Weaving is a way of life that helps us to rely on ourselves. Our home still has abundant resources. We want our home to be like how it was before [the] gold mine.
— Ranong Kongsaen, Mae Rote
Radical Grandma Collective (RadGram) is an international and intergenerational organization that works in solidarity with communities in northeast Thailand to change the balances of power that extractive industries have disrupted, and to defend and restore the land those communities share. The collective first began as a way to bring a small social enterprise centered around one community’s anti-mining activism to an international audience. Today, RadGram takes a multifaceted approach. It supports community-led restoration efforts through fostering social enterprise initiatives, leading educational programs, and directing financial resources to organizations and leaders guiding environmental, societal, and health restoration efforts.
Extractive industries have poisoned environments and fractured communities in northeast Thailand, as in many parts of the world. After pushing through an inadequate environmental impact assessment and excluding community members at every turn, Tungkum Limited mining company began gold mining in Loei Province, in 2006. The downstream effects culminated in land too toxic to farm, fish too polluted to eat, and water too contaminated to drink. The residents of six impacted villages embarked on a fight for their health and environment, forming the group Khon Rak Ban Kerd (KRBK), or People Who Love Their Hometown.
As in many movements around the world, older women have led the struggle from the start, and they are the source of RadGram’s name. They not only lead the charge through on-the-ground protests but use traditional weaving practices to fund their organizing. The weavers pay for KRBK’s legal fees and other costs associated with activism by selling woven scarves. For some of these women, protesting in person is not an option due to health and safety concerns, but weaving provides their entry point into the movement. For others, like movement leader Ranong Kongsaen (“Mae Rote”), weaving is another way to support the cause for which she already works tirelessly on the ground.
In 2016, the Khon Rak Ban Kerd weavers began collaborating with four women from the United States to form the Radical Grandma Collective. The collective has allowed the weavers’ work and business to expand to an international customer base through RadGram’s online store and attendance at various events. For the weavers, RadGram provides more than income—it helps preserve traditions while creating a new revenue source to offset economic hardship caused by environmental degradation.
In 2016, the military government suspended all mining operations. Tungkum Limited has since gone bankrupt, leaving behind a toxic mess. Currently, KRBK is pursuing representation in the government-led land restoration process. Many of the same tactics used to exclude community members from decision-making during the mining concession process are being employed in the restoration process. Thailand lacks a clear legal framework for restoration, and community members know that restoration efforts will not meet their needs if they are not driving it. Restoring the community’s power over how land is managed in their home is essential to restoring dignity after years of extraction. One tactic that KRBK has used in the summer of 2023 is to begin the restoration process on their own, alongside local government officials, school children, and US university students, by planting local tree varieties on one of the mountains contaminated by mining activities.
RadGram’s origins lie in the six gold-mine-impacted communities in Loei, but that is only one of several mine-impacted areas with whom the collective works today. In Dong Mafai District in Nong Bua Lamphu Province, activists of the Khao Lao Yai-Pha Jun Dai Forest Conservation Group are fighting for permanent stone quarry closure, restoration of surrounding mountains, and development of the area as a tourist attraction—on their terms. Using social enterprise activities to preserve their land, build income, and share their story with a broader audience, community members are organizing to bring tourism that supports the protection of the land in their area.
In the summer of 2023, RadGram hosted its first study abroad program, which taught US university students about mine-impacted communities in Thailand. During the multi-week program, the students visited both Loei and Dong Mafai to learn about the communities’ restoration efforts and environmental justice activism. Hosting students—and other outsiders—helps the community clearly articulate and organize further around their goals, amplifies the community’s stories to wider audiences, and generates new projects that align with the community’s vision for restoration. For example, students in this first two-week program drafted a sign explaining the Na Nong Bong community’s restoration principles to educate other visitors. The program allows students to have a broader understanding of extractive industries and their impact on people and the environment.
RadGram also partners with NGOs and individual activists to financially support frontline human rights defenders through direct grants. With this approach, the collective connects national and international organizing to local efforts. Beginning in 2022, RadGram established an emergency grants fund to help organizers who may need financial support urgently.
Communities depend on natural resources, and those resources should be managed by the people living there, not extracted by transient external industries. The toll of extraction and fighting against environmental degradation on communities has been tremendous. RadGram and many other organizations are supporting grassroots efforts to restore community power and dignity in managing their land.
