Vitalizing Indigenous cultural practices through the Akha ‘Farm Ritual’ and ‘Coffee Festival’ in Mae Jan Tai village in the highlands of Northern Thailand

As Thailand’s domestic coffee market has expanded over the past two decades, the agricultural landscape in the northern highlands has shifted from opium to Arabica coffee. Drawing on an ethnographic study in an ethnic Akha village, I propose the theoretical framework of ‘Indigenous Cultural Vitalization’ to illustrate the continuous renewal of cultural practices when certain practices do not exhibit a clear intergenerational gap. I argue that the vitalization of the coffee ‘Farm Ritual’ signifies the significance of their ancestral land ethics, whereas the vitalization of the ‘New Spring Ritual’ by adding the ‘Coffee Festival’ to it embodies the socio-economic performativity of both the pride of being Akha and the identity of being a specialty coffee-producing community.