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One morning in early June 2006, a group of three men set out from Ban Tiam along a forest trail to the east of the village. One of them was representing the village’s water supply committee. The other two were members of a newly formed watershed protection committee. The trail followed the course of a mountain stream that provided the village’s domestic water supply, and the men stopped occasionally to inspect the plastic pipes that conveyed water to the village. After an hour or so, they arrived at a small dilapidated shrine that lay in a narrow forest clearing. The shrine was home to the spirit that protected the stream and the forest around it. They had come to make the ninthmonth offering to the spirit. This was an annual event, but it was usually done quietly by just one of the men. This year, however, the watershed protection committee wanted to make the event “look important” with more people involved and more elaborate offerings. The committee had also decided to renovate the shrine itself. The men were disappointed that more members of the two committees had not come along. They had even hoped that Mayor Somsak, who was a member of the water supply committee, might attend. There was muttering that he no longer took an interest in village affairs. Their disappointment was compounded by the absence of their main government contact in the watershed protection office, who was on leave for the day. Even Ban Tiam’s headman was unavailable because he was attending a meeting about compost production. Luckily my research assistant, who the headman had asked to photograph and record the event, was able to join the men for their ritual trek into the mountains. 143 5 The Political Economy of Projects Despite the small size of the entourage, the spirit would have been well pleased with the offerings. A pig’s head held pride of place. One of the men presented it to the spirit, placing it on a large banana leaf laid at the base of a tree just behind the shrine. He spoke to the spirit, emphasizing that the offering was from all the villagers, “together with the watershed protection committee.” This year, he said, a pig’s head was being offered in place of the usual chicken. He asked the spirit to protect the soil and stream “so that the water will flow all year and never dry up.” His quiet words of offering were interrupted by the noise of the other two taking apart the dilapidated shrine. They removed the corrugated iron roof, quickly replaced a couple of rotten posts, reinforced joints with new nails, wove a new floor out of strips of bamboo, and placed the rusted iron roof back on top. Once the shrine was reassembled, offerings of rice, pork curry, and whiskey were placed inside, accompanied by further requests that the spirit punish people who committed illegal acts in the forest. As they waited for the spirit to eat its fill, one of the men explained that the expenses for the occasion had been taken out of the village’s domestic water supply budget. This was fair, they felt, because the spirit protected the water for the entire village. But they had balked at replacing the shrine’s old roof, preferring to wait until the watershed protection committee was in a position to fund a more complete renovation. This small act of government came at an important time for Ban Tiam’s watershed protection committee. Under the enthusiastic leadership of the headman, the committee was in the process of applying for a fifty-thousandbaht grant from the watershed protection office for a local forest protection project. There had been extensive discussions with local forestry officials, projects in other villages had been inspected, and an application had been carefully drafted and submitted to the regional watershed office in Chiang Mai. Given the strength of their interpersonal connections with the local forestry officials, members of the committee were confident of success. One of the officials was a regular visitor to the village, often dining with the headman and participating in communal rituals. Nevertheless, they still thought it advisable to underline their communal solidarity and commitment to environmental customs, especially since they had heard that the officer in charge of the local watershed administration had a strong interest in local resource-management traditions. As one of the men making the offering said, their forest protection project “had to be...

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