Notes on the Practice of Everyday Politics: Rereading the Labour of Self-protection among Migrant Communities on the Thai-Burma Border

Abstract

In recent years, there are several critiques of conventional ‘protection-sector’ activities among humanitarian actors. Such critiques have raised the idea of self-protection as a corrective measure to otherwise victimizing narratives of external intervention among marginalized people. In eastern and southeastern Burma, the discourse of self-protection has found currency among researchers and practitioners working on issues related to internally displaced people (IDPs). However, there seems a lack of in-depth exploration among migrant communities in this area. Addressing this research gap, this paper presents research findings that are collected over the past two to three years among migrant communities from Burma. These migrants live and work in and around Mae Sot which is located at the Thai-Burma border. This paper attempts to detail self-protection strategies in relation to health, food, livelihoods and personal security access. In addition, this analysis seeks to frame these actions as an ‘everyday politics’ whereby migrant communities implicitly lay claim to a subsistence ethic and a culture of survival. This (re)politicized understanding of everyday life in migrant communities takes place within a broader frame of labour migration from Burma. In Michael Adas’s term, this framework can be understood as a form of ‘avoidance protest.’ Further, against the backdrop of Burma’s neoliberal turn, there seems to be a great shift in the calculus of push-pull strategy which has long played a part in shaping border-area migration dynamics. Such shifting bears implication for a heightened sensitivity to migrants’ concrete responses in uncertain and insecure situations. This proves to be an imperative agenda for researchers and practitioners at the forefront today.