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Gender, Sexuality and Nationalism in a Northern Thai Non-governmental Organisation

2008; Routledge; Volume: 32; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10357820802065176

1467-8403

LeeRay M. Costa,

Sex work and related issues

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments I would like to thank Craig Reynolds and Geoff White, as well as Maila Stivens and two anonymous ASR reviewers, for providing critical feedback. Portions of this essay have been presented at the following institutions and I thank those audiences for their comments: SUNY Buffalo; Hollins University; University of Waikato, New Zealand; Australian National University; and Yale University. The ethnographic research upon which this essay is based was generously funded by the Fulbright Foundation, AAUW, the University of Hawai'i, Manoa, Soropotimist International, and the Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asian Women's Association. A Luce Foundation Doctoral Fellowship in Southeast Asian Studies at the Australian National University allowed me to first explore these ideas in writing. Notes 1. Names of organisations and individuals used in this article are pseudonyms unless otherwise noted. 2. In this article I use the terms “prostitute”, “prostitution” and “child prostitution” rather than “sex worker” or “commercial sex work” when referring to the work of NGOs such as PFT. “Prostitute”[sopheni] and “prostitution”[kankaitua] were the terms most commonly used by the NGO members that I discuss here, and reveal the problematic discourses of morality and identity that I analyse. See Kempadoo (1998) for an extended critical discussion of these terms. 3. The other two include: as biological reproducers of members of ethnic collectivities; as participants in national, economic, political and military struggles. On the former see the edited collection by Jolly and Ram (2001). 4. Important contributions include Jaturong and Gawin (1995), Humphreys (1999), Costa (2001), McCargo (2002), Delcore (2003 Delcore, Henry D. 2003. Nongovernmental organizations and the work of memory in northern Thailand. American Ethnologist, 30(1): 61–84. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Shigetomi et al. (2004) and Missingham (2002 Missingham, Bruce. 2002. The village of the poor confronts the state: A geography of protest in the Assembly of the Poor. Urban Studies, 39(9): 1647–1664. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; 2003 Missingham, Bruce. 2003. Forging solidarity and identity in the Assembly of the Poor: From local struggles to a national social movement in Thailand. Asian Studies Review, 27(3): 317–340. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]; 2004 Missingham, Bruce. 2004. The Assembly of the Poor in Thailand: From local struggles to national protest movement, Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. [Google Scholar]). A broader discussion of the diverse field of Thai NGOs and their connection to Thai politics is beyond the scope of this article. See Connors (2003) and Gohlert (1991). 5. The Thai word farang refers specifically to white Western/European “others”. 6. Maila Stivens (2002) describes a comparable situation in Malaysia. One key difference between the cases of Thailand and Malaysia is the role of religion (i.e. Theravada Buddhism versus Islam) and the way it contributes to rhetoric about the (in)appropriate behaviour of youth. 7. These are the actual names of these organisations. 8. This is based on an exchange rate of 37 baht to one US dollar. Prior to Thailand's economic crisis the standard exchange rate was 25 baht to one US dollar. 9. POY and Routes and Futures Project are pseudonyms that seek to capture the meanings in the actual project names. 10. This is POY's English translation with minor grammatical changes. 11. Although historically the word kathoey was applied to both men and women who crossed gender boundaries, today the word is typically used to describe a man who dresses and/or lives like a woman, and who prefers to have sex with gender-normative men. See Costa and Matzner (2007). 12. Translations from Thai are mine unless otherwise noted. 13. Reynolds (1991, p. 18) and Jeffrey (2002, Chapter 3) make the same point. 14. Indigo blue mohom shirts often signify rural peasant culture, especially in the north. However, many civil servants in the north also wear these shirts to work and so they may doubly signify association with the Thai nation-state. 15. Despite Mae Somjit's village status, she was expert in handling visits from foreigners, as she had been doing so for many years. 16. The northern-style clothing worn by female PFT members was more typical of the middle or upper class than the rural area, and reflected the trend I observed during local, regional and national women's meetings where women wore (and compared) their best “traditional” clothing, calling to mind efforts by Queen Sirikit to promote local handicrafts including handmade Thai textiles. Jeffrey argues that the National Council of Women in Thailand (NCWT), in addressing the problem of prostitution, drew on the “powerful symbolism of the queen” who in her promotion of local handicrafts “fused” rural and national identity in opposition to “the foreign and urban” (2002, pp. 66–67). 17. Jeffrey offers numerous examples including reference to a story by Suchit Wongthes in which a woman's “looseness” and immorality are indicated by the stretch pants she wears (2002, p. 44). 18. Humphreys argues that this practice, which she also observed in ThaiCraft, returns women to the patriarchal control of home and village (1999, p. 61). 19. To the contrary, anthropologists argue that it is precisely devotion to parents [bun khun] and younger siblings that often compels young women to engage in prostitution in order to remit money home. See Wathinee and Guest (1994, p. 7), Pasuk (1982) and Muecke (1992). 20. Many Thai people argue that “traditionally” Thai culture values women's virginity before marriage but not men's. Northern Thai spirit practices concerning sexual relations between unmarried individuals provide some evidence for this argument. However, some scholars have argued that the moral loading of women's virginity is an effect of middle-class ideologies of domesticity and motherhood in the context of twentieth-century capitalism. Whether particular sexual practices are “cultural” or not is in fact dependent upon specific historical and political contingencies. 21. For a discussion of “homosexual” practices in relation to Thai national crisis see Sinnott (2004). 22. The image and accompanying text call to mind a 1770s royal proclamation in the Three Seals Laws analysed by Loos that “prohibited Thai, Mon, and Lao women, but not men, from engaging in sexual relations with men who adhered to other religions” (2006, p. 36). In the decree, women should not have sexual relations with “khaek[could mean Muslims, Middle Easterners, and/or South Asians], French, British, khula[Thai Yai or Shan], or Malays” (2006, p. 36). Similarly, Jeffrey cites a statement by student activists in the 1970s denouncing “‘hired wives', prostitutes and half-breed children of all colours” (2002, p. 45). In both historical and contemporary periods, the purity and sexual behaviour of women is critical to preserving the status of women, their families and the nation. 23. See work cited in footnote 4 as well as Reynolds (2001), Ratana (1999), Thirayut (1993). 24. As mentioned above, Nerida Cook (1998) examines the intersections of class and gender in the work of several Thai women's NGOs focusing on prostitution. Her descriptions of how some educated/middle-class women approached prostitution among rural (and by implication, relatively uneducated and lower-class) women echo the discourses and practices of PFT members. Cook concludes that “Thai middle-class women depict themselves as the prostitutes' saviours; as substitutes for the moral guardians a materialistic and venal world has failed to provide for young peasant women” (1998, p. 278).