ABSTRACT
Checkpoints form one of the most visible counterinsurgency measures implemented by the Thai military in Thailand's so-called 'three southern border provinces' of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat. One of the analytical moves central to the author's enquiry of policing borrows the notion of boundary demarcation from postcolonial, feminist and anthropological rereadings of the nation-state. Rather than placing a fixed notion of the nation-state at the beginning of an analysis, authors participating in these debates have utilised the Foucauldian notion of productive power to approach the nation-state as an effect of boundary demarcation practices. To undertake such a historical grounding of counterinsurgency in southern Thailand, the history of Thai nation-state formation, the incorporation of the southern sultanate of Patani and the emergence of the national army are of particular importance. Military checkpoints were an integral part of the counterinsurgency mission and became ubiquitous marks of the south.
