Introduction

Over a number of decades, the Union of Myanmar has become one of the main sources of cheap labour for the more industrialized countries of ASEAN. For Thailand, one of the main receiving countries (along with Malaysia and Singapore), the figures concerning Burmese migrants residing in this country have risen rapidly in the last five years, from 1 million (legal and illegal Burmese migrants) to 2 million, and sometimes, according to case studies, up to an estimated 4 million (Boutry & Ivanoff 2009). One of the objectives of this paper is to understand the roots and long duration of this migration. The economic determinism used to ‘justify’ migrations cannot be used as the sole explanation for the great spread and dynamism of these transnational migrant networks. To understand the phenomenon of Burmese migration, we have to take into account its history, from the colonization of Southern Burma under British rule to the Burmanization of the Tenasserim area (the southern border with Thailand), resulting in the ‘adaptive colonization’ of Southern Thailand. By ‘adaptive’, we mean dynamic interactions and socio-economic changes in cultural patterns.

Historical Background: the National Roots of International Migrations

Beyond the widely accepted idea that there exists a clear economic distinction within ASEAN between poor and developed countries, with the former being sources of and the latter being destinations for economic migrants, the development of Burmese social space deserves a deeper analysis. In fact, in recent history, the Union of Myanmar has somewhat been a pioneer front for Burmese socio‑economic developments, rather than simply representing the new name of a poor, overcrowded country. Moreover, migration patterns, cultural development and interactions in Thai society show that the Burmese are in fact one of the most flexible and mobile populations in Southeast Asia, a paradox for a country that is well known for tightly controlling its population.

These ongoing assumptions are based on the recent development of two main regions of the Union of Myanmar, namely the Irrawaddy Delta and the Tanintharyi Division.

For Myanmar, the transition between the padi state (Scott 2009) and commercial state phases really began with British colonization and a movement drawing the ruling power closer to the sea, to the town of Yangon (Rangoon).