Abstract
The Red Shirt movement, which reached its peak during May 2010, has been met with puzzlement and ambiguity by media and scholars in and beyond Thailand. Often presented as a one-man-driven movement or a ‘peasant revolt’, the movement has remained opaque to many observers. This article analyses the ongoing conflict through the eyes of Isan (North Eastern Thai) migrants in Bangkok, especially motorcycle taxi drivers, as motivated by ‘politics of desire’. In particular, the article explores how desires for consumption are voiced by a new emerging regional middle class with a diffuse feeling of being stuck between an agricultural past and a self-employed present, due to structural limitations on social and personal development. The author examines the historical emergences and failures of these desires in a complex web of conflicting and overlapping claims to representation, capitalism and class mobility. Positioning desires at the core of the analysis and exploring their configuration and suppression in Thailand through discourses of capitalist access, self-sufficiency and social justice allows severed links to be recovered and apparent contradictions to be reconfigured. This seems necessary to understand the otherwise disconnected and incomprehensible economic, discursive and spatial dimensions of the Thai political conflict.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
