ABSTRACT
In the popular imagination, and as a subject of study, the Southeast Asian countryside is commonly associated with particular forms of economic activity, types of social organization and characteristics of landscape. It has also long been considered a target of ‘development,’ in the sense of overcoming backwardness, isolation and deprivation. Rurality is generally understood to be characterized by mainly smallholder-based agricultural livelihoods, by villages that form the basis for residence and social organization amongst households, by cultivated fields surrounded by natural features including rivers and forests, and by poverty relative to urban areas.
