Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE May 2019 Masculinized Labor Activism and Geographies of Household Reproduction in Thailand’s ‘Detroit’ Kriangsak Teerakowitkajorn Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Teerakowitkajorn, Kriangsak, "Masculinized Labor Activism and Geographies of Household Reproduction in Thailand’s ‘Detroit’" (2019). Dissertations - ALL. 1033. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/1033 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This PhD dissertation project focuses on the collective agency of Thai organized workers—a group of regional migrant workers in one of Thailand’s most industrialized areas—whose labor geography and organizations were conditioned by Thai state-capital- labor relations. It examines how the social, political and geographical organizations of Thai workers shape their practices of labor activism. By linking workers’ ties to their place of origin with the new geography of automotive production in Thailand’s Eastern seaboard, this dissertation examines the agency of workers through labor activism and its relationships to migration—a geographical mechanism that bridges production and reproduction across workers’ multi-sited households. This dissertation builds on the critical traditions within Human Geography as well as the work of feminist geographers to center the role of households and cultural practices of labor activism. By bringing together processes of production and social reproduction often examined separately, it sheds light on the ways in which gender and class politics within labor activism are inextricably linked to the division of labor within spatially extended households of Thai migrant workers. It highlights how workers draw on their collective resources (i.e. the regional ethnic culture) and social reproductive network stretched across the geography of household reproduction, which sustain labor struggle strictly seen in the sites of production. Masculinized Labor Activism and Geographies of Household Reproduction in Thailand’s ‘Detroit’ by Kriangsak Teerakowitkajorn B.Sc., Chulalongkorn University, 1999 M.Sc., University of Warwick, 2001 M.A., Université Paul Cézanne, 2005 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography Syracuse University May 2019 Copyright © Kriangsak Teerakowitkajorn, 2019. All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements This dissertation is a product of my long journey, during which I have accumulated much debt to a number of people. I would like to thank those who have helped me greatly throughout this process. First, I am deeply touched by the generous support and trust from my supervisor Professor Tod Rutherford, who has continually given constructive comments and insightful suggestions that were enormously helpful for my dissertation. Without his guidance and persistent help this dissertation would not have been possible. Second, I would like to thank my research collaborators and participants, the leaders and members of the Eastern Labor Relations Group, who have wholeheartedly shared their stories, thoughts, resources, courage, friendship, and passion for social justice with me. Learning and writing about their fight and struggle have had a lasting impact on me. Third, I would like to thank my wife, Emily, who has shown her relentless belief in me and given all the emotional and material support needed during demanding phases of research and writing. Lastly, I would like to express my appreciation to my committee members, Prof. Jim Glassman, Prof. Steven Tufts, Prof. Jamie Winders, and Prof. Matthew Huber, for their encouraging and challenging comments that helped me to strengthen my dissertation. I thank Prof. Jamie Winders and Prof. Andrew Brown in particular, for volunteering to closely read my final draft and offer editorial suggestions that were valuable. I also thank my colleagues and staff at the Department of Geography, which have shown me what a community of care and love should look like. I would love to dedicate my work to my patient and understanding family, particularly my loving mother, who passed away long before I started my PhD, but has always been my internal inspiring force. iv Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Situating Labor Struggle and Social Reproduction in Theories 17 1.1 Labor Geography and Labor Agency 19 1.1.1 Relational, Dialectical and Class-based agency 22 1.1.2 Resistance from Below 24 1.1.3 Constrained, but Autonomous Agency of Working Class 29 1.2 Feminist Theories and Methodologies: Centering Social Reproduction 33 1.2.1 Feminist Geographies of Work, Migration and Life’s work 35 1.2.2 Political economy, Social Reproduction and Intersectionality 38 1.2.3 Work and Labor Activism in Social Reproduction Framework 40 Chapter 2. Introducing Detroit of Asia: Japanese-American hybrids made in Thailand 49 2.1 Thailand’s Uneven Development and Decentralization 52 2.2 Planning of Thailand’s Eastern Seaboard 54 2.3 Clusters Competitiveness as State’s Policy 60 2.3.1 The Cluster concept and Free Enterprise Ideology 62 2.3.2 Institutionalizing the cluster concept … 64 2.3.3 Corporate Social Responsibilities and disciplined labor 67 2.4 Japan-dominated Automotive Industry: Working with Japanese Ethos 69 2.5 Social Factory and Cycles of Class Struggle 76 Chapter 3. Labor Geographies of Thailand’s Detroit: Pineapples and Powertrains 81 3.1 From Pineapples to Powertrains 81 3.2 Industrial and Labor Geography in Thailand’s Detroit 85 3.3 The Eastern Seaboard Industrial Estates as Space of Labor Control 89 3.4 Transformation of Eastern Seaboard hinterland 95 3.4.1 Virachai, a union veteran and amateur boxer 96 3.4.2 Understanding the transformation of geography 101 3.4.3 The factories needed workers more than the workers needed them 103 3.4.4 Workers as both customer and producer 106 Chapter 4. A View from Above: Thailand’s Labor Politics and Trade Union Movements 111 4.1 Political economy of Thai organized labor 112 4.2 Diversity and Complexity in Thai Labor Movement 114 4.3 Labor hierarchy and class composition 116 4.3.1 Class composition and recomposition 119 4.3.2 Economic restructuring and class re-composition 120 4.3.3 Political polarization and fragmented labor movement 122 4.3.4 National organized labor versus the working class 125 v 4.3.5 Not only the big P-political differences 127 4.4 Brief history of the Eastern Labor Unions Group 130 4.5 Introducing the Eastern Labor Relations Group 132 Chapter 5. A View from Below: Workplace Activism and Militancy in Thailand’s Detroit 139 5.1 Workers’ Struggle Against Capital 139 5.2 UM Workers Union: struggle against work intensification 141 5.3 Mitzuki Workers Union: struggle for organizing space 146 5.4 Connecting labor struggles with multi-scalar labor activism 148 5.5 The Nature and Limits of Militancy in Workplace Activism 154 5.5.1 Cases Study: Organizing Siam Perfect Workers Union 156 5.5.2 Power and hierarchy in the workplace activism 163 5.5.3 Organizing Takiya Workers Union 165 5.6 Labor relations as rules of the game 170 Chapter 6. An Intersectional View: Resistance from Ethno-regional and Class Struggle 176 6.1 Getting Involved in Labor Activism 177 6.2 Empowerment: Personal agency and Collective Action 182 6.2.1 Meanings of justice as experienced by workers 183 6.2.2 Erasure of Social Memory and Injustice 184 6.3 Social Justice in Geographical Theories 190 6.4 Historical labor consciousness and geography of ethno-class struggle 194 6.4.1 Regions, Traditions and Class Struggle 194 6.4.2 Being the Northeastern Workers 195 6.4.3 Isan as Disadvantaged Group and People of Dissidence 197 6.4.4 Isan as Political Culture 200 6.5 Practical Consciousness, Concrete Labor and Class Struggle 202 Chapter 7. A Feminist View: Unions, Gender and Everyday Life 206 7.1 Women and Labor Unions 207 7.2 ELRG and Gendered Structure of Leadership 212 7.2.1 Male-dominated Unions and Culture of Exclusion 213 7.2.2 Sexual Politics and Sexualized Relations 216 7.2.3 Masculinity and militant leadership 217 7.2.4 Demonstration Culture and Gender-Biased Empowerment 221 7.2.5 Gender mobility and Empowerment 224 7.3 Placed-based activism and Gendered Norms 226 7.3.1 Labor Activism and Gender Consciousness 227 7.3.2 Women’s Life Work and the Construction of Masculine Workers 230 7.4 Women and the Question of ‘Overtime’ 231 7.5 The Third Shift: Women in Men’s world of labor activism 236 Chapter 8. Organizing from Hidden Abodes: 245 Centering Household Reproduction as Collective Consumption vi 8.1 Social Reproduction, Migration, and Households 247 8.2 Spatially extended household reproduction: ‘Outsourcing’ Caring Labor 250 8.2.1 Long-distance Mom and Mother’s Day 251 8.2.2 The Come-and-Go of Working Parents 253 8.2.3 Reproductive and Caring Work: 254 Reproducing the class and gendered subjectivity 8.3 Consumption, Migration, and Counter-production 258 8.3.1 Symbolic Consumption 261 8.3.2 Social Reproduction as Collective Consumption 263 8.3.3 The Rural as Social Factory 265 8.3.4 Plan Bs and Reconciliation 266 8.4 Struggle for Self-Development and Its Conflicts 272 Chapter 9. Conclusion: Capturing dynamics of labor agency on constantly shifting ground 279 vii List of Abbreviations ACILs American Center