EXAMINING THE AMBIGUOUS ALLURE OF THE FARANG - THAI MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN AND FARANG MEN By CHRISTINE WESTER MSc Contemporary Asian Studies Graduate School of Social Sciences University of Amsterdam 2016 Student No. 11129158
[email protected] Word count: 25,194 Dr. Olga Sooudi Supervisor ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is not the thesis I thought I was going to write and my endeavour turned out to become challenging on both the academic and the personal level. I have been interested in transnational relationships - not only romantic relationships - for a long time and by starting this study I was able to commit myself to this topic for many months. Soon after engaging in academic literature and numerous conversations with people in the field, I changed my approach and began rethinking my own conceptions about people´s relationships and gender orders. Writing this thesis about transnational relationships would not have been possible without the work of other researchers on whose work I relied and who I mention and quote throughout this thesis. I owe special debt to the following people whose support is crucial to this study and the completion of my thesis: my thesis supervisor, Dr. Olga Sooudi, for her academic guidance, dedication, and mentorship much needed throughout the process, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom for its financial support without which I would not have been able to finish my studies, but also for the valuable network it provided me, and my mother for her steady support in various ways during my studies. My biggest "thank you" goes to the women and men who shared their experiences of Bangkok city dating life with me and to the many people who introduced me to these wonderful places and sources of information and inspiration.