Abstrak
In this paper I examine the interaction between the practice of cash cropping and villagers daily lives in alocal community, from a case study of Karen people in Northern Thailand. By focusing on the transition from subsistence rice farming to cash oriented strawberry cropping, I discuss how the demands specificto strawberry production intersect with changes in labor allocation and the agricultural calendar. Shanlaborers from Myanmar are employed seasonally, socioeconomic disparity among villagers is widening, andnew leadership and patron client relationships are emerging. By describing the historical process of thisinteraction, I will demonstrate (1) the logic whereby Karen, who have hitherto been known as subsistencerice farmers, have accepted cash cropping; and (2) how cash cropping redefines the forms of labor andvillagers socioeconomic relationships within and outside the village, including ethnic relationships.This paper avoids previous discussions that associate an ethnic group with the independent choice ofa specific type of subsistence activity deriving from their own cultural background or as a social strategy to flee from state control. Rather, I try to figure out how specific crops with evolving cropping managementand the local community have interacted within a historical and social cultural context to formulate laborforms and allocations as well as villagers socioeconomic relationships in their daily lives.