Spirits, scarcity, and sustainability: rethinking Indigenous mobility through the Manni experience in Thailand

Despite decades of scholarly work, comparatively little research on Indigenous mobility has avoided marginalizing the cultural, spiritual and ethical logics underpinning nomadic practices, especially among Southeast Asian hunter-gatherer communities. This study aims to fill this gap by critically examining the cultural logic of the mobility of the Manni ethnic group in southern Thailand. This research is a documentary study. It analyzes ethnographic literature and reports from government agencies and NGOs, oral stories, and archival documents on the traditional livelihoods of the Manni in Satun, Yala and Narathiwat provinces. Manni mobility is not random as it is conditioned by food scarcity, environmental degradation, illness and parasite infestation. Each movement is informed by a distinctive combination of ecological knowledge and spiritual beliefs as revealed by the thematic analysis guided by an interpretivist perspective. The findings suggest that mobility is an adaptive health strategy, an ecological renewal mechanism and a religious practice. The traditional mobility patterns are increasingly under threat from fragmented conservation policies and external development pressures. The study contributes to rethinking public policy, sustainability and Indigenous rights within contested forest landscapes.