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Fear and survival in Thailand: Emotional Suffering among ‘Burma’ Migrant Women
thesis
posted on 2022-07-06, 04:26 authored by Meagan Louise WilsonPeople of Burma are
exposed to human rights abuses and poverty after more than half a century of
war. The fear that comes with living under conditions of militarisation
penetrates deep into the collective psyche of the population. When ‘hunger’ and
‘fighting’ forcibly relocates them to Thailand, fear and passivity—part of
‘Burma life’—travels with them to new spaces, often rendering them more
vulnerable to exploitation in a ‘new land’, Thailand. Thai government officers,
laws and regulations, government and other institutions, employers, and members
of civil society, all exert control over often already fearful and passive
migrant workers, exacerbating their emotional distress. Research concerned with
the psychological trauma of ‘forced’ migration—whether before, during or after
migration—is often understood within a Eurocentric discourse that individualises
and de-politicises trauma, ignoring the aetiological role of structural
violence while obscuring the voices of those who live in spaces of structural
vulnerability. I aimed to explore the social, political and religious meanings
ascribed to women’s lived experiences of emotional suffering while living in
liminal spaces in Thailand.
The experiences described and analysed in this thesis are based on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Chiang Mai City and along the Thai-Burma border between October 2011 and July 2012. Twenty-six migrant women from Burma, mostly of Shan ethnicity, and 16 migrant support service workers, took part in in-depth interviews, although over 200 migrant women contributed to this research in less formal capacities through participant observation contexts such as workshops and social events. The women’s narratives articulate the ways in which their everyday experiences of emotional suffering are bridged to the broader social and political structures that weigh heavily upon their ‘migrant’ lives in Thailand. Oppressive structural forces not only cause emotional suffering, but restrict one’s coping resources when emotionally distressed, so survival migrants devise unique coping strategies in order to live with this pain. The experiences documented in this thesis call into question the utility of western conceptualisations of emotional suffering and associated diagnostic labelling, in contexts where structural violence and ‘cumulative trauma’ occurs.
The experiences described and analysed in this thesis are based on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Chiang Mai City and along the Thai-Burma border between October 2011 and July 2012. Twenty-six migrant women from Burma, mostly of Shan ethnicity, and 16 migrant support service workers, took part in in-depth interviews, although over 200 migrant women contributed to this research in less formal capacities through participant observation contexts such as workshops and social events. The women’s narratives articulate the ways in which their everyday experiences of emotional suffering are bridged to the broader social and political structures that weigh heavily upon their ‘migrant’ lives in Thailand. Oppressive structural forces not only cause emotional suffering, but restrict one’s coping resources when emotionally distressed, so survival migrants devise unique coping strategies in order to live with this pain. The experiences documented in this thesis call into question the utility of western conceptualisations of emotional suffering and associated diagnostic labelling, in contexts where structural violence and ‘cumulative trauma’ occurs.
