泰北美良河阿卡族普洱茶產業的個案分析

Abstract

經濟作物對於泰國少數民族之環境、文化與社會發展的議題，早在皇家於1970年代推行替代性經濟作物後就備受學界討論。近年，中國的崛起促使湄公河周邊國家，將許多農產品與自然資源產物，輸出到中國的市場。泰北地區的普洱茶產業即是藉著銷入中國快速崛起。因此，本論文旨從阿卡族的跨境社會網絡，來理解具環境友善特性的普洱茶跨境貿易。本研究採民族誌的取徑，從2017到2019年，三次進入田野收集資料，總計約三個半月。主要的材料是以22位報導人的訪談與參與觀察為基礎。 結果發現，普洱茶產業的興起對山區農法「走向自然」的改革產生巨大的影響，展現了邊境地區發展綠色產業的契機。跨境的社會網絡建立是促進跨境普洱茶貿易的關鍵，而阿卡族人所具備的流動性與能動性，不僅建立了跨國的親屬網絡，也善用語言能力建立跨越族群的社會關係，在普洱茶跨境貿易中扮演重要的角色。 不過，社會網絡雖能促進跨境貿易，仍具有其限制，國家的邊界依然帶給跨境貿易一定的阻礙。除了因運輸、關稅等產生的有形邊界之外，以泰國茶有農殘或工藝不佳等標籤，中國境內茶較為優越的思維，更創造了一個無形的邊界，進而使其面臨跌價與滯銷等衝擊與挑戰，並影響著泰北阿卡族部落發展普洱茶產業的穩定性與持續性。

Since the Royal Thai government proposed “the Thai Crop Replacement and Community Development project” in 1970, the impacts of cash crops on the environment, culture and social development of ethnic minorities in Thailand has been widely debated by scholars. In recent years, while Mekong riparian and nearby countries exported many of their agricultural products and natural resources to China, influenced by its market the Puer Tea production in Northern Thailand has rapidly developed. This research therefore aimed to understand and explore the cross-border trade of Puer Tea characterized as environmentally-friendly by the social networking of the Akha. It adopted an ethnographic approach, with 3 rounds of fieldwork totally for 3.5 months starting from 2017 to 2019 in Thailand and China. The main materials were collected from 22 informants by interviews and participant observation. Results of this research showed that the cross-border social networks was the key to facilitate Puer tea trade, while it has great impacts on the farming revolution of “being nature”. With mobility and agency, the Akha people not only build up cross-border kinship networks, but also the cross-ethnic social relation by multiple languages ability, which played a key role on Puer tea cross-border trade. Of course, social networking has its own limitations. The national boundary was still a barrier to the cross-border trade. Except the tangible boundaries by taxes and transportation, the stereotype of chemicals and poor techniques further constructed a more invisible boundary for the Thai tea. Nevertheless, the development of Puer tea entrepreneurship in Akha tribes still faces multiple challenges including price volatility and sales slump.