Abstract:
This research explored the perceptions and meaning of Avian Influenza,
known as bird flu, in Thai communities, and the way medical discourses influenced
community knowledge, mind-sets and responses to the government actions. This research
also investigated impacts upon the communities resulting from the authoritys bird flu
management, and how the community responded to such discourse and intervention
measures. An ethno-descriptive approach was used to conduct participatory observations,
non-participatory observations, key-informant interviews, and in-depth interviews in a
northeastern Thai province.
Results showed that the locals provided various meanings and explanations
for bird flu. In terms of medical knowledge, bird flu was a disease caused by lack of
sanitation. Per environmental knowledge, it was an airborne disease. From the
demographic explanation, bird flu was caused by farming density. And the
epidemiological description showed that bird flu was an acute disease transmitted through
human beings. As for the governmental authorities, medical discourses regarding bird flu
had dominated their mind-set and affected their responses during the epidemic. Poultry
farms were sentinelled, screened, and investigated, with some poultry products including
chicken, eggs, animal food and farming materials destroyed. Poultry farmers had suffered
mental discomforts such as panic, depression, stress, grief, anxiety, guilt, and paranoia.
Other consequential problems included unemployment, migration, family crisis, and
hence social disruption. To resist the medical discourses, the locals had described the bird
flu as pen flu created by scholars with hidden agendas, or in other words, business
misconduct that elaborated a common poultry sickness into a fatal disease.
Recommendations for this issue include community involvement from the
beginning of the outbreak to the post-epidemic phase; provision of psychological,
economic, and career supports; community and context analysis; and the blending of
mainstream knowledge and the local set of beliefs.