A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details STRUGGLING IN BETWEEN: The Everyday Practice of Weaving Shan Home Territory Along the Thai-Burma Border Ting, Wen-Ching May 2016 A thesis submitted to the University of Sussex for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Migration Studies in the School of Global Studies i DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature: Ting, Wen-Ching (丁文卿) DPhil in Migration Studies 9th May 2016 ii Ⓒ 2016 Ting, Wen-Ching All rights reserved iii Dedicated to My Dearest Family Whose Love Always Supports Me on My Way (獻給我最摯愛的家人) iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The motivation to explore the relations between home-places, mobility and social networks through the home-making of displaced Shan in limbo along the Thai-Border border arose from my previous NGO work experience with Karen refugee camps in Tak province, Thailand between June 2003 and August 2005. I was involved in educational projects in three camps and in some Thai remote village schooling projects along the Thai-Burma border. While I worked with Karen refugees, I learnt about the Shan through a report published by SWAN and SHRF in 2002, License to Rape: the Burmese Military Regime's Use of Sexual Violence in the Ongoing War in Shan State. The Shan have suffered a similar predicament as other ethnic groups in Burma, such as the Karen, Karenni, Kachin, Chin and Mon etc. However, they were not granted refugee status and lived without ‘official’ refugee camps, which caught my attention. The completion of this research has been a long journey full of uncertainties, frustrations, challenges, new discoveries, adventures, new encounters, warm friendships, encouragements, inspirations that accompanied me for over the last four years. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to many dedicated individuals and institutions that have supported me, without whom this research would not be possible. First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to my two supervisors, Dr. Michael Collyer and Dr. Anne-Meike Fechter who have guided me on this journey from its very beginning and always stood alongside through this challenging process of learning to be an independent researcher. My sincere appreciation goes to Mike for inspiring me with his rich knowledge on migration issues. I also greatly valued the guidance and professional support from Meike for her thought-provoking comments. Both their comments and challenges always inspired me to think further and made me do my best to develop my arguments and reshape my thesis structure. I am also indebted to Professor Russell King of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR) for his kind offer allowing me to attend a series of migration lectures. I also offer my gratitude to Professor Magnus Marsden and Professor Filippo Osella of Sussex Asia v Centre (SAC) for their insightful conversations about my work. I also send my very special thanks to Dr. Richard Haavisto, an ex-tutor at International Summer School in Forced Migration (Refugee Studies Centre) at University of Oxford and to Dr. Wen-Chin Chang from Centre for Asia-Pacific Area Studies of Academia Sinica, Taiwan for their helpful comments on my research proposal. I would also like to thank some academic friends who generously spent their time to engage in stimulating dialogues during the research, Sajida Zareen Ally from University of Sussex and Dr. Han-Wen Cheng, Dr, Shu-Jin Lee, Dr. Hsiang-Yi Teng and Mr. Chiu-San Chen from Taiwan. I would also like to thank Mark for his constant language exchange as a thoughtful reader to advise me on my thesis writing- up and Dr. Deeptima Massey for her enthusiasm, encouragement and kindly assistance to improve my research in the final stages of this thesis. My conversations with them allowed me to think in different ways. Moreover, I also wish to express my appreciation to the administrative support, especially to Jayne Paulin for her unhesitating support in assisting me through all the procedural issues. Meanwhile, I also thank the great tutor, Rachel Cole from Sussex Centre for Language Studies (SCL), for her warm friendship, as a tutor, friend and consultant, whose accompany I appreciated throughout my academic years. In addition, I would also like to thank the Taiwanese government who offered me Overseas Scholarship through Government Scholarship for Study Abroad (GSSA) for two years and the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange for granting me Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships for ROC Students Abroad for one year; both funding assistances helped me to finish my study without much financial pressure. Besides, I am truly indebted to many staff and friends from Shan grassroots organisations and NGOs, who generously shared about their lives with me and facilitated this study in many ways by sharing their invaluable experiences, language interpretation and information with me. In particular, I am very grateful for the support I received from teachers and friends in the Migrant Learning Centre (MLC), Thinking Classroom, Shan Women Associate Networks (SWAN), Shan Youth Power (SYP), School for Shan State Nationalities Youth (SSSNY), Migrant Assistance Programme (MAP) Foundation, Partners: Relief& Development, Wat Pa Pao Foundation, Fortune Foundation and Shan National vi School as well as RCSS etc. Meanwhile, I also would like to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Diana Mitlin, my MA supervisor, and Dr. Tej Purewal, ex-programme coordinator, from University of Manchester, for their continuous help and kind gestures encouraging me to further my studies. Moreover, I wish to extend my special thanks to my two undergraduate professors in Taiwan, Professor C.Y.Cyrus Chu and Professor Yun-Peng Chu, for their references, and also my boss, Professor Jimmy Wu from Chuang Yuan Christian University (CYCU) and my friend, Dr. Nga-Ping Ong from National Cheng-Chi University for their references to support my doctoral study. I can never forget some of my close friends, particularly Bao-Zu, Ming-Fang, Bi-Fong and Shu-Huei for their trust, generosity and friendship to assist me back in to academic study. Furthermore, I also would like to thanks my colleagues and friends at Sussex and in the UK for the times we had together, Pin-Hsien, Titiksha, Shilpi, Satoko, Mark, Jessica, Jasper, Doris, Vicky, Peter Lee, Oscar, Yeyang, Di Song, Siska, Dazhi, Soontree, Piyarat, Alamgir, Muhammad, Ēlle, Yi-Chin, Lizzie, Helen, Hsin-Yung, Michel, Fan Zheng, Kwanny, Andrew, Guoyuan, Yuping, Hsing-Chiung, Yahuei and Ya-Hsuan. In addition, special thanks to my dear friends in Taiwan who always offered wonderful support throughout my study. Finally, my very special thanks go to my family for their love and eternal support for always standing beside me. vii UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX TING, WEN-CHING Ph.D. in Migration Studies STRUGGLING IN BETWEEN: The Everyday Practices of Weaving Shan Home Territory Along the Thai-Burma Border ABSTRACT The overall aim of this study is to explore the relations between home-places, mobility and social networks through the home-making of displaced Shan in limbo, and to see how they negotiate belonging during their displacement along the Thai-Burma border. This study highlights how displaced Shan remember, reconstruct and represent home- places they left behind and their physically fragmented journeys that led them from home-places to in-between border areas. Furthermore, the study sets out to discover how Shan placed their displacement by repairing their social ties and (re)constructing a feeling of at-homeness. This refers to the issues of how they dealt with their status of Stratified Others from the perspective of state institutions. It demonstrates how the displaced Shan live a double life with a series of tactical practices against their subordinate and oppressed positions. In this sense, although it does not deny displaced people’s vulnerability, it sees them as having significant control over their lives, rather than as passive objects or “victims” (Brun: 18). This active role as a tactical agent engaged in the search for security highlights how migrants re-establish themselves and their families in society, differently from those who have citizenship and can travel freely and enjoy their membership (citizenship). Finally, the study also examines how displaced Shan develop and maintain their social connections within and beyond their effective spatial incarceration. They create multi- layered constellations of social relations by ‘weaving’ social relations through space, creating translocal linkages. This constellation of social relations can be regarded as displaced Shan’s fluid translocal lived space forming their ‘home territory’ beyond national borders in the face of their protracted displacement. This human-orientated perspective challenges the notion of state-centred ‘national territory’