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Critique of Anthropology
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Enacting Solidarity

Unions and migrant youth in Thailand

Mary Beth Mills

Colby College, Waterville, Maine

This article examines the activities of some young migrant workers, participants in Thailand’s labor movement, and their strategies for solidarity in the face of economic insecurity. Activities sponsored by some independent Bangkok unions and labor solidarity groups draw upon both ‘modern’ urban commercial forms as well as ‘traditional’ ritual practices to promote class-based unity within a predominantly youthful and migrant labor force. Though limited in both means and opportunity for effective oppositional expression, unionized migrants explore new ways of thinking about themselves and their experiences through creative enactments of solidarity. In the process, migrant youth rework dominant symbols and practices in ways that contest hegemonic authority. Their grassroots actions reveal a dynamic struggle to produce and engage an alternative discourse of class-based identity by members of a workforce widely deemed to have little potential for collective action.

Key Words: identity • labor • ritual • Thailand • unions

Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 19, No. 2, 175-192 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/0308275X9901900203
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