“พื้นที่กฎเกณฑ์” การต่อรองและการเปลี่ยนแปลงความหมายของสินค้าในการค้าข้ามพรมแดนไทย-เมียนมา

Abstract

This paper presents the negotiable practices of small-scale cross-border traders, in transporting commodities across political and nation-state boundaries of the Thai-Myanmar border between Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand, and the Shan State, Myanmar. The paper also illustrates trader’s methods of alternating meanings of commodities, when encountering modern state regulations. I conceptualize this social phenomenon through the concept of ‘regulatory space’, which is the space where cross-border activities and commodities interact with and/or violate against regulations and social norms. This leads to traders’ construction and transformation of commodity meanings to make benefits in trading. On several occasions, they have to build various reciprocating relationships, for the purpose of informal tax payments, gifting, and bribing, with elites and state officials. As a result, the change of commodity meaning, blurs the distinction of gifting and bribery, and turns illegal actions into licit ones.