- This event has passed.
Kathoey Using Tourist Scenes to Achieve Sustainable Lives and Recognition in Thailand
6 July, 2022 @ 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
SEA Junction in collaboration with IPSR In-House Seminar and Mahidol Migration Centre (MMC) has launched a series of bi-monthly events entitled ‘Wednesday SEA Mobilities’, starting in February 2022. The last Wednesday of every two months, we will jointly hold seminars or panels discussing vast arrays of current Southeast Asia’s mobility issues by experts, academics, practitioners, NGO workers, migrants, and people from the fields.
Our third Wednesday SEA Mobility’s event on 6 July 2022 at 2.30-3.30 pm will be a presentation by Paul Statham on “Kathoey using tourist scenes to achieve sustainable lives and recognition in Thailand”. This online event will be held via Zoom at https://bit.ly/WEDNESDAY-SEA-MOBILITIES and also livestreamed on the FB pages of IPSR and of SEA Junction.
Speaker’s Profile
Paul Statham is Professor of Migration and Director of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR) in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS), ranked no1 in “Ethnic Studies” (2020 Impact factor 5.340 score). Paul has written a number of collaborative monographs, edited volumes, and more than 70 articles in refereed journals and as book chapters.
Abstract
Paul Statham & Sarah Scuzzarello (2021): Transgender Kathoey and gay men using tourist-zone scenes as ‘social opportunities’ for nonheteronormative living in Thailand, Gender, Place & Culture, https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1997937 OPEN ACCESS
The article studies life-trajectories of a specific generation of Kathoey and gay men, born into rural poverty in Northeastern Isaan 30–50 years ago, based on biographical accounts. Subjects are male-to-female transgender Kathoey and cisgendered (masculine-identified or gender-normative) gay men. A ‘sustainable nonheteronormative life’ is one providing sufficient resources of recognition for validating gender identity (Kathoey) or sexuality (gay men), and wealth to be economically viable. How did they strive to make spaces for nonheteronormative living when confronted by ‘blocked’ social opportunities of double discrimination based on transphobia (Kathoey) and homophobia (gay men), and class/ status? The research unpacks which strong barriers of discrimination confronted them at distinct life-stages, and their agency and strategies to challenge these. Family, work and place are investigated as core social factors influentially defining a person’s positioning and life-chances, while shaping their pathway through social space over time. The empirical study reconstructs subjects’ lived experiences in distinct life-stages: village childhood; early postmigration city experiences; building lives in tourist-zone scenes; and reaching back ‘home’. The main finding is that tourist-zone scenes present new social opportunities that enable a few to transform their social and geographical displacement away from mainstream heteronormative society into an asset and achieve ‘success’. Tourist-zones transgress dominant (hetero) norms and values, but provide social infrastructures, communities and countercultural norms that support specific forms of nonheteronormative living, albeit dependent on foreign men. By migrating to tourist-zones, subjects stepped out of mainstream society, but over time drew on resources to build new social pathways towards living nonheteronormatively.
Organizers
Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR), Mahidol University
IPSR was established in 1971 and has become one of Asia’s premier population research and training hubs. The Institute conducts research and provides training in population, sexual and reproductive health and development with a focus on Thailand and on neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of life for all. For more information, see https://ipsr.mahidol.ac.th.
SEA Junction
SEA Junction, established under the Thai non-profit organization Foundation for Southeast Asia Studies (ForSEA), aims to foster understanding and appreciation of Southeast Asia in all its socio-cultural dimensions, from arts and lifestyles to economy and development. Conveniently located at Room 408 of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre or BACC (across MBK, BTS National Stadium), SEA Junction facilitates public access to knowledge resources and exchanges among students, practitioners and Southeast Asia lovers. For more information, see www.seajunction.org, join the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/1693058870976440/ and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @seajunction
