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The Owners of the Map: Motorcycle Taxi Drivers, Mobility, and Politics in Bangkok

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The Owners of the Map: Motorcycle Taxi Drivers, Mobility, and Politics in Bangkok The Owners of the Map: motorcycle taxi drivers, mobility, and politics in Bangkok The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Sopranzetti, Claudio. 2013. The Owners of the Map: motorcycle taxi drivers, mobility, and politics in Bangkok. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11169780 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Owners of the Map Motorcycle Taxi Drivers, Mobility, and Politics in Bangkok. A dissertation presented by Claudio Sopranzetti The Department of Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Social Anthropology Harvard University Cambridge, MA September 2013 © 2013 – Claudio Sopranzetti All rights reserved. Professor Michael Herzfeld Claudio Sopranzetti The Owners of the Map: Motorcycle Taxi Drivers, Mobility, and Politics in Bangkok. Abstract This dissertation offers an ethnography of motorcycle taxi drivers: Bangkok’s most important and informal network of everyday mobility. Drawing on over eight years of experience in the region, six months of archival research, and 24 months of fieldwork, I analyze how the drivers, mostly male rural migrants, negotiate their presence in the city through spatial expertise, bodily practices, and social relations. Their physical mobility through traffic, I argue, shapes their ability to find unexplored routes in the social, economic, and political landscapes of the city and to create paths for action where other urban dwellers see a traffic jam or a political gridlock. My narrative builds up to the role of these drivers in the Red Shirt protests that culminated in May 2010 and analyzes how their practices as transportation and delivery providers shape their role in political uprisings and urban guerilla confrontations. My main finding is that when the everyday life of the city breaks down the drivers take advantage of their position in urban circuits of exchange to emerge as central political actors in contemporary Bangkok by blocking, slowing down, or filtering the circulation of people, goods, and information which they normally facilitate. Owners of the Map proposes an alternative view of contemporary urbanism in which the city is constructed day after day through the work of connection and mediation, its frictions and failures, the tactics adopted to resist them, as well as the political tensions that emerge from these struggles. iii Table of Content Introduction 1 Prologue 10 Chapter 1: Unsettled Layers 22 Chapter 2: Riding the City 54 Chapter 3: A Train Named Desire 89 Chapter 4: Freedom and Control 116 Interlude 154 Chapter 5: Infrastructures of Mobilization 163 Chapter 6: Burning Red Desires 203 Chapter 7: The Owners of the Map 233 Chapter 8: “We are not Reds, we are not Yellows, we are Orange Shirts.” 270 Conclusion 293 Bibliography 312 iv Table of Figures Figure 1: Bangkok from above 10 Figure 2: Four pictures from Manit Sriwanichpoom’s “dreams interruptus” 63 Figure 3: Poster from the walls of the Skytrain 64 Figure 4: Scheme of the motorcycle taxis operations 136 Figure 5: Red Shirts’ caravans 236 Figure 6: Location of the two protest areas 238 Figure 7: Map of the Ratchadamnoen area with events 240 Figure 8: Protesters stand on military tanks in front of Democracy Monument 241 Figure 9: Barricades in front of Silom Road 245 Figure 10: Map of the Ratchaprasong area with events 256 Figure 11: Tires barricade on Rama IV Road 257 Figure 12: Protesters hiding behind tires barricades 258 Figure 13: A typical scene of after dark confrontations 258 Figure 14: Motorcycle taxi driver helping protesters to organize defenses 260 Figure 15: Drivers operating as first aid personnel 261 Figure 16: Central World the day after the army dispersal 263 Figure 17: What is left of the protest 265 Figure 18: Poster with capitation “your security is in our eyes” 276 v Acknowledgements The debt of gratitude, respect, and love behind my dissertation is too big to be constrained into the few pages I have here and the people who deserve it the most would probably never read this text. My first and deepest thanks go to the motorcycle taxi drivers who bear my presence, insistence, and broken Thai since the very first day of my fieldwork. To Hong and Adun, Yai and Lek, Lerm and Oboto, Pin and Boon, Wud and Sun, Id and Samart, as well as others who gave me a home while in Bangkok, shared with me endless hours on the side of the road, and welcomed me into their homes and lives, always ready to be my Virgils into the underworld of Bangkok. Without their quiet guidance and caring presence none of this would have been possible. In Thailand a number of scholars, journalists, and researchers have been not just useful to my intellectual development but also an endless source of inspiration both for their dedication to academic analysis and to the vocal pursue of social, economic, and political justice in the country. In particular Pitch Pongsawat, Yukti Mukdawijitra, Viengrat Nethipo, Tyrell Haberkorn, Jakkrit Sangkhamanee, Chis Baker, Pasuk Phongpaichit, Niti Pawakapan, Craig Reynolds, Chutimas Suksai, Andrew Walker, Danny Unger, Charles Keyes, and Nick Nostitz have been invaluable models and companions to my work. To them goes my deepest respect and gratitude. Wittawat Tucharungrot, Carla Betancourt, Agnes Dherbeys, Apiwat Saengpatthasima, Dane Wetschler, Daniel Feary, Sun Thapphawut, Stefano di Gregorio, Edoardo Fanti, Margherita Colarullo, Todd Ruiz, Alice Dubot, Giuseppe Guerriero, Estelle Morin and Eugenie Merieau had accompanied and supported me during my fieldwork in Bangkok and shared their ideas, observations, and comments, as well as countless meals, beers, and chilling hours throughout the process. I love you guys. A particular thanks goes to Chanutcha Pongcheen, who worked as my research assistant for a portion of my fieldwork, Chutimas Suksai, who over the course of last ten years helped me countless times, and to the staff of the Sumaa Culture and Language Institute, who provided invaluable support and help with the intricacies of Thai language. vi This research was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Wenner Gren Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, the Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, the Harvard Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, the Harvard Asia Center Grants and the Chulalongkorn ENITS Fellowship. To all of these organizations goes my outmost appreciation and esteem for their invaluable work in support of the social sciences. Enormous debt goes to my committee members, who provided throughout the years an endless source of inspiration and encouragement: to Ajantha Subramanian for helping me to get my work closer to where it wanted to go and, word after word, allowing my ideas to develop; to Mary Steedly for providing punctual and thoughtful guidance when I needed it the most while at the same time reminding me to take advantage of the present, both in academy and in life, without ever preaching her views; to Michael Herzfeld for many more reasons that my words will ever be able to explain, I pride myself on calling you not just my advisor but my friend. Other scholars outside my committee have been pivotal to the development of my thinking and to set up the horizons of my work, in particular Engseng Ho, Steven Caton, James Watson, Maria Minicuci, Mary-Jo Good, Byron Good, Thomas Mallaby, and Thongchai Winichakul. A special thanks goes also to the staff of the department of anthropology: Cris Paul, Marianne Fritz, Marilyn Goodrich, Sue Hilditch, Susan Farley, Penny Rew, and Karen Santospago. Nobody, however, has influenced and directed my work and my life more than the extraordinary group of graduate students and friends whom I had the honor and pleasure to meet over my years at Harvard: Anand Vaidya for his thoughtful questions, warm friendship, and unmatched dancing skills that left me enriched after every moment we spent together; Arafat Muhammad for his compass and calm energy, for allowing me to be part of his wonderful family, and for endless evenings with chicken curry and shisha, whether in Boston, Bangkok, or Singapore; Alex Fattal for being my first guide to American life, for hours and hours of brainstorming, controlled craziness, and fierce conversation, as well as for telling me, on a regular basis, to shut up; Emrah Yildiz for never letting anything slide, both intellectually and emotionally, and for holding me accountable and sharp with my thoughts; Chiaki Nishijima for her support and reality vii checks; Dilan Yildirim for both her rigid critiques and our soft discussions in the middle of the night; Federico Perez for his submitted depth and sharp intelligence and Ivette Salom for her explosive depth and interminable energy; Hassan Al-Damluji for his ability to always see the larger picture and to always bring up a smile in everybody around him; Naor Ben-Yehoyada for constantly urging me to think once again and to reconsider every thought, while also being around when was time to stop thinking and drink a Campari; Juana Davila for giving humanity to intellectual digressions and Felipe Gomez Ossa for bringing funk back into my life; Julie Kleinman for being an intellectual, emotional, and human sister throughout this process; Scott Stonington for his intellectual support and playfulness and for welcoming me into his home; and Tara Dankel for making me feel that all of this could actually become home and leaving cheesecake outside my window. Particular thanks go to Felicity Aulino and Kevin Moore, this wonderful couple of people, and their daughter Ren, have been over the last ten years the most incredible example that intellectual rigor and sharpness, emotional generosity and depth, political enthusiasm and commitment can and do live together in the most amazing unstable equilibrium.
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