palm, V. (eds.) (1997). Regional and national material flow accounting: From paradigm to practice of sustainability. In Proceedings of the ConAccount Workshop, Leiden, The Netherlands, Jan. 21–23, 1997, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Wuppertal.
Cannell, M. G. R. (1982). World Forest Biomass and Primary Production Data, Academic Press, London.
Cohen, E. (ed.) (1991). Bangkok and Isan: The dynamics of emergent regionalism in Thailand. In Studies in Contemporary Thailand, Vol. 1: Thai Society in Comparative Perspective, White Lotus, Bangkok, pp. 67–88.
Dahlan, H. M., Jusoh, H., Yun, H. A., and Hui, O. J. (eds.) (1997). ASEAN in the Global System, Penerbit University, Kebangsaan, Malaysia.
De Angelis, D. L., Gardner, R. H., and Shugart, H. H. (1981). Productivity of forest ecosystems studied during the IBP: The woodland data set. In Reichle, D. E. (ed.), Dynamics of Forest Ecosystems, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 567–672.
Dutt, G. S., and Ravindranath, N. H. (1993). Bioenergy: Direct applications in cooking. In Johansson, T. B., Kelly, H., Reddy, A. K. N., and Williams, R. H. (eds.), Renewable Energy, Sources for Fuels and Electricity, Earthscan, Island Press, London, pp. 653–697.
Elton, C. S. (1958). The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants, Methuen, London.
Eurostat (2001). Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounts and Derived Indicators. A Methodological Guide, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg.
Fischer-Kowalski, M. (1997). Society's metabolism, on the childhood and adolescence of a rising conceptual star. In Redclift, M., and Woodgate, G. (eds.), The International Handbook of Environmental Sociology, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 119–137.
Fischer-Kowalski, M. (1998). Society's metabolism, the intellectual history of materials flow analysis, Part I, 1860–1970. Journal of Industrial Ecology 2: 611.
Fischer-Kowalski, M., and Haberl, H. (1993). Metabolism and colonization, modes of production and the physical exchange between societies and nature. Innovation in Social Sciences Research 6: 415.
Fischer-Kowalski, M., and Haberl, H. (1997). Tons, joules, and money: Modes of production and their sustainability problems. Society and Natural Resources 10: 61.
Fischer-Kowalski, M., and Weisz, H. (1999). Society as hybrid between material and symbolic realms, toward a theoretical framework of society–nature interrelation. Advances in Human Ecology 8: 215.
Foster, J. B. (2000). Marx's Ecology. Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, New York.
Fritsche, U. R., Buchert, M., Hochfeld, C., Jenseits, W., Matthes, F. C., Rausch, L., Stahl, H., and Witt, J. (1997). Gesamt-Emissions-Modell Integrierter Systeme (GEMIS) Version 3.0, öko-Institut e.V., im Auftrag des Hessischen Ministeriums für Umwelt, Energie, Jugend und Gesundheit, Darmstadt, Freiburg, Berlin.
Fukui, H. (1993). Food and Population in a Northeast Thai Village, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.
Gross, D. R. (1990). Ecosystems and methodological problems in ecological anthropology. In Moran, E. F. (ed.), The Ecosystem Approach in Anthropology. From Concept to Practice, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, pp. 309–319.
Haberl, H. (1997). Human appropriation of net primary production as an environmental indicator: Implications for sustainable development. Ambio 26: 143.
Haberl, H. (2001a). The energetic metabolism of societies, Part I: Accounting concepts. Journal of Industrial Ecology 5(1): 11–33.
Haberl, H. (2001b). The energetic metabolism of societies, Part II: Empirical examples. Journal of Industrial Ecology 5(2): 71–88.
Hanks, L. M. (1992). Rice and Man. Agricultural Ecology in Southeast Asia, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.
Hirsch, P. (ed.) (1997). Seeing Forests for Trees. Environment and Environmentalism in Thailand, Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai.
Ireson, W. R. (1995). Village irrigation in Laos: Traditional patterns of common property resource management. Society and Natural Resources 8: 541–558.
Keyes, C. F. (1995). The Golden Peninsula. Culture and Adaptation in Mainland Southeast Asia, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.
KKU-Ford Cropping Systems Project (1982). An Agroecosystem Analysis of Northeast Thailand, Faculty of Agriculture, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen.
Klausner, W. J. (1993). Reflections on Thai Culture. Collected Writings of William J. Klausner, Siam Society, London.
Krausmann, F. (2001). Land use and industrial modernization. An empirical analysis of human influence on the functioning of ecosystems in Austria. Land Use Policy 18: 17–26.
Kriengkraipetch, S. (1989). Thai folk beliefs about animals and plants and attitudes toward nature. In Siam Society (ed.), Culture and Environment in Thailand, Duang Kamol, Bangkok, pp. 195–211.
Kunstadter, P. (1967). Thailand: Introduction. In Kunstadter, P. (ed.), Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations, Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp. 369–400.
Lebar, F. M., Hickey, G., and Musgrave, J. K. (1964). Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia, Human Relations Area Files, New Haven.
Lieth, H., and Whittaker, R. H. (1975). Primary Productivity of the Biosphere, Springer, Berlin.
Long, S. P., Jones, M. B., and Roberts, M. J. (1992). Primary Productivity of Grass Ecosystems, Chapman and Hall, London.
Martinez-Alier, J., and Schlüpmann, K. (1987). Ecological Economics. Energy, Environment and Society, Blackwell, Oxford.
Matthews, E., Amann, C., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Hüttler, W., Kleijn, R., Moriguchi, Y., Ottke, C., Rodenburg, E., Rogich, D., Schandl, H., Schütz, H., Voet, E. V. D., and Weisz, H. (2000). The Weight of Nations, Material Outflows From Industrial Economies, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
Mehta, L., and Winiwarter, V. (1998). Verrückte Akazie. In Haberl, H., Kotzmann, E., and Weisz, H. (eds.), Technologische Zivilisation und Kolonisierung von Natur, Springer, Wien, pp. 89–94.
Moermann, M. (1968). Agricultural Change and Peasant Choice in a Thai Village, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Mulder, N. (1992). Inside Thai Society. An Interpretation of Everyday Life, Duang Kamol, Bangkok.
Netting, R. McC. (1993). Smallholders, Householders. Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Porpora, D., and Lim, M. H. (1987). The political economic factors of migration to Bangkok. Journal of Contemporary Asia 17(1): 76–89.
Ramitanondh, S. (1989). Forests and deforestation in Thailand: A pandisciplinary approach. In Siam Society (ed.), Culture and Environment in Thailand, Duang Kamol, Bangkok, pp. 23–50.
Rodin, L. E., Bazilevich, N. I., and Rozov, N. N. (1975). The productivity of the world's main ecosystems. In Productivity of World Ecosystems, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, pp. 13–26.
Sakamoto, S. (1996). Glutinous-endosperm starch food culture specific to Eastern and Southeastern Asia. In Ellen, R., and Fukui, H. (eds.), Redifining Nature. Ecology, Culture and Domestication, Berg, Oxford, pp. 215–232.
Schandl, H., and Schulz, N. (2000). Using Material Flow Accounting to Operationalize the Concept of Society's Metabolism. A Preliminary MFA for the United Kingdom for the Period of 1937–1997, Institute for Social & Economic Research (ISER) working paper Number 2000–3, University of Essex, Essex.
Sieferle, R. P. (1997). Rückblick auf die Natur: Eine Geschichte des Menschen und seiner Umwelt, Luchterhand, München.
Singh, S. J., Grünbühel, C. M., Schandl, H., and Schulz, N. (2001). Social metabolism and labour in a local context: Changing environmental relations on Trinket Island. Population and Environment 23(1): 71–104.
Smil, V. (1992a). Agricultural energy costs: National analysis. In Fluck, R. C. (ed.), Energy in Farm Production, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 85–100.
Smil, V. (1992b). General Energetics, Energy in the Biosphere and Civilization, Wiley, New York.
Tambiah, S. J. (1970). Buddhism and Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Vitousek, P. M., Ehrlich, P. R., Ehrlich, A. H., and Matson, P. A. (1986). Human appropriation of the products of photosynthesis. BioScience 36: 363.
Vitousek, P. M., Mooney, H. A., Lubchenko, J., and Melillo, J. M. (1997). Human domination of earth's ecosystems. Science 277: 494.
Wijeyewardene, G. (1992). Translator's introduction. In Khonkhai, K. (ed.), Khru Ban-Nork. The Teachers of Mad Dog Swamp, Silkworm, Bangkok, pp. xiv-liii.
Wongthes, P., and Wongthes, S. (1989). Art, culture and environment of Thai–Lao speaking groups. In Siam Society (ed.). Culture and Environment in Thailand, Duang Kamol, Bangkok, pp. 161–169.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Grünbühel, C.M., Haberl, H., Schandl, H. et al. Socioeconomic Metabolism and Colonization of Natural Processes in SangSaeng Village: Material and Energy Flows, Land Use, and Cultural Change in Northeast Thailand. Human Ecology 31, 53–86 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022882107419
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022882107419