ABSTRACT
This chapter elucidates the specific political, cultural, and social context of Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand in relation to labour migration. Through comparative analysis, the chapter suggests that in order to understand how safe migration programs engage migrants, it is crucial to appreciate how migrants are integrated into the host community (Thailand) in radically different ways. Whereas Myanmar migrant communities are predisposed to self-organise throughout Thailand (in part due to a pre-existing political exile community), no equivalent form of social organisation exists amongst Lao migrants due to pre-existing cultural, linguistic, and kinship ties within the Thai host society. This, in turn, stems directly from the different authoritarian political contexts of Myanmar and Laos. Despite a shared political history of socialist one-party rule, military rule in Myanmar has not penetrated local levels of social organisation as in Laos. The chapter argues that the different political contexts have direct bearing on the social organisation of migrants in Thailand: for the Lao, the very idea of migrant associations in Thailand is an entirely alien concept given that no formal modes of organisation take place outside state structures back in Laos. Myanmar migrants, on the other hand, are predisposed to self-organise in Thailand as this mirrors self-organizing practices back in Myanmar. This has direct implications for how NGOs and UN agencies engage migrants through their programs, and how they operationalise safe migration interventions.
