Myanmar Migrant Workers and Monks: The Creation of Cultural Space in Chiang Mai Province

Abstract

This research aims to examine the roles of Myanmar migrant workers and monks in creating Myanmar culture in Chiang Mai Province from the 1990s to present.   The research uses historical approaches through documents, oral history, and archaeological evidence. This study finds that the creation and continuity of Burmese cultural space have been supported within Myanmar and Thai monasteries by Myanmar migrant workers and monks. Myanmar Buddhist cultural practices and annual festivals are often organized within the monasteries with historical traces of Burmese migrant patronage or Burmese styles of art. This makes the monasteries become a cultural space to express a common sense of Myanmar-ness among participants as an “imagined community”. Both ethnic cultural identities and national identities are shown to represent the Myanmar migrant communities in local Thai society.