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Gender, migration and intimate geopolitics: shifting senses of home among women on the Myanmar-Thailand border

Gender, migration and intimate geopolitics: shifting senses of home among women on the Myanmar-Thailand border
Gender, migration and intimate geopolitics: shifting senses of home among women on the Myanmar-Thailand border
This article examines changing experiences of home among migrant women from Myanmar in the context of the Myanmar-Thailand border. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with migrant women and participant observation within a women-led organisation, the article demonstrates the ways in which women’s journeys from Myanmar into Thailand are also journeys of personal transition in which ideas of home are questioned and reconfigured. Developing perspectives on the geopolitics of home and bringing them into dialogue with feminist theorisations of borders, the article conceptualises home on the border as a site of vulnerability and potential in which participants can challenge gendered norms that associate women with reproduction, domesticity and the preservation of national culture. The article reveals a complex reality in which women negotiate multiple insecurities, developing alternative ideas of home while contributing to social change across borders.
home, Gender, Borders, Migration, Myanmar, Thailand
0966-369X
Wilkins, Annabelle
33b0bf25-91c4-4160-8e1c-38d397a17565
Wilkins, Annabelle
33b0bf25-91c4-4160-8e1c-38d397a17565

Wilkins, Annabelle (2017) Gender, migration and intimate geopolitics: shifting senses of home among women on the Myanmar-Thailand border. Gender, Place & Culture. (doi:10.1080/0966369X.2017.1380608).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This article examines changing experiences of home among migrant women from Myanmar in the context of the Myanmar-Thailand border. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with migrant women and participant observation within a women-led organisation, the article demonstrates the ways in which women’s journeys from Myanmar into Thailand are also journeys of personal transition in which ideas of home are questioned and reconfigured. Developing perspectives on the geopolitics of home and bringing them into dialogue with feminist theorisations of borders, the article conceptualises home on the border as a site of vulnerability and potential in which participants can challenge gendered norms that associate women with reproduction, domesticity and the preservation of national culture. The article reveals a complex reality in which women negotiate multiple insecurities, developing alternative ideas of home while contributing to social change across borders.

Text
CGPC-2016-0195.R2-Wilkins-FINAL-3 - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 30 June 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 6 October 2017
Keywords: home, Gender, Borders, Migration, Myanmar, Thailand

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 414806
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/414806
ISSN: 0966-369X
PURE UUID: 01cb880b-c649-4b45-87b4-45b6a4a777dc
ORCID for Annabelle Wilkins: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4235-9719

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Date deposited: 11 Oct 2017 16:31
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 05:48

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Author: Annabelle Wilkins ORCID iD

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