ABSTRACT
We have seen in earlier chapters that the increasing migration of young northern Thai people into Chiang Mai city has led to greater youth independence. Migration typically also creates a growing sense of displacement and, amongst other things, feelings of loneliness. As the sense of community common to village life is slowly disintegrating, many northern Thai youth are searching for new forms of belonging in symbolic communities based on subcultural style. Identity is no longer fixed and defined by one’s village community but actively chosen through myriad consumption patterns influenced by broad trends of modernisation.
