| This dissertation examines the ways in which Bangkok taxis drivers, largely drawn from the rural Northeastern region, are participating in the development of a changing Thailand. Drawing on archival research, survey findings, informational interviews and in-depth participant observation, I connect a political-economic analysis of the production of a globalizing Thailand over the past half-century with a detailed case study of the Bangkok taxi business and the day-to-day working conditions of taxi drivers. I analyze: (i) how the restructuring of the Bangkok taxi business has produced new 'neoliberalized' labor subjects; (ii) the contradictions that have emerged from restructuring, and from the production of these new labor subjects; (iii) attempts by the Thai state to manage these contradictions, and; (iv) the ways in which taxi drivers have adapted, reworked and resisted hegemonic strategies aimed at controlling their identities as workers, migrants and men.;I examine how the deregulation of the Bangkok taxi supply has led to a "devolution" of economic risk away from the market and onto taxi drivers who, in turn, face increasing competition and diminishing real wages. I argue that this process is tied to a "re-fashioning" of male migrant labor through the linkage of the "traditional" cultural value of itsara (independence) with the construction of new political subjectivities. I then analyze the contradiction in the Thai state's positioning of taxi drivers as autonomous economic actors while at the same time seeking to "upgrade" taxi services using both regulatory and discursive strategies. While regulation has been successful, attempts to "professionalize" taxi drivers through socialization have been a failure. My analysis uncovers how the rejection of a "professional" identity by migrant taxi drivers has its roots in an ethno-regional social framework and is intimately tied to Northeastern Thai cultural constructions of how to "be a man." In an analysis of Thai masculinity centered on taxi drivers I reveal a number of key tensions and contradictions at the intersection between globalization, national development and socio-cultural struggles. I conclude with a brief reflection on the pivotal role that taxi drivers are playing in the ongoing political turmoil in Thailand. |
