Racialization and Citizenship in Thai Forest Politics

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Abstract
The first part of this article argues for the usefulness of the concept of racialization in understanding the intersection between identity and resource politics in Southeast Asia. The production of space through cadastral mapping, forest reservation, and community forests has all been racialized to the degree that these spaces are also associated with naturalized and essentialized ethnic identities. The second part explores the tension between racialization and citizenship in Thailand. Racialized ethnic minorities have used community forestry as a vehicle for claiming both more secure resource rights and for formal and substantive citizenship rights. The community forest movement in Thailand is not exclusionary on the basis of ethnic or indigenous identity, because of how it is based in expanding citizenship rights. Reliance on environmental stewardship criteria to justify resource rights could mean that upland peoples are subject to limits not experienced by lowlanders, whose activities have tremendous impacts on the environment.