Research & Article

The system of references on which the representation of the village space is built among the Isan people from the Northeast of Thailand is examined in the following article in two cases and through the analysis of the conceptual pattern hwa (head) / tiin (feet). Applied to the different scales of the village space (house, rice-barn, neighborhood, village, territory, paddy-plots), this conceptual pattern defines the structural homology that the Isan people establish between the body, the social corps, the housing unit and rice. Moreover, it points out the limits of the humanized space and the modes of organization within itself. Finally it brings· to the fore the close relationship set up between the rice-growing farmer and his main crop: rice.