Tolerant Tea Shops: The Social Construction of Forbearance in Child Labor

Abstract

Abstract: Urban expansion is associated with the emergence and transformation of marginal labor. In this context, labor migration from rural areas increasingly includes younger migrants, as generational agricultural vocations decline. This, in turn, challenges conceptions of child labor, where younger migrants are engaged in labor which is spatially remote from their families. In Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest city, urbanization has drawn in large numbers of children from rural areas. Many of those children supply labor in nonformal contexts. One such practice is the hospitality industry, where young children are sent to work in the many tea shops in the city, supplying labor in exchange for lodging, food, and nominal wages. In such settings, their labor is provided not only away from parental control but also outside of formal employment structures. The spatial arrangements of tea shops reflect an "in-betweenness" which occupies a liminal place between formal and informal, neither a home, nor a "restaurant," and where the boundaries of public and private space are blurred. This in-betweenness enables a context for tolerance and forbearance of child labor, which is viewed by patrons as a benevolent welfare arrangement, rather than as waged employment; the same patrons would view these children very differently if they saw them at work in a place classified as a restaurant. This example highlights how the contexts of space and place intersect with cultural values to give specific local framings of social issues.