Cross-border Livelihood: Trade, labor, and internal displacement at the Myanmar-China Border

Zhou, Chi; Wu, Shuitian; Su, Xiaobo

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.01.002

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Some scholars have also studied the actual lives of IDP, using the cross-border livelihoods of IDP in the China-Myanmar border region as an example to explore how this group of people can improve their lives in the absence of international assistance. (Zhou and Su, 2022). Corbet (2016) reveals that emotional care and a sense of belonging are more important to these IDPs by contrasting the functioning of NGO-provided camps and spontaneously formed IDPs communities with local Haitian displaced persons.…”

Section: Western Scholars' Lens Of the China-myanmar Bordermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The central government requires all foreigners in transit to provide official documents, but in Ruili, grassroots law enforcement officials have discretion, and Beijing maintains a tacit attitude toward this. Rather than using walls and laws to prevent Myanmar IDPS from entering China (Zhou, 2022), the Chinese government has made partial compromises. (Strict border checks remain in place, however, primarily to combat smuggling and drug trade from abroad (Su and Zhou, 2019).…”

Section: Gramsci's "Hegemony"mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite this, Chinese wages are still 2-3 times higher than the local per capita wage in Myanmar. IDPS are forced to compete with their compatriots in the Ruili economic market and lose their bargaining power (Zhou, 2022). It appears that China uses hegemony to set -the rules of the game‖, and that IDPS must accept this wage treatment with not much space to fight, and if they refuse, they will quickly be thrown out of the game.…”

Section: A Door That Isn't Closedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In zhou's research, it appears that Chinese law enforcement and IDPS have some sort of tacit agreement to allow small-scale trade between the two sides without breaking the law. Not breaking the law means not selling goods prohibited by China such as wildlife and goods (Zhou, 2022). These small-scale markets are usually held every five days, and borderland residents are allowed to bring their produce to buy and sell.…”

Section: A Door That Isn't Closedmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Oscillating Border Policy: Is It a Triumph for the Government or for the Myanmar IDPs in China?

Li¹

2022

AJSSS

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In recent years, several large-scale internal military conflicts in Myanmar, represented by the “8.08 Kokang Incident”, have led to an influx of Burmese into Yunnan, a border area between China and Myanmar. China’s border management has faced serious challenges, most directly reflected in a change in its border policy. China has not used enforced power to directly stop the influx of Burmese, such as building walls or barbed wire. But neither has it recognized the status of these people as refugees. China’s new border management policy is more about blurring their official status, in practice, allowing them to enter easily to the Chinese border city (Ruili) for work. But it also restricts them to the southeast coast of China in search of better income. This seemingly contradictory attitude of the Chinese government reflects the complexity of a multi-actor participation in governance in the China-Myanmar border region. Using Gramsci’s “hegemony theory” and Ho’s affinity ties theory, this paper explores how IDPs can flexibly use affinity ties networks to proactively influence the Chinese government’s new border governance policy from the bottom up by interacting with grassroots multi-actor border practices.

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Section: Western Scholars' Lens Of the China-myanmar Bordermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gramsci's "Hegemony"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Door That Isn't Closedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Door That Isn't Closedmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Oscillating Border Policy: Is It a Triumph for the Government or for the Myanmar IDPs in China?

Li¹

2022

AJSSS

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“…While displacement is a political insecurity itself, cross-border livelihood is a mode of survival is conceptually offered as valuable approach that works through living with cross-border networks based on place-based differentials as displaced persons use various tactical means to achieve a relatively good life. New insights into the geopolitics and biopolitics of border control have been discussed in (Zhou, Wu, & Su, 2022) as the similar but stricter rejection is observed along China-Myanmar border where the refugee or asylum seeking is outright rejected and yet subjectivity from refugees to border residents is provided through open doors to explore opportunities of cross-border trade and jobs for livelihood improvement. This was one of the many examples on how displaced persons adopt necessary tactics to improve their livelihood, with or without external help, through their own agency and negotiate with harsh structural surroundings.…”

Section: Intersectionality and Powers: Marginalization In The Structuresmentioning

confidence: 98%

Intersectionality and livelihoods of conflict-induced displaced Myanmar women in Mae Sot, Thailand

Thwe

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The Sustainable Development Goals Report (2022) highlighted the global displacement crisis as 24.5 million population impacted by conflict by mid-2021; 311 out of every 100,000 people worldwide seeking refuge outside their country of origin[1]. The cycle of migration to Thailand from Myanmar has a special history with many intersecting factors of forced migration and a new trend emerges following 1st February 2021: only 1,527 cases in 9 shelters[2]; 986,670 regularized as migrant workers in 2021[3]; tens of thousands of unrecorded. The role of Myanmar's unsung heroines cannot go forgotten. From a sociocultural conservative country with a constitution drafted by a patriarchal institution, women have increasingly involved in the revolution either as active actors or as a rearguard while armed resistance intensifies - 44% of Myanmar regularized workers in Thailand are women when most of the job openings for women tend to be in informal sectors[4]. Due to the fast-paced development of the conflict in Myanmar, while the prolonged civil unrest or the recent events are often viewed from a traditional security lens, the subtlety of women's role in the cross-border settlement and the elusive nature of intersectionality in non-convention party state are rarely approached from a human security perspective. This research provides a gendered intersectionality perspective on academic studies of human security in conflict-induced cross-border livelihoods while, at the same time, accentuating the resilience of women in displacement situations during conflict times amidst the elusive nature of discrimination at different levels. Through focusing on the human security of Myanmar women in Mae Sot asking how the unfulfilled aspects of human rights in country-of-origin Myanmar and prejudice towards individual identities they hold onto intersect with getting legal protection and socioeconomic standing in the host country Thailand, which livelihood assets the individuals have and in what ways the actors are ensuring such have been explored through integrative inputs from expert practitioners and community actors to introduce how transdisciplinary approach to participatory humanitarian assistance can help build the resilience of such population to achieve sustainable livelihoods. � [1] UN DESA (2022). The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 - July 2022. New York, USA: UN DESA. ? UN DESA. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2022/ [2] TBC (2021, 2022). Refugee Camp Population: January 2021 vs Refugee Camp Population: December 2022. The Border Consortium. [3] ILO. (2022). TRIANGLE in ASEAN Quarterly Briefing Note: Myanmar (July to September 2022). Bangkok: International Labour Organization. [4] Sakulsri, T. (2022). Challenges of Labor Migrants to Thailand: Issues of Bilateral Agreements for the Employment of Workers in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Journal of Population and Social Studies.

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Contested Spaces of Exchange: Informal Cross-Border Trade on the India–Bangladesh Border

Brown,

Chakrabarti,

Mackie

et al. 2023

Forum for Development Studies

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Cross-border Livelihood: Trade, labor, and internal displacement at the Myanmar-China Border

Cited by 5 publications

References 36 publications

Oscillating Border Policy: Is It a Triumph for the Government or for the Myanmar IDPs in China?

Oscillating Border Policy: Is It a Triumph for the Government or for the Myanmar IDPs in China?

Intersectionality and livelihoods of conflict-induced displaced Myanmar women in Mae Sot, Thailand

Contested Spaces of Exchange: Informal Cross-Border Trade on the India–Bangladesh Border

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