Rural–Urban Hierarchies, Status Boundaries, and Labour Mobilities in Thailand

Abstract

Thai national development strategies have sought to expand infrastructure and reduce poverty in the country's northern and north-eastern regions by constructing industrial estates, facilitating foreign investments, increasing market integration, and encouraging capital flexibilities. Despite government efforts to decrease material divisions between rural and urban spaces, rural–urban migration strategies commonly exist within household economic portfolios. Such labour mobilities and development initiatives rework spatial relationships between rural and urban, whereby economic activities and social networks create complex national political economies that challenge strict dualistic modelling. Yet, ethnographic data collected since 2009 illustrate that rural–urban differences were present in class and status hierarchies among northern and north-eastern migrants in Bangkok. Specifically, respondents' imaginings of their place within the Thai social order correlated to what degree they associated with urbanity and remained in Bangkok. Further, respondents' class and status identities exhibited correlations with whether they identified with culturally defined ‘migrant’ categories, which commonly represented otherness and contained ethnic undertones. This paper illustrates that while geographic and economic flexibilities necessarily problematise dualistic views of rural–urban spaces, associated labour mobilities may simultaneously reinforce perceptions of rural–urban difference and create identity and status divisions among those engaged in migration.

Keywords:

• Thailand
• Migration
• Urbanism
• Rural Development
• Rural–Urban Hierarchies

Acknowledgements

This research was supported through a Thomas Terry Grant initiative (Grant #ETTRY090 and #ETTRY103) and was conducted under the auspices of the National Research Council of Thailand for Foreign Researchers (NRCT Project #2391 and #2010/016). This research would not have been possible without the kindness of those that participated. I would also like to thank Sayamon Singto and Sasikan Singto for their support and assistance in this work, as well as Lisa Kealhofer and two anonymous reviewers for suggestions and comments that helped refine this thesis. Of course, all errors of fact or judgement remain my own.

Notes

[1] Government assertions of domestic political stability ignore previous successive military coups and were made prior to the events surrounding Black May (17–20 May 1992)—the popular protests against the military government of General Suchinda Kraprayoon, which resulted in 52 officially confirmed deaths, over 3500 arrests and an eventual intervention by the Royal family. Suchinda resigned as Thailand's prime minister on 24 May 1992.

[2] Given deep histories of class analysis in anthropological and sociological studies, this paper does not fully explore competing approaches in understanding class and its empirical usage in research. Furthermore, research that might rely upon rigid concepts to explain a fluid and relational Thai social differentiation process has created new disputes. In response, researchers have worked to avoid reductionist analysis on Thai class structures. Notably, recent work on the ‘red-shirt’ and ‘yellow-shirt’ protests in Thailand—which as discussed above have popularly drawn from assumed differences between those in rural and urban spaces—has produced new literatures exploring Thailand's class complexities. These analyses have focused on, for example, complex class relations to explain voting patterns throughout Thailand (Hewison 2012; Walker 2008), limitations of class-based analysis when accounting ‘for ruptures of political thought and action’ within the same protest movement (Vorng 2011, 677; see also Connors and Hewison 2008), volatilities produced as an older Thai aristocratic elite work to supplant emergent global inequalities with their own (Fong 2013), and renewed political awareness as a response to entrenched forms of socio-economic exploitation via new processes of dispossession and accumulation (e.g. Hewison 2012; Keyes 2012; Thabchumpon and McCargo 2011). Such literatures have expanded our understanding of Thai class and status complexities. While this paper does not explicitly consider the ongoing political turmoil, these results might inform a broader understanding on the continued rural–urban dualities that characterise Thailand's class and status structures.

[3] While widespread identification as middle class is common in Thailand, many such households experience a narrow buffer from poverty (Walker 2012). Discretionary incomes are strained and subject to cultural and personal ideas on how much income is enough to live comfortably.

[4] Though each term broadly represents migrant, each carries specific connotations. More details are provided below.

[5] During the 2011 field season, a related research project was initiated that examined the effects of industrial expansion on labour mobilities in two central and north-eastern provinces. Ethnographic data collected in 2011–2012 in the provinces of Samut Prakan (Bang Bo district) and Nakhon Ratchasima (Sung Noen district) among agrarian households noted that families commonly employed rural–urban migration as economic strategies to overcome income shortages and diversify risk. While these data are excluded from this paper, the findings have shaped this author's understanding of rural–urban relationships.

[6] See Gullette (2013) for more information on quantitative data and migrants' remittance sending behaviours.

[7] Analysis within SPSS revealed that class (occupational income) correlated with migration motivations. For example, respondents migrating for employment earned on an average 11,105 baht per month, versus an average income of 19,318 baht per month among respondents migrating for employment and educational advancement.

[8] Respondents that fully identified with Bangkok all had higher educations. When considering the length of time in the city as a variable influencing one's propensity to positively identify with Bangkok, results indicated nominal differences. For example, those that positively identified with Bangkok resided in the city for an average of 5.19 years, whereas those that did not identify with Bangkok resided in the city for 4.63 years. Circular migration patterns among some respondents complicated the figures for length of residency in Bangkok. However, when considering visits to one's provincial community, data indicated that those that did not identify with Bangkok were more prone to frequently visit their origin communities.

[9] See Connors (2005), Keyes (1995), Luther (1995), Winichakul (1994), among others for analysis on the ways Isaan identities have been debated by state officials concerned with national integration and reinforcing ‘official’ Thai identities.

[10] While these four categorisations represent terms most commonly used during interviews, variations exist and large arrays of terms and concepts could be understood in different ways depending on the number of people spoken with. For example, as illustrated, the term oppayop might also indicate refugee; yet, refugee is also expressed as phu lii pai, which in this context would indicate a person [phu] fleeing [lii] from danger [pai].

[11] Though not commonly used in everyday discourse, phu yai tin closely reflects the neutrality seen in khon (jang wat), wherein one might say, khon Udon Thani [I'm from Udon Thani (province)].