Living with conflict: behavioral and economic realities of Southern Thailand’s fragile peace

What does it mean to live where peace is defined not by the absence of war, but by the predictability of risk? In Southern Thailand, conflict has not simply disrupted life; it has embedded itself into the everyday. Routine bombings, military checkpoints, and constant surveillance form the backdrop of a society that has learned to adapt, endure, and persist. This article examines how communities in Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat navigate protracted conflict not through formal peace processes or overt resistance, but through everyday practices of restraint, silence, improvization, and survival. Drawing on conflict transformation theory, everyday peace, and political economy approaches to conflict-induced underdevelopment, the study advances a behavioral political economy framework to analyze how violence reshapes economic choices, emotional regulation, and social relations. Based on in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, the findings reveal how informal economies, quiet social networks, and digital platforms enable coexistence while simultaneously reproducing fear, fragmentation, and surveillance. Rather than confirming the presence of peace, the article interrogates whether what is sustained is a form of defensive peace—stable yet unequal, adaptive yet emotionally costly, calling for peacebuilding theories grounded in lived realities rather than formal outcomes.