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HOME AWAY FROM HOME: MIGRANT YUNNANESE CHINESE IN NORTHERN THAILAND

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2006

Wen-Chin Chang
Wen-Chin Chang
Affiliation:
Academia Sinica, Taiwan E-mail wencc@gate.sinica.edu.tw
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Abstract

In the face of a complex external situation, the migrant Yunnanese in northern Thailand have undergone repeated moves since the 1950s, and the narratives of their lived experiences disclose an ongoing negotiation of their inner self with the external social world across time and space. The feeling of “dwelling in displacement” is the fundamental basis of their narrated stories and this constructs particular discourses on “home away from home”. The primary aim of this paper is to analyze their conceptualizations of home and the intertwining of their various migration patterns. It seeks to see how they are shaped by external structural forces on the one hand, and their reaction to them with their interstitial agency on the other. Moreover, by probing their diasporic consciousness linked to the longue durée of Yunnanese mobility, the paper attempts to accentuate the different layers of their perceptions of time and place, and to illuminate their interplay.

Type
CONCEPT OF THE BORDER: NATIONS, PEOPLES AND FRONTIERS IN ASIAN HISTORY (2)
Information
International Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 2006 , pp. 49 - 76
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2006

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Footnotes

Two earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 18th conference of the International Association of Historians of Asia (Taipei, 6–10 December 2004) and at the Myanmar Historical Commission Fiftieth Anniversary Conference (Yangon 12–14 January 2005). I would like to express my special gratitude to Meera Panampilly and Amy Crawshaw for reading and commenting on the paper. I am also indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable critiques. Any remaining errors, however, are my own responsibility.