THE DYNAMIC LOCALITY OF THAI MYANMAR BORDER COMMUNITIES: A CASE STUDY OF RURAL AREA COMMUNITIES ON MAESAI – TACHILEIK BORDER

Abstract

This research article examines locality through the social, cultural, economic, and political spaces of border people who live in the rural areas of Mae Sai district, Chiang Rai province, Thailand, and Tachylalic district, Myanmar. The study used qualitative research methods and collected data through interviews, small talk, and participant observation, with locality as a framework for understanding.

The study results found that borderlands milieu where mobility and interaction between people from more than one territory, ethnicity, and race have been occurring intensively for a long time have shaped the social history and lives of border people on cross-border relationships and created a diverse and complex local identity. On the one hand, creating a locality is a way to preserve the identity of local people rooted in a place that is not their original homeland. On the other hand, it has the characteristic of being an ethnic space that counts in and excludes people around it and creates a sense of neighbourliness or intrusion. However, locality as a dynamic social process can change according to the new creation within the locality itself. In some cases, locality leads to the dissolution of the state-nation borders between localities, while in other cases, it is a process of recreating cultural and ethnic boundaries.