Borderland as a Space of Exception: Globalizing the Thailand-Burma Border

• In Event: 3183 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Borderlands and 'Ungoverned' Areas

Abstract

Borders are localized subnational settings but the circulation of people and capital across and around them is attuned to globalized logics. The Thailand-Burma/Myanmar border constitutes a space of exception where a dynamic constellation of circulating actors navigates state sovereignty. Much scholarship has explored borderlands as frontier areas with their own particular logics. However, work that frames the border as a space of exception is lacking. This paper uses the case of the Thailand-Burma border to argue that borderlands constitute a space of exception that is shaped by globalized market logics. Using ethnographic data collected on the Thailand-Burma border, this paper examines how market logics direct the exercise of state power. Formal state power stands in tension with informal regulation along the border, where globalization encourages, even requires, dynamic governance. These findings suggest that the borderland constitutes a site of exception, where sovereignty is entangled with global market logics in such a way as to create a pattern of contradictory and diverse governance strategies and outcomes, complicating the question of the role of the state in these spaces.

Author

• Mollie Elizabeth Pepper, Northeastern University