Borders as plugged in and peripheral

Keeping in mind the tensions and hierarchies that pull at border spaces, I turn now to the increasing role of these peripheral sites in global production networks. The place of border zones in contemporary capitalism as gendered sites is a global phenomenon that stems from the most basic tenets of the relationship between capitalism and space; that is, the way that the “geographical configuration of the landscape contribute[s] to the survival of capitalism” (Smith 2008: 4). What Smith refers to here is the spatial relations of

uneven geographical development which builds on the Marxian concepts of how space shifts as a result of several of capitalism’s fundamental principles, including capital accumulation, market exchange and competition, physical infrastructure development to enable production and consumption, and the production of scale. There is a socio- ecological component as well in the sense that social relations and the perception and relationship between humans and nature are bound up in the uneven geographical

development of space (Smith 2008; Harvey 2006). Economically, the concept pertains to the duality of capitalism’s constant need for growth and expansion, converting assets into capital, and the tendency for capital to centralize. This duality, writes Smith, is one of the fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system in that an increasing number of spaces are brought into the fold of a capitalist mode of production at the same time capital is concentrated in fewer locations.

Fueling this expansion is the pressure to avoid crises of over-accumulation, which results in the dumping of surpluses, devaluation, and the reinvestment of capital in new

locales or existing sites of production through acts of dispossession (Harvey 2006). Accumulation by dispossession, as David Harvey terms this practice, is one of the key forms of spatial reconfiguration resulting from the exigencies of capitalism (see also Banerjee-Guha 2010). Harvey (2003: 145-146) lists some of the ongoing forms of dispossession:

Displacement of peasant populations and the formation of a landless proletariat as accelerated in countries such as Mexico and India in the last three decades, many formerly common property resources, such as water, have been privatized (often at World Bank insistence) and brought within the capitalist logic of accumulation, alternative forms of production and consumption have been suppressed.

Nationalized industries have been privatized. Family farming has been taken over by agribusiness.

In this, Harvey describes three significant effects capital accumulation has on space. First, as populations leave their homes and move elsewhere, there is an emptying of locales where people used to live and a building-up of homes and infrastructure wherever they go, whether it is to an urban area in the form of suburbs or slums, or to camps for migrants and/or refugees. Second, public spaces become private through the

commodification of certain natural resources that were formally public or unregulated. Third, a geographical landscape consisting of small farming properties increasingly shifts to a landscape of industrial agriculture, manufacturing, or development.

The devaluation of surpluses and subsequent reinvestment gives capital a certain mobility that, on the ground, can wreak havoc as sites of production are de-industrialized and other locales that can enhance competitive value (because of lower transportation costs, more advanced technological capacity, or the possibility of lower wages) enter the supply chain in their stead. It is possible for such changes in production networks, what Harvey (2006) terms a “spatial fix,” to manifest themselves on grand scales in the form of

regional developments that transgress state boundaries to connect centers of capital in diverse locales via lines of transport and low-cost zones of production along these routes. When this happens, the building up of the infrastructure for such projects bypasses certain places (including many that used to be significant sites of production) and reconfigures others.

In recent decades, as part of the neoliberal turn in politics and the global

economy, reterritorialization and the establishment of special zones of production have become a dominant manifestation for capital accumulation through certain kinds of regional and global developments (Arnold 2012). This practice is another form of accumulation by dispossession in that it reflects the repurposing of active economic spaces into new arrangements, often through the displacement of the institutions and individuals that were previously functional in that locale (Banerjee-Guha 2008). These zones are often established in sites where capital can draw on an ample supply of labor. While special economic zones differ in terms of the labor-power on which they rely (technological SEZs versus garment manufacturing SEZs, for example), it is common for zones to be populated by migrants traveling internally from rural to urban areas or

migrants moving from low-wage or less secure countries. For this reason SEZs are often located outside major urban areas or along borders. A number of scholars have shown that SEZs on borders (often called cross-border economic zones, or CBEZ) are able to be competitive in part because of their distance and isolation from economic centers, their lack of regulation, and their exploitative treatment of workers (Arnold 2012; Campbell 2013; Arnold and Pickles 2011).

reflects changes in the relationships among state governments, market forces, and territory, including in gendered terms (Arnold 2010; Ong 2006). Such zones are what Banerjee-Guha (2008) calls “economic enclaves,” that is, spaces with different

governance and regulation structures where investment and infrastructure accumulate in ways that are effectively isolated from the economic landscape outside of these spaces because the zones are more tapped in to global supply chains than domestic markets. In her seminal piece, Aihwa Ong (2000) uses the term “graduated sovereignty” to describe the state’s role in setting territories aside for development as exceptional spaces that will link strategically with global supply and production chains. In certain arenas, such as in Malaysia and Singapore, states designate these special economic zones as locales in which production firms assume some of the responsibilities of governing, such as surveillance, regulation, and control, that “set the terms and are constitutive of a domain of social existence” (Ong 2000: 56; see also Foucault 1991 and Sparke et al. 2004).

These spatial shifts influence the links among states, territory, and gender vis-a- vis global capital. In an age of hypermasculine capitalism characterized by mobility, high risk, competition, and aggression (both of the social actors who make capital move, and the discourse around flows of capital), the dominance of global financial investment firms based in the “Global North” over governments of the “South,” resulting in an occupation and accumulation of “virgin territory,” evokes a hierarchial relationship among territories, institutions, and social actors that adheres to economic tropes with gendered overtones (De Goede 2004; Griffin 2012; Ling 2004). Such a dynamic is part of how global economic forces and state redistributive policies play a major role in the production of space and the social relations and modes of organization within that space.

Large-scale spatial practices which give rise to special economic zones, including those on borders, are not only gendered, but influence gendered subjectivities in various ways, including how women and men relate to one another, think of themselves, navigate moral and civic structures, and participate (and are expected to participate) in local and global economies as well as in the social fabric and care structures of communities (Mills 2003; Tsing 2005). This is part of the way that global capital has transformed gendered spaces, insinuating itself into households and the practices of social

reproduction, rendering both into forms of surplus labor (Bryan et al. 2009; Nagar et al. 2002; Pollard 2012).

However, within the spatial relations of social reproduction, as “capital produces landscapes in its quest for survival…workers seek to produce space in particular ways as part of a strategy to secure their own social and biological reproduction on a daily and/or generational basis” (Heynen et al. 2011: 241). Practically speaking, this refers to all the ways that workers formally and informally build up infrastructure to support their survival, including accommodation, healthcare, family space, childcare, and educational facilities/services. It also pertains to the re-appropriation of space for worker recreation, mobilization, and solidarity building as well as transportation networks and systems to enhance the connectivity of individuals and families across long distances. Crucially, these sites are never solely produced by and for the perpetuation of capital. While the landscapes workers construct sometimes support the goals of capitalism, sometimes they constitute or support resistance (Boyer 2006; Kurtz 2003). That these unanticipated consequences in the reproduction of labor-power are openings for struggle, change, and the assertion of alternative spaces and space-relations is a key theme in this dissertation.

The three concepts of space highlighted in these pages—space as

material/relational; space and the imagining of nations, empires, and culture; and space and capital—are, of course, deeply interrelated. The legacies and continued prominence of various hierarchies manifest themselves in the economic practices that reconfigure spatial relations. Spaces considered peripheral are more easily subsumed into new sites for production. Special zones for production relying on different regimes of regulation, governance, gender relations, and wage scales are likely to profit from employing those who might already be considered as “others” who do not have the full entitlements of citizens. Along borders, discourses about the nation and national identity seem to become all the more important the more spaces are designated as sites in global supply chains. Concerns over national security and the perception of change to the national

consciousness fixate public attention onto borders in terms of their permeability and the threat of the people living in these peripheral areas.

All of these intersections in spatial consciousness and spatial relations are relevant for the development of the Thailand-Myanmar borderlands. While it is beyond the scope of this dissertation to convey a full account of this area’s history, I share several

snapshots from three centuries in order to convey the intersecting and contingent spatial processes that render the borderlands a place where migrants find themselves

simultaneously incorporated into economic practices and the national imagination and forcefully kept on the margins. I show also how the border’s particular historical development represents an agglomeration of time-space moments in which various histories, discourses, and relations of power are in a state of constant struggle.