Lifting House: The Application of Local Wisdom on Technical Craft to Create Careers in Communities of Northeastern Thailand

Abstract

Nowadays, the lifting houses technician in the northeastern of Thailand has also progressed in both career and work development. To be noted that, the group of the technician in northeastern of Thailand did not attend any courses from the education institutes, but they can lift, move, carry, and rotate houses perfectly by their own experiences, observation and designed equipment. The application of the local wisdom with integrated the technical knowledge can make income for families and the communities in northeastern of Thailand as well. This research aims to study 1) the history of the great local wisdom of lifting houses in the northeastern of Thailand communities, 2) the current state of the problems in creation of careers in the northeastern of Thailand communities, and 3) the application of technical knowledge to create careers in the northeastern of Thailand communities. This study had collected documents and field data from Maha Sarakham, Kalasin, and Roi-Et. There are 88 people as a sample group and key informant. Triangulation is taken as a data validation technique and descriptive analysis is used for presenting findings of the study. The results showed that the history of technical craft for lifting houses in the northeast of Thailand was found for a long time. In the past, the villagers often used their traditional tools and equipment as well as modified tools. Until 2007 onwards, people who interested in lifting houses are increased sharply because of flooding in the central and eastern of Thailand. Moreover, in the past they had gathered in small groups and transferred their technical knowledge later time. Currently, they have separated into a small group to found their own business widely. The current status of the house lifting technician showed that they are using the same tools and equipment for load buildings, move buildings and rotate the direction of the building. These tools or devices usually purchased from local market. Most of these technicians are financially insufficient and most of their fund belong to chief technician. The role of the chief technician also to design a home for the homes’ owners. All technician had their on-the-job training about using equipment. Therefore, their management skill is very high. Firstly, when revenue received, the wages was paid for operator before paid for the chief of technician. So, the house lifting business can enhanced works and revenue for local citizen. The main problems of house lifting were equipment problems due to the source of equipment was very far which costed the transportation expense and wasted time. For the financial problem, many group lacked of liquidity and scarcity of unskilled labor. For the management problem, they faced with negotiation problem and overdemand problem. For networking problem, they were still unteamed but support each group with labors, equipment, fund. Guidelines for apply the local wisdom, technicians have to modify and update their tools and equipment to secure the structure load which can be harmed the operators. Moreover, technician should modify the transportation tools also. These will help they expand their scope of work in the future.