ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the urban working ethos is created and maintained in a Bangkok shopping mall, through the imperatives of order and surveillance. It presents the way in which the regulation of time, space and bodies reinforces perceived differences between undisciplined' rural and disciplined' urban lifestyles. The women's work blurred the boundaries between private' and public' by playing a domestic role in a public place. Most of the migrant women planned to return to their villages for good once they had accrued a certain amount of money or could no longer engage in physical labour in the city. The cleaners were employed by a company that was subcontracted by the shopping mall, and which had an office in its basement. The freedom of an idyllic rural life was a nostalgic theme for many of the women, who saw constraints on their time, space and movements as irksome.
