Abstract

Introduction: This study examines community resistance to a proposed nuclear power plant in Khanom District, southern Thailand, as a form of discursive and strategic contestation against hegemonic, state-led development paradigms. It explores how local actors perceived the project and how collective resistance reshaped local understandings of sustainability, development, and community autonomy. Methods: The study adopts a qualitative research design with phenomenological sensitivity and a participatory orientation to examine lived experiences and meaning-making processes within the resistance movement. Fieldwork was conducted between January and March 2023 and involved 20 in-depth interviews with community leaders, local university graduates, fisherfolk and agricultural residents, local government officers, and civil society actors, selected through purposive and snowball sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, and were analyzed thematically to identify patterns of perception, discourse, and collective action. Results: Findings reveal that the proposed nuclear power plant was widely perceived as a multidimensional threat to environmental integrity, local livelihoods, and community self-determination. Resistance was galvanized by concerns over the absence of mandatory Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), limited public participation, and opaque state decision-making processes. Local leaders and university graduates emerged as key knowledge brokers, translating technical risk information into culturally grounded narratives that mobilized ethical, environmental, and social justice frames. Through this process, sustainability was rearticulated as a locally embedded moral and political claim rather than a technocratic policy objective imposed from above. The conflict revealed persistent structural tensions between centralized national energy governance, represented by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), and participatory forms of community-based governance. Implications: This study contributes to sociological debates on development, social movements, and sustainability by demonstrating how grassroots resistance operates through discursive reconfiguration rather than oppositional protest alone. It highlights the role of knowledge brokerage in shaping collective action and underscores the need for energy governance reforms in Thailand that institutionalize meaningful public participation, ensure transparent and independent EIAs, and recognize community-led alternatives within national energy planning frameworks.