Migrant Labor Takes a Holiday

Abstract

This paper examines the practice of working-class group excursions in Thailand, organized by and for rural labor migrants in Bangkok. These trips involve traditional forms of Buddhist ceremonial as well as more self-consciously ‘modern’ sightseeing activities in distant regions of the country. More than just a welcome respite from the drudgery and discipline of factory jobs, these excursions allow labor migrants to make important claims about their experiences as members of the Thai nation-state. As tourist-consumers, migrant workers appropriate powerful signs and symbols of modern Thai identity and status; in so doing they contest (and at least partly rework) their material and ideological marginalization within contemporary Thai society.

Keywords

consumption identity labor Thailand tourism

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