Citizens and Land: Socioeconomic Effects of Relocation and Resettlement by the Thilawa Special Economic Zone

Abstract

Abstract: Special economic zones (SEZs) attract investment and political support based on promises of both macroeconomic growth and local economic benefit. Myanmar has numerous SEZs, including those in Thilawa, Dawei, and Kyaukphyu. Recent SEZ legislation requires investors and administrators to maintain the standard of living of communities displaced by the SEZ development. This paper studies the socioeconomic impact on households which have been relocated by the Thilawa SEZ, comparing them with those which remained in their original communities. Relocated households have experienced significantly higher rates of unemployment, debt, and lack of livelihood/income diversity. Due to a greater reliance on food purchases and income insufficiency, relocated households reported higher rates of food insecurity, and nearly one-third reported having taken out loans to meet food shortages in the past year. Overall, the pattern of coping amongst relocated households demonstrates significantly lower levels of resilience than non-relocated households, which results in a rapid erosion of economic capital, and subsequently a decline in future coping capacity. These findings challenge the assumptions around capital-based compensation approaches to relocation programs and argue instead that the process of relocation is best compared to a shock transition to an urban state, characterized by a rupturing of the relationship to land. The ensuing precarity demands a high level of adaptive capacity, which, in turn, requires not only new skills but access to resources, markets, and welfare mechanisms, many of which are not available. If SEZs are to fulfill both the wider economic promise and the legal requirements, a radically different approach to the processes of relocation is needed.