The Thai-Burmese borderland: mobilities, regimes, actors and changing political contexts

Abstract

For decades people from Myanmar have fled or migrated to Thailand. Civil conflicts, political repression, poverty and a lack of work opportunities are just some of the reasons why people have left Myanmar. Through these movements and the way they have been governed, a borderland has been constituted. In recent decades especially, the border itself has been strategically manipulated by state authorities to preserve a border area used as an industrial node for export-oriented industries dependent on cheap (i.e. migrant) labor. This article discusses the processes establishing the systemic categories of “refugee” and “labor migrant.” On the basis of fieldwork conducted from 2012 on, the article also analyzes the influence on the borderland of recent political and economic changes in Thailand and Myanmar.

Keywords:

• borderland
• Thailand
• Myanmar
• migrant workers
• refugees

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their gratitude for valuable comments from the participants of the 4th Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network 8–10 December 2014, Hong Kong as well as to the two anonymous reviewers

Notes

1. The empirical data consists of observations and formal and informal interviews the authors conducted, in cooperation with the Faculty of Political Science of Chulalongkorn University, with various representatives of migrant organizations, NGOs working with migrants and refugees, institutions and government organizations in charge of migration and border control, and migrants and refugees themselves during a field trip in the border region in spring 2012. In addition to this, the findings of several other research projects by graduate and postgraduate students from a working group at the Department of Development Studies at the University of Vienna (including field studies inside refugee camps, and interviews with migrant workers and refugees on their expectations concerning resettlement) provide the background against which we analyze and discuss recent changes and dynamics in the border area.

2. The data was presented and discussed, among other occasions, on a joint panel at the International Conference of International Relations and Development (ICIRD) at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok in September 2013. We are grateful to the Asian Research Center on Migration, especially Prof. Supang Chantanvanich and Prof. Naruemon Thabchumpon, for their valuable comments.

3. The question of whether to use the name “Burma” or “Myanmar” is highly contested. In this paper, we use Burma for the times before the country was renamed in 1989. Along the same lines, we use “Siam” instead of “Thailand” for the times before 1939. As for the population, we use “Burmese” or “Myanmar” as terms without ethnic specification. Where ethnicity is discussed, we use “Burman”, “Karen”, “Kachin”, etc. However, throughout the paper, we do not imply any political message in this terminology. The decision to use “Karen” instead of “Kayin” follows the most established usage in Anglo-Saxon academic publications.

4. Lee (2011, 85) states for example that in 2000 40,000 Myanmar workers were registered only in Mae Sot, while around 200,000 lived in the area.

5. Thanks to Stefanie Kron for her valuable comments.

6. Although numerous refugees will have appreciated the possibility of being resettled in Canada, the US or a Scandinavian country, resettlement programs were actually unpopular on both sides. The governments of the destination countries had to justify the quota of immigrants but, as we will discuss below, even these quotas could often not be filled because refugees preferred for various reasons to stay in the border region.