Rewriting the Victim: Dramatization as Research in Thailand’s Anti-Trafficking Movement 0190840099, 978-0190840099

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Series......Page 3
Rewriting the Victim......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 10
Prologue......Page 12
Introduction......Page 14
1. Theorizing Dramatization as Research......Page 32
Part I......Page 54
2. Setting the Stage: National Identity and the Trafficking of Women in Thailand......Page 56
3. “Smart Raids” and the Victim-​versus-​Criminal Narrative......Page 82
4. NGOs and the Rescue Narrative......Page 97
5. Community-​Based Organizations and the Narrative of Resistance......Page 114
Part II......Page 128
6. Building the Characters......Page 130
7. Finding the Story......Page 145
8. Embodiment......Page 160
Part III......Page 172
9. Articulating NGO Narratives......Page 174
10. Restorative Justice and Reconciliation: NGO Subjectivities......Page 193
11. Articulating Migrant Narratives......Page 202
12. Recollection, Mourning, and Witness: Migrant Subjectivities......Page 215
13. Articulating Artist Narratives......Page 223
14. Rupture and Hospitality: Artist Subjectivities......Page 238
Conclusion: Dramatization as Research: A Feminist Communication Intervention......Page 249
Appendix A: Phase One Methodology......Page 260
Appendix B: Phase Two Methodology......Page 263
Appendix C: Phase Three Methodology......Page 265
Appendix D: Phase One Interviewee Identification Chart......Page 269
Appendix E: Focus Group Demographics......Page 271
Notes......Page 274
References......Page 280
Index......Page 292

Citation preview

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Rewriting the Victim

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Oxford Studies in Gender and International Relations Series editors: J. Ann Tickner, University of Southern California, and Laura Sjoberg, University of Florida Windows of Opportunity: How Women Seize Peace Negotiations for Political Change Miriam J. Anderson Women as Foreign Policy Leaders: National Security and Gender Politics in Superpower America Sylvia Bashevkin Enlisting Masculinity: The Construction of Gender in U.S. Military Recruiting Advertising during the All-​Volunteer Force Melissa T. Brown The Politics of Gender Justice at the International Criminal Court: Legacies and Legitimacy Louise Chappell Cosmopolitan Sex Workers: Women and Migration in a Global City Christine B. N. Chin Intelligent Compassion: Feminist Critical Methodology in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Catia Cecilia Confortini Complicit Sisters: Gender and Women’s Issues across North-​South Divides Sara de Jong Gender and Private Security in Global Politics Maya Eichler This American Moment: A Feminist Christian Realist Intervention Caron E. Gentry Scandalous Economics: Gender and the Politics of Financial Crises Aida A. Hozić and Jacqui True Equal Opportunity Peacekeeping: Women, Peace, and Security in Post-​Conflict States Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley

Gender, Sex, and the Postnational Defense: Militarism and Peacekeeping Annica Kronsell The Beauty Trade: Youth, Gender, and Fashion Globalization Angela B. V. McCracken Rape Loot Pillage: The Political Economy of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict Sara Meger From Global to Grassroots: The European Union, Transnational Advocacy, and Combating Violence against Women Celeste Montoya Who Is Worthy of Protection? Gender-​ Based Asylum and U.S. Immigration Politics Meghana Nayak Revisiting Gendered States: Feminist Imaginings of the State in International Relations Swati Parashar, J. Ann Tickner, and Jacqui True Gender, UN Peacebuilding, and the Politics of Space: Locating Legitimacy Laura J. Shepherd A Feminist Voyage through International Relations J. Ann Tickner The Political Economy of Violence against Women Jacqui True Queer International Relations: Sovereignty, Sexuality and the Will to Knowledge Cynthia Weber Bodies of Violence: Theorizing Embodied Subjects in International Relations Lauren B. Wilcox

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Rewriting the Victim Dramatization as Research in Thailand’s Anti-​Trafficking Movement Erin M. Kamler

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1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Kamler, Erin (Erin M.), author. Title: Rewriting the victim : dramatization as research in Thailand’s anti-​trafficking movement /​Erin M. Kamler. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018031075 (print) | LCCN 2018046593 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190840105 (Updf) | ISBN 9780190840112 (Epub) | ISBN 9780190840099 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Social work with prostitutes—​Thailand. | Human trafficking—​Thailand—​Prevention. | Musicals—​Social aspects—​Thailand. | Feminist theory. | Non-​governmental organizations—​Thailand. | United States—​Relations—​Thailand. | Thailand—​Relations—​United States. Classification: LCC HQ412.55.A5 (ebook) | LCC HQ412.55.A5 K36 2019 (print) | DDC 306.3/​6209593—​dc23 LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2018031075 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

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This book is dedicated to the migrant women of Burma, and to every artist who envisions a better world.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments  ix Prologue  xi Introduction  1 1. Theorizing Dramatization as Research   19

PART ONE: The Field Research Phase 2. Setting the Stage: National Identity and the Trafficking of Women in Thailand  43 3. “Smart Raids” and the Victim-​versus-​Criminal Narrative   69 4. NGOs and the Rescue Narrative   84 5. Community-​Based Organizations and the Narrative of Resistance   101 PART TWO: The Creative Phase 6. Building the Characters   117 7. Finding the Story   132 8. Embodiment   147 PART THREE: The Production Phase 9. Articulating NGO Narratives   161 10. Restorative Justice and Reconciliation: NGO Subjectivities   180 11. Articulating Migrant Narratives   189 12. Recollection, Mourning, and Witness: Migrant Subjectivities   202 13. Articulating Artist Narratives   210 14. Rupture and Hospitality: Artist Subjectivities   225 Conclusion: Dramatization as Research: A Feminist Communication Intervention  236 Appendix A: Phase One Methodology   247 Appendix B: Phase Two Methodology   250 Appendix C: Phase Three Methodology   252

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Appendix D: Phase One Interviewee Identification Chart   256 Appendix E: Focus Group Demographics   258 Notes  261 References  267 Index  279

[ viii ] Contents

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The research for this book was made possible with the support of a fellowship from the University of Southern California Graduate School’s Office of the Provost, as well as support from the USC Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society, the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism Doctoral Program, the USC Center for Feminist Research, the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, the USC Annenberg Center on Public Diplomacy, the USC Dornsife Department of Sociology, the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and the USC Diploma in Innovation Program. I wish to thank, foremost, my PhD advisers Manuel Castells and Larry Gross for their ceaseless support and belief in my work, as well as committee members Ted Braun, Rhacel Parreñas, Patricia Riley, and J. Ann Tickner for walking through this journey with me and cheering me on at every step. Additionally, I thank Gwendolyn Alker, Sarah Banet-​Weiser, Geoffrey Cowan, Nicolas Cull, Meredith Drake Reitan, Sofia Gruskin, Helene Lorenz, Arlene Luck, Duncan McCargo, Philip Seib, and Mina Yang for their guidance; as well as Zhaleh Boyd, Samantha Sahl, and Prawit Thainiyom for their research assistance; and Ann Marie Campian, and Christine Lloreda for their administrative support. I also thank the outstanding, brave artists who lent their talents to this project, in particular: Joan Almedilla, Melody Butiu, Ann Fink, Amanda Kruger, Jennie Kwan, Kerri-​ Anne Lavin, Marisa Mour, Yardpirun Poolun, Katy Tang, Lowe Taylor Cunningham, and Kimiko Warner-​Turner. And I extend my deepest gratitude to those in Thailand, Burma, and the United States who played supportive roles, including the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand, Shirley Seng, Moon Nay Li, Mai Nhkum, Ban Sengbu, N. Seng Nu, Hkaw Myaw, Apoh, Ursula Cats, Cindy Wilkenson, We Women Foundation, Stephan Turner, Wan Muangjun, The Gate Theater Group, Eleonore Chaban Delmas, Christy Humphry, Jeff Lynn, Ben en Vadrouille Berimbau, Sydney Holofcener, Mike Griffiths, Chalermpon Poungpeth, Kevin McLeod, Kate Stayman-​ London, Gregory Franklin, Franklin Theatrical Group, Kirk Solomon, John Wall, Lester Cohen, Scott Liggett, Kay Alden, Vern Nelson, Sue Cleereman, Rick Sparks, Rosalba Messina, Nancie March, Robert Loza, Rebecca Loza, Michael Holbrook, Eli Villanueva, David O, Leslie Stevens, Ren Hanami, Kerry K. Carnahan, Jamie Drutman, Marjorie Poe, Meg Irwin-​Brandon, Adrienne Geffen, Ellen Monocroussos, Fringe Management, Michael Blaha, Nigel Miles-​Thomas, Thomas Turner, Thomas Ruiter, Matt Garrett, C. Raul Espinoza, Lynn Marks, Meg Miller, Terry Kamler McManus,

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the Wisconsin Chapter of the P.E.O. International Sisterhood, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival production crew, Ajan Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, and Chiang Mai University. I could not have written this book without the generosity of the migrant laborers, NGO employees, community activists, U.S.  government and U.N.  officials, Thai authorities, and others who participated in my research. I thank them for giving me their time and their truth. I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the anonymous reviewers whose feedback helped strengthen the manuscript, and to the invaluable contributions made by readers Howard Kamler and Min J. Kim. To Sahra Sulaiman, my preeminent intellectual ally who combed through these pages with laser-​sharp precision, thank you for always pushing me to be a better writer. To OUP series editors Laura Sjoberg and J. Ann Tickner, copyeditor Brooke Smith, and my editor, Angela Chnapko, thank you for your enduring support, patience, and insight, and for guiding this manuscript through to the finish line. I wrote this book in Thailand, revised it in Burma, and am, at long last, seeing it published in the United States. A tribe of friends and colleagues came and went along the way, helping keep my spirits lifted and my sanity intact. Thank you Nicolas De Zamaroczy, Meryl Alper, Ritesh Mehta, Cynthia Wang, Laurel Felt, Katrina Pariera, Alexandrina Agloro, Yasuhito Abe, the ASCJ Doctoral Student Cohort of 2010, Naomi Leight-​Giveon, Mike and Kathryn Sweeney, Stephanie Winters, Adam Dedman, Matthew Walton, Guy Horton, Brian Eyler, Tracy Ravelli, Stella Naw, Don Linder, Wannida Jiratha, Alex Soulsby, Jennie and Peter McGuire, Stuart Land, Jennifer Leehey, Feliz Solomon, Fiona MacGregor, Rob and Meriem Gray, Kyoko Yokosuka, Gry Hjeltnes, Kaori Ishikawa, Maria Suokko, Cate Buchanan, Jenny Vaughan, Heather Barr, and Khinyadanar Oo. Finally, I thank Rick Culbertson for our transformative years of partnership, and for being my unwavering champion.

[ x ] Acknowledgments

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PROLOGUE

When we—​members of the privileged West—​see her picture, we pity her. We can’t help it. Her dark skin, her obvious youth, her fragile frame. Her eyes are turned downward, in the direction of her fallen face. Rather than hearing her voice, we focus on her image, static and subdued. Rather than listening to her story, we imagine the worst. It was never supposed to be like this, we think. She couldn’t have believed such a thing would ever happen to her. Or if she had seen it coming—​well then, that’s another trauma altogether. The burden she wears on her face has been caused, we think, by something that happened to her long before we were invited to gaze at her. Something downright sinister. She’s consumed by the knowledge that she was tricked. Consumed by her past—​a past in which sex and slavery were bound together; a past we imagine as a blur of relentless violence, something we can hardly comprehend because it will never touch us the way it touched her. We don’t see ourselves watching her. Or if we do, we quickly rationalize that in fact, it’s our obligation to watch her in order for her to heal. Our witnessing, we reason, is the first step to her recovery. Not only that—​we believe that without us, she may never be able to go on. But we are not the saviors we imagine ourselves to be. And this girl—​this woman, from an origin so unknown to us it must mean she is not known by anyone—​she is not the victim we imagine her to be. We can’t know that, of course. Because to know that would mean admitting too much about ourselves, and the things we want to believe we see. Who is this girl then, this supposed victim? More important, who are we to look at her at all?

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Introduction We need new words to speak to each other, words that describe our similarities and our differences in much more complicated ways, words that will allow us to account for the inevitability that what we say will only partly be heard. —Jill Dolan (1993: 417)

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n this book I bring together two seemingly disparate—​but actually very interconnected—​realms: the realm of international human rights research and the realm of the dramatic arts. In doing so, I illuminate the processes by which both research and musical dramatization—​that is, the unearthing of knowledge about the social world and the creative process of developing a theatrical musical—​work together to inform new modalities of discovery and heal wounds within the psyche and the community. The richness and complexity of our lived experience defies our ability to communicate it. Yet communication demands that we do exactly that. Theater, and particularly musical theater, as a “higher octave” of communication, can radically interrupt the limitations and divisions that are inherent in this struggle. Characters sing “what cannot be spoken” (Krywotz, 2011); “liveness” connects audience members somatically, engaging our bodies, as well as our minds. In the theater, individuals come together in a room—​our lives simultaneously and deliberately interrupted—​to listen, feel, and grapple with the meaning of our collective experience. In the process, we become present, awake, willing to undergo rupture and transformation—​if only for an evening or an afternoon. Knowing the power of this medium, playwrights, composers, actors, and other theater artists have long searched for ways to use our crafts to unearth, navigate, and heal social justice concerns. We’ve done this in local as well as international contexts—​on stages, in streets and other found environments. We’ve wondered whether our work will move people—​whether the stories we tell, stories that have been buried or silenced or for whatever reason have gone unheard will invoke empathy, and maybe even social change. Theater, in its various forms, has always

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wrestled with these questions; artists have always tried to answer them. My project, and this book, follows that long tradition. But I won’t spend too much time talking about that tradition here. Because though artists have always moved between creative and social justice spaces, international researchers have not. In fact, looking at these questions of engagement through the lens of social science casts them in a wholly different light. As an artist who is also a feminist scholar working in the developing world,1 my inquiries sit at the nexus of these realms. They are questions dealing with what it means to uncover, recover, and articulate lived experience. Questions dealing with the positionalities of Western researchers and the “subjects” of our studies. They are epistemological and methodological quandaries that bind together the seemingly inexplicable but ultimately intimately connected realms of performance and feminist international research. Feminists conducting international and intercultural research have critiqued the application of positivist methodologies to these contexts, arguing that such approaches rely on neocolonial tropes and incomplete frameworks for “knowing” (Alcoff, 1991–​ 1992; Harding, 1998; Mohanty, 1991; Tickner, 2001; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999). Positivism, as an epistemological approach to research, is rooted in a traditional masculinist social science framework that relies on detached, supposedly quantifiable observation, rather than subjective—​or what we may call more “human”—​experience. One of the problems with this objectifying, positivist approach to research is that it stems from liberal assumptions that homogenize the potentiality of the individual. Liberalism—​ a construct that pits the “rational” (read: male) human against the “subjective” (read: female) “other”—​is premised on the notion that human experience can actually be measured according to abstract assumptions. Some feminists see this paradigm as being oppressive to women, as it can “flatten” the lived realities of women in the developing world (Parreñas, 2011), while reifying the value systems of the enlightened West (Hesford, 2011). In contrast, as Donna Haraway (1988) explained, Feminists have stakes in a successor science project that offers a more adequate, richer, better account of a world, in order to live in it well and in critical, reflexive relation to our own as well as others’ practices of domination and the unequal parts of privilege and oppression that make up all positions (p. 579).

So in order to responsibly advance feminist international research, those of us working in these contexts need to engage alternative methodological and epistemological frameworks that refute the limitations of positivism. This way, we can become attentive to cultivating more equitable—​or, “horizontal”—​relationships with the subjects of our studies. Feminist epistemologies help us intervene in what scholars in the field of liberation psychology have called “social catastrophe.” Social catastrophe is the breakdown of the ability of a community to respond collectively to its own trauma. Such breakdowns create a kind of rift in our sense of self-​identity. Martin-​Baro, speaking about these kinds of breakdowns, suggested that they augment systemic social inequalities, as we are no longer able to recognize the conditions of oppression that [ 2 ] Introduction

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bind us (1994). Rather than coming together as “witnesses” who collectively identify with the trauma and seek to restore the community’s health by claiming our own part in it, we instead remain “bystanders,” watching the trauma unfold from a distance without taking ownership of our own role within it (Watkins & Shulman, 2008). Social catastrophe takes many forms. It appears in spaces where we feel powerless to change the conditions around us. This sense of powerlessness can create divisions between communities and individuals—​divisions that permeate even the most seemingly socially conscious sites—​for example, human rights movements themselves. To respond to these breakdowns, creative interventions are needed—​interventions that force us to recognize the roles played by all community members in a given human rights crisis; interventions that engage feminist ways of comprehending the richness and complexity of lived experience, and shed light on alternative ways of “knowing.” Interventions that are what we might call “liberatory” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008). In this book, I  draw from a wide array of philosophies and literatures to show how theater, and in particular, musical theater can unearth the lived experiences of those who have been marginalized and subjected to a given human rights crisis, and bring their experiences into the consciousness of those who—​often unknowingly—​ are complicit in their marginalization. Specifically, in this book I look at the issue of human trafficking in Thailand, and show how musical theater can be a vehicle for articulating the experiences of those caught in a social catastrophe in new and meaningful ways. In doing this, I illuminate a “praxis”—​that is, a theoretical model that is then applied and realized, designed to unearth and convey lived experience through feminist, liberatory means. I call this praxis Dramatization as Research, or DAR. DAR is a feminist, liberatory praxis that combines creative dramatization with feminist international research, and engages reflexive, co-​constitutive approaches to each of these modalities. DAR is dedicated to the uncovering, recovering, and articulation of lived experience through the powerful medium of musical theater. It relies, at its foundation, on feminist epistemologies in research—​that is, feminist ways of knowing lived experience; participatory methodologies—​that is, methods that involve the reorientation of the researcher-​subject relationship; and evaluative measures that emerge from a liberatory ontological framework—​that is, a framework dedicated to restoring the health of the entire community involved in the given social catastrophe. In the context of international development practice, DAR responds to a need for more creative, innovative types of interventions—​ways of responding to a social catastrophe that are more meaningful for people who have been marginalized, and for their advocates. DAR thus draws on the intersections between the process of making dramatic work and the process of uncovering meaning in the social world, and interrogates the learning that is achieved at their nexus. I approach this endeavor through my work as both a scholar and an artist. Having embarked on this project as a mid-​career playwright and composer with over 20 years of experience and achievements already behind me, my goal was to push my artistic abilities even further, and unite them with my work as a social scientist. I wanted to understand how musical dramatization could disrupt a dominant discourse and, in the process, reorient the agenda and the outcome of social science research. I n t r o d u c t i o n  [ 3 ]

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Moreover, I wanted to show the importance of lived experience as a framework for knowing and understanding social catastrophe, and the power of musical theater in conveying that understanding through the feminist, liberatory praxis of DAR. To explicate this praxis, in the chapters that follow I  bring together a theoretical approach to engaged international research with a three-​phase methodological process of research, creative dramatization, and performance. On a practical level, these phases include conducting international field research, writing, and performing an original musical. But they also include something much richer: a roadmap for uncovering, recovering, and articulating the voice of a “subject”—​in this case, the female migrant sex worker, whom the anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand has labeled a “victim,” and subsequently silenced through its rhetoric—​as well as the voices of the nongovernmental organization (NGO) employees who are implicated in the social catastrophe of trafficking and the discourse that surrounds it, and the artists who have stepped into this discourse as performers, and thus also inform it. Together, these actors form a “community,” as they all engaged with the intervention, albeit from different vantage points. It is through understanding their engagement that we may see a new type of “knowing” emerge about the issues surrounding trafficking. While this knowing is not necessarily unified—​that is, we cannot say that all of the participants involved in this project came to the exact same understanding—​it is clear that the types of narratives—​ that is, the discourse—​that emerged from the artistic intervention, when compared to those that emerged prior to its taking place, were transformed. Musical theater thus takes on a prominent role in this book. Not only is it a powerful vehicle for communicating experience, it is also the site for understanding how, what, and why we communicate, and the discoveries we make about ourselves along the way. As an embodied way of communicating the “situated” knowledge described by Haraway, theater—​and in particular musical theater—​has the ability to interrupt binary categorizations that have been cemented into a discourse, and to trouble the epistemological claims that inform that discourse. Musicals can also serve the sometimes subversive purpose of deflecting an audience’s attention away from overly political messages through song, dance, and spectacle. These spectacles can take us by surprise by providing a much-​needed social critique. When this happens, musicals can become profound tools for political engagement. The musical at the heart of this project is Land of Smiles, a fictional, full-​length piece that I  wrote and composed about the trafficking of women from Burma2 into Thailand. Inspired by field research that includes 54 interviews with female migrant laborers (including sex workers), community-​based activists, NGO employees, members of government, and other development actors working to combat trafficking, Land of Smiles dramatizes what I call the “dominant trafficking narrative”: a story told by the anti-​trafficking advocacy community that reinforces Western moralisms about intimacy, rights, and gender norms, as well as notions of individualism and a modernization framework that underscores contemporary development thinking. As such, Land of Smiles presents a dramatic look at how the story about trafficking is told, and shows that finding a solution to this problem is even more complicated than it seems.

[ 4 ] Introduction

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The story focuses on the aftermath of a brothel raid in Northern Thailand. Lipoh, a young Kachin (ethnic minority)3 migrant from Burma, seems to be underage, making her an automatic trafficking victim in the eyes of the law. Emma Gable, a young, white, American human rights attorney working for an international NGO, is sent to prepare Lipoh to be a witness in a trial to prosecute her supposed trafficker. Emma must convince Lipoh to be the person everyone sees: a trafficking victim. But Lipoh is unwilling to cooperate. She insists that she is 18 years old and was working in the brothel willingly. Not only that—​she wants to go back. What transpires is a journey into Thailand’s anti-​trafficking movement—​a world burdened with politics, morality, and the rhetoric of human rights. Through hearing Lipoh’s story, Emma discovers that human rights violations—​including the burning of villages, torture, forced conscription of child soldiers, portering, and the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war—​are being committed against Kachin civilians at the Burmese government’s behest. But these atrocities are being overshadowed by a narrative about trafficking that puts the ideology of the anti-​trafficking movement before the needs of the women it is trying to help. Land of Smiles responds to the crippled policies, practices, and moralisms underlying the anti-​trafficking movement by zooming in on Thailand—​a country known, over the past two decades, for being an “infamous” trafficking hub. The story explores the way a U.S.-​funded NGO responds to Lipoh, a young Kachin sex worker caught in the wrong brothel at the wrong time. Trying in earnest to rescue this exploited “victim,” the NGO is relying on Lipoh’s acknowledgment of her victim status to secure the prosecution of her supposed “traffickers.” But as the narrative unfolds, we discover that Lipoh does not view herself as a disempowered trafficking victim. Rather, she shares emotional, social, financial, and political bonds with both her auntie—​the woman who helped her cross the border from Burma into Thailand—​and her mama san—​the owner of the brothel where she worked. In contrast to seeing her situation as being akin to conditions of slavery, Lipoh finds a clear, albeit complex sense of strength in her relationships with her supposed “traffickers,” and stands united with them. Such a contradictory understanding of experience represents what Scott (1991) described as a “corrective” to the problem of dismissing women’s perspectives that is so prevalent in traditional (positivist) research. The musical sheds light on the story currently being told about human trafficking—​a story used by advocates to reinforce ideas of Western superiority on the global stage and moralisms about sex work in the developing world. It also deals with the quintessentially American desire to “rescue” suffering “victims” in a distant, “third world” environment, and thus prove America exceptional on the world stage. Above all, Land of Smiles pushes back against—​or, rewrites—​the normative tropes of victimhood, rescue, and morality that are commonly used by development actors working within this movement. These tropes, as I  will show, are discursive acts—​rhetorical moves that reinforce a highly politicized, contested discourse on trafficking.

I n t r o d u c t i o n  [ 5 ]

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THE DISCOURSE ON TRAFFICKING

Over the past two decades, human trafficking has emerged on the international stage as one of the most disturbing, complex, and, many claim, pervasive issues of our time. Often dubbed “modern day slavery” (U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2016), this issue, which many believe is growing due to globalization and increasing migration across sovereign borders, became the focus of the 2000 United Nations Convention to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, also known as the “Palermo Protocol.” While it was the hope of those attending Palermo that a consensus as to an appropriate definition and subsequent policy response to trafficking would result, the Convention failed to achieve this outcome (Chuang, 2006). Instead, the Palermo Protocol managed to cement the ongoing, contested debate in the West between neo-​abolitionist feminists who see prostitution as inherently linked with trafficking, and therefore seek its abolishment (see, for example, Barry, 1995; Farley, 2003; Farr, 2005; Jeffreys, 1997; MacKinnon, 1993; Raymond, 2003), and pro-​rights feminists who argue that trafficking and prostitution are not necessarily synonymous, that sex work is a legitimate profession, and that implementing improved working conditions for sex workers would alleviate the dangers associated with this work (see Bindman & Doezema, 1997; Doezema, 2000; Empower Foundation, 2012; Ham, 2011; Kempadoo & Doezema, 1998). This debate, and its critiques, has become the subject of a highly politically charged discourse. The roots of this discourse can be seen in earlier historical moments in U.S. history—​most notably in the culture wars of the 1980s, in which fierce debates about prostitution and the relationship between women’s sexuality and labor dominated white, “first world” feminist thought. Radical feminists argued that prostitution was a manifestation of male sexual violence against women, while sex radical feminists saw sex work as a terrain of struggle, and a site for resistance (Chapkis, 1996). The subsequent discourse that was produced during this time represented a cultural shift in the perception of women’s sexuality and labor. “Sex work” became a term used by sex radical feminists to suggest that sexual acts can be considered legitimate forms of labor, and as such, should be compensated fairly (Nussbaum, 1998). Conversations about sex work began to incorporate discussions of pleasure (Vance, 1993), creativity, difference, self-​expression, and women’s roles in the public sphere (Thomas, 1996). Much like the response to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, however, the cultural response to this new way of viewing women’s sexuality and labor generated backlash. This backlash stemmed from an ongoing and, indeed, age-​old panic around the “polluted body” of the prostitute—​a fear of promiscuity and the breaking of social convention that sex workers represent. While sex workers viewed the claiming of their sexual labor as an act of empowerment, they were nevertheless still seen by the larger culture as “symbols of suffering and need, of the mythic malevolence of women, of ‘criminals and deviants’ ” (Leigh, 1996), and faced ongoing stigmatization, scapegoating, and legalized abuse (Alexander, 1996; Leigh, 1996; O’Connell Davidson, 1998; Rubin, 1993). Thus, during this era, the meaning and discursive use of the term “sex work” became a terrain of struggle. [ 6 ] Introduction

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The heightened debate about whether a woman should—​or even can—​exercise agency in selling her sexuality, in tandem with the increasing expression, organization, empowerment, and radicalization achieved by pro-​rights feminists around this issue, underscores a larger tension within the culture. This tension is over the way women’s sexuality and labor is produced and maintained. It echoes broader cultural conflicts about the social roles of women in society, and the way these social roles are performed. Discussing the symbolic aspect of these debates, Gayle Rubin (1993) explained: Contemporary conflicts over sexual values and erotic conduct  .  .  .  acquire immense symbolic weight. Disputes over sexual behavior often become the vehicles for displacing social anxieties, and discharging their attendant emotional intensity (p. 267).

In the 1990s, the American culture wars came to a certain (albeit impermanent) resolution, with the more liberal, progressive values of the Left “winning” the debates on pornography, in particular (Gross, 1991). But the debates about the relationship between women’s sexuality and labor raged on. These debates became displaced, finding their way into what was soon to become the U.S.-​based anti-​ trafficking movement. This movement drew its philosophical tenets from the various camps of feminism—​from pro-​sex positive feminists such as Gloria Steinem who believed that sexual relations should be based on love and mutual respect (Chapkis, 1996), to radical feminists who, like Catherine MacKinnon (1989, 1993) suggested that all sex acts between men and women are inherently violating to women. Both camps conflated prostitution with trafficking, arguing that “commercial” sex was, for women, inherently devoid of emotional intimacy and, thus, inauthentic and even violating to women who engaged in it. Abolitionist feminists such as Kathleen Barry then took this argument further, suggesting that there are no differences between sex work, sexual slavery, incest, and rape (Chapkis, 1996: 46–​47). It was these abolitionists who sought—​and ultimately received—​the bulk of U.S.  government funding (benchmarked primarily by USAID) to combat trafficking. Thus, these abolitionist-​oriented anti-​trafficking organizations quickly began to wield the strongest voices on the international stage. This move marked the beginning of a decisive foreign policy stance taken by the U.S.  government to eradicate prostitution in the developing world—​a stance that I will later refer to as the “U.S. Abolitionist Project.” This project, which is maintained to the present day, encourages the U.S. foreign-​policy funding apparatus to support anti-​prostitution advocates and initiatives in environments that would be prone to their influence—​places such as preindustrialized, conflict-​affected countries and regions in which humanitarian aid and “development” work often comes at the cost of geopolitical influence (if not dominance) on the part of the U.S. government. In essence, what was once a “cultural” conversation focusing on domestic feminist politics had now become “exported” abroad through the U.S.  foreign-​policy funding apparatus. I n t r o d u c t i o n  [ 7 ]

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This shift began in the 1990s, when radical feminists turned their focus away from the domestic realm and toward the international sphere. Shortly thereafter, the 2000 U.N. conference at Palermo cemented the debate about sex work into the moral crusade that is now the anti-​trafficking movement. The echo of the culture wars can be heard in the abolitionist concerns over women’s purity, the victimization of what, in Doezema’s (2010) conception was a white feminist preoccupation with the “wounded third world prostitute,” and the ongoing criminalization and stigmatization of prostitutes who dare to call their work consensual. Having lost these “wars” at home, abolitionist feminists embarked on a new mission:  to impose their own morality on women in the developing world. Exporting moral dominance into the international arena via a “panic” over trafficking is, in fact, an old move of the West. We see this panic foreshadowed in an earlier discourse that appeared in nineteenth-​century England around migration, prostitution, and tensions around women’s role in the public sphere. This Victorian discourse, unpacked perhaps most notably by Agustin (2007) and Doezema (2010), was marked by racism and xenophobia. It centered around a juxtaposition between the “good” (i.e., non-​immigrant) woman and an equal and opposing “bad” harlot—​ the criminal, immigrant prostitute who, through consenting to dirty and dangerous acts, negates the possibility of evoking empathy or good will in the social arena. This juxtaposition thus advances a myth about the virtues of middle class society—​ a myth that privileges and normalizes the status of white, middle-​class British women (Doezema, 2010). Thus, the racism, classism, and sexism that were bound together in the historical discourse on trafficking have re-​manifested themselves in contemporary form. Land of Smiles and the broader DAR praxis I explore in this book respond to this complexity by offering a critical reading of the discourse on trafficking. Specifically, the musical tackles the issue of visibility of the discursive subject in anti-​trafficking discourse: that is, the so-​called “trafficking victim.” As others have pointed out, the trafficking victim is a problematic subject position in this discourse, as the victim identity has, in essence, been “constructed” by Western anti-​trafficking advocates in order to promote their abolitionist narratives (see Doezema, 2000; Empower Foundation, 2012; Parreñas, 2011). In Thailand, the result is that many female migrant laborers who do not see themselves as victims are nevertheless construed as such by anti-​trafficking advocates seeking to work on their behalf. This is done in a variety of ways, and results in the advocates’ effective negation of the voices, and thus also the agency, of female migrant laborers. This, in turn, renders their complex lived experiences invisible within the discourse. As a result, it is often more common for trafficking issues to be narrated by the advocates who are trying to stop it than by the women these advocates are trying to help. Part of the anti-​trafficking movement’s stated concern about human trafficking is the invisibility of women who are supposedly victimized. Ironically, however, it is often actually the visibility of these women that reduces their agency in the discourse, as the only way they are allowed to be visible is through the lens of their victimhood. Responding to this conundrum, I  sought to use musical theater as a means of rewriting the discursive subject position of the supposed trafficking victim, [ 8 ] Introduction

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disentangle the social catastrophe that has been created around trafficking, and understand how the creative practice of dramatization can carve inroads into—​and inform our understanding of—​the trafficking discourse itself.

RESEARCH SITE

The empirical site for this research was Northern and Central Thailand, with primary attention paid to anti-​trafficking NGOs, government actors, community-​ based organizations (CBOs), and female migrant laborers (including domestic service workers, factory laborers, and sex workers) in Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Samut Sakhon, and Bangkok. I  chose Thailand for this study—​and this study for Thailand—​for personal, as well as intellectual reasons. Having lived there myself as a young exchange student, and having returned there on numerous occasions after that, I had learned to navigate the country culturally as well as linguistically. This allowed me to engage with the project from a unique perspective. Being able to communicate helped me negotiate my way through the research process, read the social interactions I was having with Thai authorities and others, and more readily grasp the perspectives of Western development actors who had made Thailand their home. I was well-​positioned to understand the cultural, political, and emotional landscape in which I was operating, and my personal experience proved to be a tremendous asset throughout each phase of the research process. In addition, Thailand was a logical site for exploring the contested issue of sex trafficking and its intersection with Western development practice. Having been labeled a “source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking” by the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report (U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2015), Thailand has gained a reputation for sex tourism, prostitution, and, more recently, what has come to be thought of as an underground criminal network of transnational organized crime. Thailand’s reputation for supporting the sex industry is as old as its diplomatic ties to the United States, dating back to the “Green Harvest” period on the heels of World War II, in which impoverished families from the northeast would send their daughters to work as prostitutes in Bangkok. A generation later, Bangkok’s Pat Pong district—​a now famous commercial sex destination—​was created to service American GIs in Vietnam visiting Thailand on R&R (Tagliacozza, 2008). More recently, neoliberal economic policies and a burgeoning tourist industry have kept Thailand a regional economic hegemon, not coincidentally in tandem with its reputation as a prostitution hub. The abolitionist anti-​trafficking movement has responded to this by attempting to “clean up” Thailand’s sex industry by rescuing victims of human trafficking and policing cross-​border migration, thought to be the new force driving the problem (Segrave, 2009). Thus, Thailand remains a site of ongoing attention and concern over its reputation as a hub for commercial sex. I argue, though, that this anti-​trafficking agenda is being supported and upheld by a stronger agenda: namely, the Western neoliberal incentive to keep conditions of I n t r o d u c t i o n  [ 9 ]

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women’s migration and labor unsupported, unstable, and exploitative. It is no coincidence that the face of the anti-​trafficking movement works to save the “victims” of Thailand’s sex trade, while all the while, the race to the bottom that has been created through Western-​driven capitalist practices in Thailand grows stronger. Employing a rhetorical frame that utilizes paternalistic moralisms (Cheng, 2011; Parreñas, 2011), the Western anti-​trafficking movement benefits from—​and functions best—​by focusing on spectacles of suffering that distract its audiences away from the “everyday” rights violations of poverty and other abuses faced by the women who it claims to be rescuing. In the chapters that follow, I show how the performance of culture, vis-​ à-​vis anti-​trafficking policies, practices, and rhetoric, constitutes the anti-​trafficking movement, while the movement co-​opts (or “traffics”) culture to normalize the destructive reality it perpetuates. One of my primary arguments is that sex trafficking in Thailand, as it is currently framed by Western advocates, is largely a construction of what Said (1979) described as the “Orientalist” imagination. The Orientalist conception of Asian women as infantilized, exotic “others” can be seen in the imagined victimized sex worker in need of rescue. By projecting and reinforcing this stereotype, Western actors position themselves as heroes, while inadvertently dismissing the grave realities of dominance that are being imposed on communities in the developing world by neoliberal practices and processes. The trafficking narrative, as it is currently being told by members of the Western-​driven anti-​trafficking movement, is largely based on Western subjectivities, and the actual experiences that get expressed quite clearly in interviews with women labeled as “trafficking victims” are often incongruent with the idiom of “modern slavery” that the movement uses to gain political traction. Furthermore, the women this movement purports to save are often treated as objects by Western and Thai NGOs and governments, with little attention paid to their expressed experiences and needs. Thailand, as I will show, offered a clear and compelling site on which to interrogate these pressing concerns. These processes are undoubtedly reflected in other development contexts where sex trafficking is a stated concern of the U.S. government. Many other non-​ Western countries receive American foreign aid benchmarked for the rehabilitation of trafficking victims, and for strengthening legal frameworks in order to curb trafficking. Given its complicated history, though, Thailand proved to be a natural site for this book’s interrogation of how the dominant trafficking narrative has manifested, the conditions to which migrant women have been subjected as a result, and the possibilities for engaging with the narratives that have come to define this environment.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Much of my research represents an attempt to get underneath the rhetorical frameworks used to discuss trafficking—​particularly those used to frame women in certain subject positions that may not accurately represent their experiences. The State Department, relying on data almost solely generated by NGOs with strong [ 10 ] Introduction

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abolitionist framing agendas, utilizes the term “victim” to characterize female laborers thought to be caught in trafficking situations. Other NGOs, attempting more sensitivity and nuance, use the term “survivor.” Here, I problematize both labels, as each responds rhetorically to a framework constructed by the anti-​trafficking movement, rather than by the women themselves. Rather than reinforcing the movement’s rhetoric, I wanted to find a more neutral way of referring to women to whom the movement responds: female workers. NGOs working in other sectors sometimes call this population (or, more accurately, this set of overlapping populations) “vocational migrants,” or “sex workers.” These terms, however, sometimes exclude nuances of exploitation that are, in fact, vital to our understanding of what the anti-​trafficking movement is attempting to identify. Therefore, I  use the term “female migrant laborers” to refer to women who have been, are, or could potentially be perceived and labeled as trafficking victims/​survivors. As I  will show, this group represents women from various populations with diverse interests, goals, and needs. However, since what is common is their labor, their migration status, and their gender, I refer to them by what I hope is a more neutral term. Other terms describing migrant women are used throughout the book. “Survivors” refer to women who have endured labor exploitation while migrating from Burma into Thailand in search of work, or who have been coerced into prostitution unwillingly. These victims identify with having experienced exploitation and, in some cases, call this exploitation trafficking. I use this term when discussing individuals who have been assisted by an organization in a way they found meaningful. Conversely, “consensual sex workers” are women who consent to providing sexual labor in exchange for money. Often they are stigmatized, and are rarely assisted by organizations in ways they find meaningful. “Female migrants” are women who have traveled from Burma to Thailand in search of work. Often they are tasked with providing for families in home villages and communities who rely on their labor as a means of survival. Finally, “potential trafficking victims” are women in precarious situations whose experiences of coercion, exploitation, or abuse within their migratory journeys could be viewed (but has not necessarily been deemed) as trafficking under the definition of the 2000 Palermo Protocol. While acknowledging that they have experienced some form of exploitation, these individuals did not necessarily regard themselves as victims.

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

As I unpack the DAR praxis throughout this book, I invite the reader along on my own journey through the field research, creative writing, and production phases of the project. The intention here is to provide a roadmap of my own process, so that it can be replicable by other artist-​researchers who are undertaking similar efforts to unite international research and dramatic work. My goal is to make the praxis of DAR clear, continuously refining its contours as the book goes on. I want to not only shine light on what makes DAR unique, and to not only showcase an example of a successful DAR project—​I also want to reflect on how this process came to be; how it I n t r o d u c t i o n  [ 11 ]

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crystallized from something made of many disparate parts into a whole. My own location in the research process, my self-​interrogation about the questions, problems, and issues that came up along the way, is therefore essential to include. In mapping this process, I lay out three moves that inform and are essential to the DAR praxis. They are: (1) Field research, in the classical Feminist International Relations (IR) tradition, which seeks to uncover the voices of subjects, and, by doing this, transform a dominant narrative based on distanced abstraction into a counter-​ narrative told from lived experience; (2) Creative writing, which recovers those voices by situating them in an alternative form of expression that unearths new layers of somatic and emotional meaning; and (3) Performance, which articulates these lived experiences and draws on liberatory criteria to guide a forum in which dialogue between community members can take place. Along the way, I illuminate the methodological, epistemological, and ontological challenges that I faced in each phase of the research—​challenges that helped advance my own understanding of what DAR is, and how it can best be used as a tool for intervening in social catastrophe in the developing world. The book thus takes the reader through three chronological phases that comprise the DAR approach.

The Field Research Phase (Phase One)

Phase One focused on uncovering the lived experience of the subject—​the rhetorical “victim” whom many anti-​trafficking advocates see as being in need of reform—​as well as the lived experience of NGO employees who are the well-​meaning advocates that steer the anti-​trafficking movement, and the lived experience of members of CBOs who resist the “top-​down” strategies employed by the movement. This phase, conducted in 2011 and 2012, focused on understanding how, together, Thailand’s “Smart Raid” policy and the work of NGOs have the unfortunate consequence of creating problems for female migrants who have been construed as trafficking victims. It explicates my own journey of discovering the “dominant trafficking narrative,” and the need for its creative interrogation. During this phase, I  undertook three studies looking at the role that normative values play in shaping the anti-​trafficking movement’s narratives and corresponding policies to combat trafficking. These studies incorporated 54 interviews with policymakers, NGO employees, government officials, activist CBO members, immigration officers, members of the Royal Thai police, and, most critically, female migrant laborers from Burma—​a population known for being vulnerable to human trafficking in Thailand. Some of these migrant women identified themselves as consensual sex workers, while others saw themselves as trafficking survivors. These studies are thus separated into three chapters focusing on three prominent narratives that emerge within different sites and are implemented by different actors. Together, these narratives lay the foundation for developing the dramatic story of Land of Smiles. Guided by the tenets of feminist research and liberation psychology, the overriding questions of this part of the book are, “In what ways and with what [ 12 ] Introduction

31

consequences are the contradictory approaches taken by anti-​trafficking actors in Thailand influenced by normative values, and how are such values used as a source of power for Western actors working in the anti-​trafficking movement?” A framework of “moral performance” is used to answer this question, as I  look at the way normative values of Western anti-​trafficking advocates shape what Hesford (2011) has called “spectacularized rhetoric”—​that is, rhetoric focused on spectacles of suffering that reinforces differences between the West and the developing world, and thus also reinforces Western dominance. Before going into a discussion of the Phase One field research findings, I  first lay out a theoretical framework to guide our understanding of the philosophies that inform DAR. In Chapter 1, “Theorizing Dramatization as Research,” I discuss the epistemological, methodological, and ontological foundations that make up the praxis. I  do this by first interrogating the need for this type of intervention, explaining how social catastrophe—​the inability of a community to respond to collective trauma—​renders the need for new techniques that creatively spark the consciousness of all those implicated in a given human rights abuse. I look at other models of arts-​based interventions, including Entertainment-​Education (E-​E) and Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), explaining that while these approaches offer important contributions of their own, they also have significant limitations, which prevent them from being forms of DAR. I then describe the epistemological, methodological, and ontological foundations that form the contours of DAR, drawing on feminist theory—​specifically:  the feminist research ethic and feminist notions of positionality and situated knowledge, which comprise an epistemological frame; Participatory Action Research (PAR); and Practice-​Based Research (PBR) as a methodological frame; and the tenets of liberation that make up DAR’s ontological frame. I then offer five criteria that can be used to evaluate the success of a given DAR project. I suggest that in order to be “liberatory,” a DAR project must be: 1) Proactive (i.e., engaging ways of building shared understanding of history and social context in a community environment that will witness past events in order to prevent future violence and exclusion); 2) Rupturing (i.e., disrupting dominant, hegemonic narratives); 3) Dialogical (i.e., inspiring communication between individuals or groups); 4) Consciousness-​raising (i.e., generating new insights about one’s personal and social role in society); and, 5) Performative (i.e., communicating through a performance medium such as theater, dance, music, film, etc.). Finally, I  turn to the work of Paolo Freire and Augusto Boal, explaining how Freire’s idea of “conscientization” and Boal’s “poetics of the oppressed” can guide our understanding of liberation. Following this, in Chapter  2, “Setting the Stage:  National Identity and the Trafficking of Women in Thailand,” I ask the reader to “zoom out” to see a fuller picture of the anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand. Here is where I offer a critical analysis of the movement, situating it in the context of two dominant national identity I n t r o d u c t i o n  [ 13 ]

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frames:  First, “Thailand’s National Identity Project”—​ a nation-​ building project rooted in cultural gender norms and incorporating the othering of ethnic minorities and a rural populace—​and, next, the “U.S. Abolitionist Project”—​the international exporting of the twin radical feminist and right-​wing agendas of eradicating prostitution. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of these projects, their roots, and consequences, and sets the stage for an exploration of their further implications, the threads of which will be woven throughout the rest of the book. The following three chapters return to a discussion of the discourse on trafficking, and focus on uncovering the lived experiences of members of the anti-​trafficking community. To do this, I disentangle three main narratives commonly used by anti-​ trafficking advocates in Thailand, that emerged from within different sites of the field research. These include: (1) the victim-​versus-​criminal narrative, (2) the rescue narrative, and (3) the narrative of resistance. These narratives and the policies and practices through which they are communicated each have implications on the female migrant laborers who are construed as trafficking victims. Chapter  3, “ ‘Smart Raids’ and the Victim-​versus-​Criminal Narrative” draws on interviews with ethnic migrant sex workers in Chiang Rai, as well as with local and international NGO employees to examine Thailand’s “Smart Raid” policy and the “victim-​versus-​criminal” narrative it communicates. Enacted as a consequence of the George W. Bush administration’s Anti-​Prostitution Pledge legislation, “Smart Raids” are collaborations between anti-​trafficking NGOs and the Royal Thai police to raid brothels, karaoke bars, and massage parlors in an attempt to rescue women working as prostitutes against their will. While designed to rescue victims of sex trafficking, Smart Raids reinforce a victim-​versus-​criminal binary and a gendered construction of citizenship that does real harm to female migrant laborers in Thailand’s sex industry regardless of whether they are victims of human trafficking. In Chapter 4, “NGOs and the Rescue Narrative,” I turn my focus to the “saviors” in the anti-​trafficking drama: the private and state-​funded NGOs that seek to tackle the issue of trafficking in collaboration with an array of state and civil society actors. Taking as my premise the idea that NGOs are neoliberal actors who serve a rhetorical purpose of narrating the problems of the developing world to the West, I draw on interviews with anti-​trafficking NGO employees to assess the way these actors collectively construct a narrative of rescue. This politically constrained narrative engages messages about Western superiority, Orientalism, and othering, and promotes the virtues of prostitution reform. In doing so, it flattens the lived experience of both female migrant laborers and NGO employees, rendering the employees passive bystanders in the social catastrophe of trafficking. In Chapter 5, “Community-​Based Organizations and the Narrative of Resistance,” I conclude my discussion of the field research by examining strategies employed by the anti-​trafficking movements’ outliers:  CBOs in Thailand that support female migrant laborers through participatory practices, in which individuals inhabiting different social roles engage with each other as trusting equals. I  suggest that in relying on horizontal methods of tackling social justice concerns, CBOs resist the impractical solutions employed by government and NGO actors in the anti-​trafficking movement. It is here that the tenets of liberation psychology join the framework [ 14 ] Introduction

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of feminist international research, as I  argue that the communication strategies of these outlier actors serve as sites for liberation among CBOs and their migrant beneficiaries4, giving rise to a narrative of resistance.

The Creative Phase (Phase Two)

Phase Two—​what I call the creative phase—​marks a shift in focus from the initial fieldwork to my strategy for writing and composing Land of Smiles. As such, it also provides a roadmap through the creative process that is at the heart of the DAR praxis. This phase, undertaken in late 2012 and early 2013, focused on creatively recovering the lived experiences of members of the anti-​trafficking community—​ NGO employees, female migrant sex workers deemed “victims,” and other migrants who resist the tropes of victimization and rescue put forth by the movement’s top-​ down policies. By recovering, I  mean quite literally restoring or returning these experiences to the consciousness of those who witness the musical. In Chapter  6, “Building the Characters,” I  show how turning the dominant trafficking narrative on its head required, first and foremost, developing characters who would inhabit the world, and tell the story of Land of Smiles. In discussing these characters, I introduce the concept of “liminality,” an in-​between state of being that one undergoes when one’s certainty about a given experience or paradigm has been radically challenged. I look at artist-​researcher positionality and visibility, explaining how the DAR praxis unearths complexities related to the subject’s visibility, not by reinscribing binaries between audience and subject, but through interrogating the process of creative representation itself. I show how considerations of material thinking and counter-​narratives contribute to the formulation of characters in a way that specifically situates them as part of the DAR praxis, and how the character development process gave way to new questions about the research subject itself. Here is where DAR’s contours begin to crystallize, and where the cyclical nature of dramatization and research begins to become clear. Taking this exploration of process further, Chapter 7, “Finding the Story” attends to the specific ways in which I drew on the initial field interviews to “find” the dramatic story and turn this story into scenes and songs. I explore the way narrative frameworks, and what I call “power moments” lent themselves to the dramatization process, and I highlight the important interviews that led to the process of writing key scenes. In asking where the boundaries between theater and research meet, I discuss the logic of what director Ted Braun (2010) called the “natural story,” and show how the process of finding it helps us recover the lived experience of those whose story is being told. This chapter sheds further light on the nuts and bolts of the creative process. In Chapter 8, “Embodiment,” I illustrate how the act of breathing life into a script and score illuminates the situated, positional experiences of characters through the liminal practice of performance. This final piece of Phase Two threads together the creative elements that make up the DAR praxis. Discussing the auditions, rehearsals, and first staged readings—​or presentations—​of the musical, I show how I n t r o d u c t i o n  [ 15 ]

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liveness—​that is, the act of being physically present and attentive; and collaborative discovery (that is, the process of unearthing new information through working with other members of a creative team)—​helped to recover lived experience. I then show how these elements led to new discoveries about the research subject, further explicating the reflexive nature of DAR. Finally, in the spirit of DAR as a participatory praxis, I conclude this section of the book with a prompt for the reader to visit a website housing the script and select musical recordings of Land of Smiles. Here, the reader can directly experience the creative material at the core of this particular DAR project. The Production Phase (Phase Three)

Phase Three focused on articulating the lived experiences of the anti-​trafficking community, and the implications of that articulation on participants who attended performances of the musical in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This phase involved assembling a team of artists and researchers to travel to Thailand in late 2013 to stage four performances of Land of Smiles for members of the anti-​trafficking and female migrant laborer communities in Chiang Mai—​the same participant groups who took part in the Phase One field research. Following the performances, focus groups were conducted with employees from anti-​trafficking NGOs, ethnic minority migrants from Burma, and the artists who participated in the production. The goal of this phase was to foster dialogue between participants around the discourse on human trafficking by presenting a dramatic reflection of their lived experiences, and to assess whether and how these dialogues had a liberatory effect, causing ruptures and transformations to take place on individual and community levels. In the book’s final section, I focus on the narratives that emerged among focus group participants, and contrast these with the dominant messages that informed the genesis of Land of Smiles. In line with my conceptualization of DAR as a feminist, liberatory praxis, in which all members of a community contribute to the uncovering, recovering, and articulation of lived experience, in these final chapters I return to tenets of liberation psychology and feminist theory to explore aspects of the focus group narratives that were proactive, rupturing, dialogical, consciousness-​raising, and performative—​criteria that form the basis for a successful DAR intervention. In Chapter 9, “Articulating NGO Narratives” I discuss the way NGO employees, through hearing the articulation of migrants’ lived experiences, and in turn, articulating their own experiences within the forum of the focus groups, evaluated their roles in the anti-​trafficking movement in new and productive ways. I examine the narratives of the NGO employees that emerged in the post-​performance focus group discussion, and contrast them with the themes of the original Phase One interviews. Chapter  10, “Restorative Justice and Reconciliation:  NGO Subjectivities” introduces two paradigms that advance our understanding of the liberatory

[ 16 ] Introduction

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essence of DAR, and shows how this liberatory essence was embraced by NGO employees following the production. Restorative justice is a mode of engagement between community members whose actions have caused trauma or social injustice, and those who they have wronged, with the intention of healing the injustice through acknowledgement, dialogue, and mutual understanding. Its counterpart, reconciliation is the act of acknowledging the roles played by other community members, and accepting that responsibility has been taken. In this chapter, I discuss the way these liberatory paradigms helped NGO employees became more conscious of the nature of their advocacy roles, and interrogate these roles in new and productive ways. Chapter  11, “Articulating Migrant Narratives” focuses on the migrant participants’ recollection of trauma through watching the musical and allowing the “voice” of the trauma “wound” to “speak.” Here, I turn to trauma theory as a framework for understanding the narratives of the migrants, showing how these narratives inform our understanding of the DAR project’s liberatory impact on the migrant participants. In Chapter  12, “Recollection, Mourning, and Witness:  Migrant Subjectivities” I  explore the way the migrant participants engaged the liberatory paradigms of “recollection”—​ that is, the process of recalling one’s trauma experience—​ and “mourning”—​that is, the grief over the loss endured through that experience. Locating the liberatory aspects of DAR within these paradigms, I then discuss “witness,” the process by which an outside observer recognizes one’s trauma experience, and the healing implications of that recognition. I  explain that witnessing takes place when an audience acknowledges the articulation of the “voice” of the “wound” as it “speaks” through the trauma survivor (Caruth, 1996), thus creating a proactive space for the community to recognize the trauma and its origins. Here, I show how Land of Smiles prompted the migrant participants to engage in new self-​narratives and articulations of their own lived experience. The final chapters bring our attention to a third participant group:  the artists. In Chapter  13, “Articulating Artist Narratives” I  look at six narratives of the Los Angeles-​based and Chiang Mai-​based artists who performed in the musical in Thailand. Through engaging with the world of the musical, the artists, too, began to interrogate their own location in the larger social catastrophe of human trafficking—​a process that led them to undergo profound recognitions and transformations. Looking at the way these narratives unfolded, in Chapter  14, “Rupture and Hospitality:  Artist Subjectivities,” I  discuss what are perhaps some of the most powerful aspects of the DAR praxis. “Rupture” refers to the act of a break with past paradigms—​a new way of seeing oneself and the world. I talk about how, by being in Thailand and engaging with the dramatic material and the “world” of the musical, the artists underwent ruptures in their own understandings, leading them into a state of liminality, in which they “no longer knew who they would be” when they returned home. Passing through this liminal space, the artists entered the realm of “hospitality”—​that is, the space in which we embrace “encounters with the

I n t r o d u c t i o n  [ 17 ]

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unknown” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008), and re-​evaluate our understanding of the “other,” thereby disrupting old scripts and understandings of both the other and the self. Finally, I conclude the book by offering an agenda for future directions for the DAR praxis—​a vision of a time when these interventions will be integral components of international development practice, whereby we heal the wounds that divide us, and rewrite ourselves into a better world.

[ 18 ] Introduction

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CHAPTER 1

Theorizing Dramatization as Research I SING YOUR SONG I SAY YOUR NAME I AM SPEAKING AND WE SURVIVE HERE IN THE NIGHT I’LL LIGHT YOUR WAY I AM SPEAKING AND WE SURVIVE —​Lipoh, Land of Smiles

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he sits on the floor of the dark detention center, eyes closed, hands pressed together in prayer. From her lips fall the names of the ancestors—​thousands of years of names, rolling off her tongue without pause. She’s been held here for weeks now, against her will. Held not only physically, but also in a state of cognitive dissonance—​caught between identities that do not fit with who she is. One identity is meant to shame her—​prostitution is a crime she cannot deny. Yet the other identity, which the well-​meaning Westerners keep urging her to claim, doesn’t do justice to who she is, or what she knows. In the end, it will be a practical matter. Do what they say—​testify—​and her crime and maybe even the shame will disappear. All she has to do is tell on her mama san, the brothel owner; reveal the identity of her auntie, who brought her across the border; and admit to being a “victim.” Lipoh wants none of this. She doesn’t care about prosecuting the brothel owner. Nor her auntie. And she certainly doesn’t care about the Western and Thai NGO workers who’ve planted themselves in the middle of her life, like an open wound that can’t seem to heal. All she wants is to go back to her village and see her mother again. To be home. Lipoh’s prayer, then, is an act of desperation—​a call to her ancestors, asking them to help her escape. As she has already explained to Emma, the well-​ meaning NGO worker, “Saying the names of our ancestors keeps them alive. It is how the Kachin people survive.”

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In order for any tradition to survive, it too must be named. While the praxis I describe in this book is not new—​indeed, it’s been undertaken by others in ways as old as the theater tradition itself, I  call it something new—​Dramatization as Research—​to give it contours, to help it live. In naming this praxis, I offer an inroad for understanding what it is we are trying to do as artists and researchers when we use our work to achieve broader social justice aims. In making this praxis specific, I offer a roadmap for its replication by others who seek to unite their work in the social sciences and the arts. Dramatization as Research (DAR) is an inquiry into a process. This process requires attention to uncovering, recovering, and articulating the lived experience of the subject—​in this case, the supposed trafficking “victim” whose complicated experience has been overlooked, and whose voice has been silenced by the advocates trying to help her. This process is not merely academic. Rather, it’s dynamic, active, and alive. As such, DAR is more than just a theory—​it is a method of feminist communication research in itself. DAR draws from a range of scholarly and practical approaches that situate it at the nexus of several intersecting fields. In this chapter, I’ll explore these approaches and fields, grounding them in DAR’s conceptual foundations and in strategies for its application. The chapter unfolds as follows:  First, I  interrogate the need—​the “why?”—​of developing a new way of looking at the intersection of creative practice and research. As I explained in the Introduction, social catastrophe—​the inability of the community to respond to its own trauma—​suggests a need for new types of creative interventions that prompt a change in awareness among those who are implicated in a given human rights abuse. I start the chapter here, introducing key concepts that relate to social catastrophe. I’ll then turn my attention to other types of arts-​based interventions that have tried to address social catastrophe in various ways. These types of interventions are largely focused on documenting and reporting the world we live in, attempting to sway changes in a given population’s behavior, and provoking psychosocial and political change. Specifically, in this part of the chapter I’ll focus on Entertainment-​ Education (E-​E) and Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), two examples of approaches that use theater to propel social change. I  discuss the important contributions as well as the limitations of these approaches, and explain how and why they diverge from DAR. I’ll then suggest that we begin to take a different approach to this work. Specifically, I’ll discuss the need to reframe the epistemological (i.e., “how we know”) foundations, as well as the methodological (“how we go about trying to know”) and ontological (“what we can know”) foundations that underscore these types of arts interventions. These different foundations, I suggest, are what make DAR unique. Here, I’ll discuss the importance of feminist theory—​specifically, the feminist research ethic and feminist philosophies of positionality and situated knowledge, as the primary epistemological lens through which we should look at DAR projects. Next, I’ll talk about method, introducing two non-​positivist approaches to research that offer important contributions:  Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Practice-​ Based Research (PBR). I’ll then go on to look at the ontological foundations—​the [ 20 ]  Rewriting the Victim

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“what we can know” question—​that rings most true for the praxis of DAR. I’ll turn to liberation psychology, and particularly the work of Paolo Freire and Augusto Boal to guide our understanding of the “liberatory” effect that successful DAR projects can claim to make. Bringing these ideas together, I’ll then discuss my research design—​the practical approach I took to mapping and piecing together a project that draws on so many complex and seemingly divergent frameworks. Finally, I’ll conclude by situating DAR as a unique praxis for integrating creative dramatization with international human rights research, and setting up the chapters to follow.

WHY A NEW METHOD?

The premise of “social catastrophe” is that all members of a group, or community, are complicit in, and thus affected by, trauma. In other words, trauma is a collective experience—​it can mark not only the most obvious seeming “victims” of any given human rights abuse, but also their advocates—​the people who, on the surface, seem largely unaffected by the human rights abuse at hand, because of their privileged status and social roles. As such, social catastrophe leaves no one immune from a given social trauma. Because of this, when we try to address—​or heal—​social catastrophes, we must think in terms of engaging the participation of all members of a community in this process. As such, the process requires more than just “treating” victims; it requires helping the larger community move from passive “bystanders”—​that is, those who watch from the sidelines as trauma unfolds but take no responsibility for their own role within it—​to active “witnesses”—​those who claim responsibility for their part in a given social catastrophe and actively work toward the community’s healing. Human rights crises often go hand in hand with social catastrophe, though the two issues are distinct. When human rights crises are addressed by advocates in ways that are not fully interrogated beyond the level of “spectacle,” (i.e., seeing the crisis from a distance and attributing special significance to it—​almost as though to fetishize it), a kind of social catastrophe occurs, with advocates unknowingly and unintentionally becoming complicit in reinforcing the given crisis (Hesford, 2011). An example of one such human rights crisis is the trafficking of women in Thailand. As I have explained, trafficking is constructed as a development “problem” by Western advocates who seek to solve the problem as they have defined it. I suggest, however, that while the Western anti-​trafficking movement positions trafficking in Thailand as a problem of the third world “other,” in fact, the West is complicit in the construction and enactment of this human rights problem. Because of Western complicity, trafficking in Thailand is also “our” problem—​meaning that the West is equally caught in the social catastrophe that underlies this crisis. Many development actors working in anti-​trafficking advocacy do not appear to realize that trafficking and the issues of inequality that underlie it are collective processes that implicate a broad spectrum of society, not only the supposed “gangs” of traffickers, violent pimps, or misguided “third world” parents who sell T h e or i z i n g Dr a m at i z at i o n a s R e s e a r c h  [ 21 ]

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their daughters into prostitution—​the common culprits thought to be the source of the problem. In their failure to see the larger structures of inequality that drive trafficking and the related issues of poverty, inequality, and armed conflict, members of the movement often detach from their own complicit involvement. This results in Western actors narrating the problem of trafficking from the perspective of passive bystanders rather than engaged witnesses. This tendency toward bystanding suggests the need for an intervention that would raise the awareness of both development practitioners working to combat trafficking, as well as the beneficiaries of their organizations’ programs. While many types of interventions could be used toward this goal, musical theater offers a unique opportunity for helping communities confront the conditions of bystanding that underlie social catastrophe. As a live modality, theater has the ability to bring us into present, and challenge our normative ideologies through our interactions with others in the room. In the theater, audiences share their experiences with each other, becoming open to alternative ways of seeing and feeling the world. There is a politics at play in the liveness of this medium—​the “stakes” are higher for audiences participating in a theatrical performance than other forms of mediated communication, since liveness requires a willingness for audiences to engage with others, creating a space for the perspectives of all participants to be “in dialogue” with each other—​even if only by virtue of being in a physical space with other people. Presence is the magic of this art form. Unlike film, television, and online communication, which are often experienced in isolation, theater demands engagement—​in a sense, fostering another type of temporary community. It is this presence that underscores theater’s power to play a constructively destabilizing role in any given discourse. As I’ll show later, musical theater adds still another layer of emotional connectedness that further fosters this unique sense of participation, or community. Politically engaged dramatic writers often tell stories that are based on true events and people in order to advance political goals or shed light on important social issues. We’ve seen this achieved with particular grace and genius by artists such as Eve Ensler, Anna Deveare Smith, the Techtonic Theatre Project, and a range of other theater makers. Often, these artists engage the subjects of their dramatic works in the storytelling process itself, be they members of the artists’ own communities, or members of another community about which they are writing. Different types of artistic modalities engage these approaches in different ways. Ethnotheater is a type of research-​based theater in which the playwright creatively uses verbatim interviews to construct a dramatic narrative about a given character and subject matter (Barone, 2002; Conquergood, 1991; Saldana, 2003). Often, the audiences of ethnotheater do not attend for entertainment purposes, but rather, to learn about the subject of the play’s research (Saldana, 2003; Whitton, 2009), putting aesthetics on the periphery of this practice. In addition, performance modalities such as documentary and narrative film also engage real events and people. Each of these methods share some of the intentions behind DAR, but are also distinct from DAR. What distinguishes projects that engage “real events” and creative practice from those explicitly designed to be DAR? DAR is concerned with the process of discovery [ 22 ]  Rewriting the Victim

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about the social world through creative expression. As such, DAR doesn’t merely involve documenting, or reproducing lived experience in a theatrical form. Nor does it seek to coerce individual members of a given community to change their behavior, nor does it necessarily press for direct policy change. Rather, the goals of DAR are to discover and illuminate the conditions of the social world through creative practice, and to create a space for participants to become more aware of those conditions, that world, and their roles within it. DAR is concerned with uncovering, recovering, and articulating lived experience by fostering dialogue. It is ultimately this dialogue—​ the sharing of experience—​that can produce a liberatory outcome for all members of a given community. This is primarily what makes DAR distinct from processes that merely impart real events. In addition, DAR relies on the inherently reflexive nature of social science research and creative practice. A DAR project doesn’t end with the process of dramatization—​ the development of a script, score, or production. Instead, these creative processes serve as further launching points for uncovering experience—​as a story is told, new research questions emerge from the natural arc of a character’s journey—​questions that may not have been clear to the researcher (or the dramatist) when the original goals of the project were conceived. In other words, DAR helps us understand research through the lens of creative practice. It is a nonlinear process of engaging creatively with questions about our world. Through the act of making a dramatic work, artists as well as social scientists can discover truths that lead to deeper questions and interrogations. This is why the experiences of artists, as well as social science researchers involved in any given DAR project, are essential to understand. It is through their creative discoveries that we may begin to discover new insights about the subjects of a given study. There are other types of theater interventions that are conceptually close cousins to DAR, but that also are not quite DAR. I have in mind two of the more prominent types of development interventions that use theater as a vehicle for psychosocial and sometimes direct policy change: Entertainment-​Education (EE) and Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). Here, I will discuss these approaches, laying out their conceptual foundations as a way of framing my conception of DAR. I will show that both of these related modalities also have key limitations—​limitations that involve a problematic position of the “subject”—​an “other” who is inscribed-​upon, acted-​upon, and, thus, made to have her lived experience (in the words of Parreñas) “flattened.” In addition, one of the aspects of these approaches that makes them problematic, and not quite in line with the goals of DAR, is that they fail to allow the role of the artist to be a unifying one. Instead, as I’ll show, both approaches tend to position the artist’s role as being “outside” the project—​in a sense, reinforcing the “spectacular” gaze that I  described earlier. In short, as I’ll show, in both TO and E-​E, the artist and the “subject” of the intervention are not thought to be equal partners. This unequal artist-​subject relationship is similar to the dynamics between researcher and subject that often take place in social science research. Such problematic relationships have been deftly unpacked in both feminist theory and liberation psychology, as well as in discussions of alternative research methodologies. As such, they help us frame the goals of DAR, and understand the processes that DAR seeks to avoid replicating. T h e or i z i n g Dr a m at i z at i o n a s R e s e a r c h  [ 23 ]

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Entertainment-​E ducation

We’ll start by looking at Entertainment-​Education, or E-​E. This approach uses theater and other entertainment modalities to try to sway the behavior of individuals and communities, primarily in development contexts where, it is thought, certain behavior creates conditions that are oppressive to the larger social group. Examples of E-​E interventions include using comic books to try to change social norms in South Asia (Aghi, Carnegie, McKee, & Shahzadi, 2004), promoting pro-​social behavior by introducing social merchandizing in Brazillian Telenovelas (La Pastina, Patel, & Schiavo, 2004), and using film to warn teenagers in Africa about the pitfalls of teenage pregnancy (Greenberg, Salmon, Patel, Beck & Cole, 2004). An early example of an E-​E intervention can be seen in the 1970s Population Media Center’s program to reduce population growth in Mexico via the production Acompaname, a family planning serial drama (Singhal, Cody, Rogers, & Sabido, 2004: 28). More recently, an E-​E intervention that has been tried in the anti-​trafficking space is MTV Exit’s 2006 multimedia, multiplatform awareness and prevention campaign against human trafficking in Thailand. This project used documentary film to build knowledge and target behavioral change among audience members (Thainiyom, 2011). E-​E research has explored the use of TV, film, and theater to advance social justice aims to produce targeted behavioral changes on both individual and system or community levels (Poindexter, 2004; Sood, 2002; Singhal, Cody, Rogers, & Sabido, 2004). Focusing on audience reception as the primary mode of analysis of impact, these interventions are grounded in communication theories such as “social learning theory” (Bandura, 1977), “third person effects” (Davison, 1983), and “two-​step flow” (Arndt, 1968; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1968). The stories told in E-​E products often offer solutions to the social justice concerns of the communities involved by showcasing individual behavioral change—​for example, a music video about the dangers of trafficking, and the “right choice” made by a young woman who refrains from migrating or engaging in sex work. These projects also often try to compel behavioral change by showcasing the negative impacts of the individual’s “deviant” behavior. Some even go so far as to suggest “positive deviance” as a desirable strategy for changing the behavior of an individual or community (Lindberg, Buscell, & Singhal, 2010). Inherently prescriptive in nature, E-​E products are often overly simplistic ways of approaching social justice concerns. While the intention of fostering social change is, of course, positive, these interventions often employ several problematic assumptions. First, E-​E interventions often fail to account for the structural conditions that underscore social injustice—​for instance, the political circumstances of conflict-​affected communities, or larger economic frameworks that prevent the marginalized from accessing economic opportunities. By putting the onus on an individual to change his or her behavior, rather than addressing the larger processes that underscore social injustice, E-​E interventions tacitly condone these broader structural frameworks. In addition, these types of projects often fail to account for the complexity of the lived experience of the communities involved in the social injustice, treating them as superficial “spectacles” of suffering. [ 24 ]  Rewriting the Victim

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Second, the assumptions that E-​E practitioners make as to what defines and constitutes problematic social conditions in the developing world contain a strong undercurrent of cultural superiority. This makes E-​E projects prone to actually disempowering participants, as the framework of the social problem that drives these projects is often defined by outside actors, rather than by participants themselves. Additionally, the lack of attention toward the more humanistic aspects of community-​building that are so instrumental to social change processes evokes a neocolonialist practice of “managing” non-​Western populations for the benefit of achieving Western policy goals. As such, Western development actors undertaking E-​ E interventions, well-​intentioned as they may be, risk alienating target populations and cementing notions of “otherness,” or difference.

Theatre of the Oppressed (TO)

Another form of arts-​based social justice advocacy is Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). This technique incorporates theatrical exercises and activities designed to foster consciousness on the part of audiences, creators, and performers, and engage these participants in constructing narratives about the oppressive conditions that affect their lives. Developed in the 1970s by Augusto Boal, it offers an alternative approach to the Aristotelian form of drama upon which the foundations of Western theater have been built (Boal, 1979). Aristotelian tragedies present narratives that show society “as it is”—​bringing to light all the problems and flaws of human social life. These narratives are designed to elicit an audience to react with “pity and fear.” In highlighting the downfall of the tragic character, these stories serve as a kind of “social warning” for audiences to avoid engaging in the behavior of that character (Gross, 2011). According to Boal, these warnings pacify rather than empower audiences (p. 45) who are unaware that in being primed to avoid certain behaviors demonstrated by the tragic character onstage, they are, in fact, being manipulated into accepting certain social norms, and rejecting certain others. Boal identified this relationship between audiences and artists as being inherently political. To counter this, Boal developed participatory theater techniques that sought to reposition this political relationship, and place the primary emphasis on the audience’s active agency, rather than its passive receptivity. Theatre of the Oppressed techniques serve as a foundation for the DAR praxis. Like DAR, these techniques seek to reorient an audience’s understanding of the social and political world, and explicitly ask all participants to interrogate their own location in a given social catastrophe. In this way, TO techniques complement DAR. They also come with certain limitations, however. First, TO techniques depend on a facilitator—​usually someone from a Western, industrialized country—​to guide participants—​usually those from marginalized, often non-​Western communities—​ through a process of identifying the political issues that affect their lives. This assumes that participants do not already have the words to articulate these issues, or a forum in which to express them. Second, and unlike DAR, the inquiry often then stops at the conclusion of the performance, with no further action taken to engage in T h e or i z i n g Dr a m at i z at i o n a s R e s e a r c h  [ 25 ]

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structured conversation around the issues participants have identified. This presents limitations for the participants. While they can engage with the intervention by identifying the oppressive conditions that affect their lives, the aftermath—​where they take their awareness—​remains elusive. It is therefore generally difficult to qualitatively assess the outcomes of TO interventions.1 Finally, TO techniques are built upon a Marxist framework in which every story being told is set up according to the binary categories of “victim” versus “oppressor.” These categorizations, which are static and unchanging, prevent participants from engaging in a more nuanced examination of the complex roles that all community members play in any given social catastrophe. In other words, unlike DAR, TO does not acknowledge social catastrophe as such; rather, it reinscribes the static binaries of self-​versus-​other that, as I have described, form the underlying condition of social catastrophe. Because of this, we may see TO as being only a close cousin of DAR. What is missing from these two interventionist approaches is an epistemological, methodological, and ontological grounding that allows for the lived experience of all community members to be voiced; that problematizes the distance between researcher and the “subjects” of study; that draws on research methodologies that are participatory and practice-​based rather than positivist; and, that evaluates the success of these interventions on the basis of their ability not to evoke change on a behavioral level, but rather, to promote self-​evaluation and foster dialogue among individuals and communities. How can we conceptualize an arts intervention that accomplishes these goals? I’ll now explore the contours of DAR in a more fine-​tuned way, by presenting (1) an epistemological framework that is guided by feminist theory, (2) a methodological framework that is participatory and practice-​based, and (3)  an ontological framework that measures an intervention’s effectiveness according to the tenets of liberation psychology. Taken together, these frameworks comprise the theoretical foundation of DAR.

Epistemological Foundations

We know the world through our lived experience. We know its textures, its meanings, its possibilities and limits. Our knowing comes from an experiential place, a place of deep and visceral recollection—​a place that offers an authority that positivist ways of “knowing” can never quite capture. Yet our knowing is also embedded in the social and political dynamics of voice—​questions of who is allowed to speak, in what context, and how and whether they will be heard. How do women claim their voices in the face of a patriarchal structure that is predicated on their silence? How do the marginalized make their struggles known to those in positions of power—​ even those who are seemingly dedicated to advocating on their behalf? How can we pursue knowing what the world around us seeks to keep hidden? As a truth-​seeking endeavor, Dramatization as Research pushes against the tide of all that remains hidden. Guided by feminist principles of positionality, situated knowledge, and the feminist research ethic, DAR seeks to uncover the lived [ 26 ]  Rewriting the Victim

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experience of the marginalized, and use theater to communicate that experience. It further allows for the experiences of all community members to be voiced, as part of the interrogation of social catastrophe. To accomplish all this, DAR projects must be designed in ways that attend to recovering the voices of the marginalized, narrowing the distance between researcher and the subjects of study, and questioning the act of visibility as a dynamic of power. As a feminist praxis, DAR tackles the age-​old quandary of how experience can be reflected and articulated in ways that are emancipatory, rather than hegemonic. Additionally, this praxis calls for a more complex and positional form of inquiry on the part of the researcher when compared to traditional positivist approaches. For a project to be DAR, the artist-​researcher must bring her own subjective, embodied experience to the work, thereby engaging in a stronger emotional, psychological, and political investment than she otherwise might. The interrogation I  am concerned with is not of the subject as “other”; rather, it is the researcher’s own “I” that is deconstructed via the process of engaged practice. This method does not position the artist-​researcher as being on one side of this binary, but rather requires the continuous disappearing-​reappearing act of researcher-​as-​performer in her own process of unearthing knowledge. In both implicating and enacting the discovery process, the artist-​researcher engages in a type of witnessing that requires a profound sense of vulnerability—​a willingness to interrogate her own process of change. Ackerly and True (2010) put this idea of self-​interrogation squarely at the center of feminist international research. They explained that the “feminist research ethic” involves issues of process and location, the critical interrogation of power, and the researcher’s own self-​conscious location in the research context. This ethic is also continually self-​reflective, meaning that the researcher must consistently backtrack and reapproach the research question or project from a new position, based on discoveries that emerge throughout the process. Because of this, feminist research requires a kind of mindfulness—​a constant analysis of one’s own process, and a willingness to grapple with whatever new issues, questions, and struggles come up as this process shifts. Feminist research is also attuned to the positionality of all who are involved in the research process. The researcher’s sociopolitical location, boundaries, marginalizations, silences, and intersections, and the power differentials embedded in social relationships all become relevant to the research process. Moreover, feminist research calls for the outcomes of research to be tangibly useful to women (Gatenby & Humphries, 2000) and to involve a “commitment to knowledge as emancipation” (Tickner, 2001: 22). These elements of feminist research are also essential components of DAR. As a practice dedicated to unearthing perspectives that are “particular” and “idiosyncratic”—​what Haraway (1988) would call “situated knowledges” (p.  4)—​DAR is attuned to interrogating knowledge claims that stem from positivist (indeed, masculinist) conceptions of reality. To do this, DAR projects start at the location of the buried subject-​position. In a DAR inquiry, it is the marginalized voices that are given primacy, both in the process of researching a given social and political question and in the creative intervention that accompanies it. As I have explained, unlike other types of arts-​oriented interventions, DAR does not seek to “fix” the problems of T h e or i z i n g Dr a m at i z at i o n a s R e s e a r c h  [ 27 ]

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the marginalized (often coded as problematic “others”) through privileging expert perspectives. Rather, the DAR method seeks to deconstruct this privileged perspective itself. Because of this, the artist-​researcher must be in a constant process of interrogating her own positionality: the “material, politically engaged, dynamic practice in which one’s identity is taken (and defined) as a political point of departure, as a motivation for action, and as a delineation of one’s politics” (Alcoff, 1988: 376). This interrogation involves questioning the act of “giving voice” to a marginalized person or group of people while simultaneously unknowingly or perhaps even deliberately attempting to advance one’s own position of power, and in the process, committing an act of violence against that person or group of people (Alcoff, 1988). Practitioners of DAR must be highly attuned to questions of location, power, and voice. Such questions of “recovering” the perspectives of others that have been traditionally marginalized, while simultaneously tracking one’s own location in the process, also beget questions of visibility. There is a notion that visibility is a liberating act—​ that in order to be “free,” all a woman must do is be seen. Much of feminist theory notes, however, that this equation is so not so simple. By becoming visible a woman can, in fact, be subjected to the very binary categorizations that essentialize and problematize her, particularly in transnational research contexts (Hegde, 2011: 2). As a feminist praxis, then, the goal of DAR is not to rearticulate the potentially destructive act of imposing visibility on female research subjects in ways that essentialize their experience. Rather, the epistemological goal is to unearth the complexities related to the visibility of the subject through making the problem of visibility itself visible:  that is, through interrogating the practice of creative representation itself. In other words, the onus in this method is not on the subject to “become” visible, but on the researcher-​practitioner to reflexively represent, through creative praxis, the experiences of the subject. Performativity thus becomes encapsulated in the drama of the research project itself, relieving the subject of being acted upon, inscribed upon, or at the mercy of a dominant gaze. In a DAR project, we deconstruct the entire process of research, creativity, and performance/​production, in order to understand how these elements inform each other and shed light on new insights, expressions, and questions. In this way, DAR becomes an inherently feminist epistemological praxis. DAR also responds to the common problem of imposing “spectacle”—​what I have previously described as being a kind of distanced, quasi-​fetishized way of looking at a given human rights abuse—​on a marginalized community or social injustice process. Hesford (2011) called this “spectacularization.” She noted that power imbalances mark not only traditional researcher-​subject relationships, but also the communicative practices of a human rights discourse in which audiences gaze upon victims of a human rights abuse. DAR projects should, therefore, trouble the relationship between the spectator (often Western) and the “spectacle,” or subject (often a member of a marginalized community), of the human rights abuse. This goal is very different from non-​DAR oriented projects that seek to shed light on issues of injustice occurring in development contexts or other sites in which power inequalities beget human rights violations. Merely shedding light on injustices inherently position [ 28 ]  Rewriting the Victim

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audiences (or “spectators”) as the “holders of rights.” By gazing upon the subjects of the human rights violation, these audiences assume the power to “bestow” the values of rights, justice, or morality on the subjects of their gaze (Hauser, 2008). This process of bestowing replicates a power imbalance—​one that is sometimes laden with a multiplicity of meanings and politicized agendas, and, at other times, is merely an unconscious manifestation of larger social, cultural, and national inequities. Spectacularization incorporates a “glossing over” of Western assumptions, experiences, and prejudices in an attempt to draw conclusions about problems in the developing world (Hesford, 2011). Since performance exists both in art and in life, in the construction of a story and the swaying of an audience’s emotion about the story’s content, spectacularization is therefore present both in cultural products (theater, film, literature) as well as in the narratives used to frame human rights atrocities. DAR responds to the problem of spectacularization by engaging postcolonial feminist perspectives as part of its foundation. Indeed, the call for reflexivity in feminist international research has been echoed by postcolonial feminist scholars, who seek to “reclaim” research about subjects in the developing world from frameworks that risk replicating colonial dominance in the form of Western scholarship (Mohanty, 2003; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999). As a theory and method dedicated to liberating communities caught in social catastrophe and collective trauma, DAR refutes the “global hegemony of Western scholarship” (Mohanty, 1991:  55) that has so often essentialized the experiences of women, regardless of their ethnic, national, or cultural origins. Most of this scholarship has mistakenly assumed a homogenous oppression of the world’s women, reinforcing images of the third world that are stereotypical and harmful (p.  56), while normalizing the experiences and ideologies of Western feminists. DAR rejects this binary framework, along with its false universalisms that fail to acknowledge other kinds of quests for authenticity. DAR does this by repositioning the artist/​research-​subject relationship, and problematizing the Western lens through which spectacularization takes place. Spectacularization occurs when underlying traumas are not fully voiced and unearthed by all members of the community, but are only spoken for (and, in a sense, co-​opted) by those who have not experienced the traumatic event firsthand, and who lack a complete understanding of the experiences of those for whom they speak. A  need exists to disentangle the difference between trauma itself and the means by which advocates represent that trauma, recognizing the many layers that come into play in the narratives that advocates construct around it. In the anti-​trafficking movement, trauma is often inadvertently objectified by advocates’ representations of trafficking “victims.” These rhetorical moves reinforce values of the advocates while obscuring an understanding of the range of causes and experiences of trafficking. In other words, they are acts of spectacularization. Again, the frame of social catastrophe becomes salient here. The advocates’ failure to allow for nuance in the discourse on trafficking, and their reinforcement of the subject position of the “victim” is due, I suggest, to an inability for advocates to reconcile their own trauma experiences—​experiences that are, in some cases, prompted by those of female migrants (also known in the development world as “secondary T h e or i z i n g Dr a m at i z at i o n a s R e s e a r c h  [ 29 ]

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trauma”). In other words, advocates often fail to recognize their own suffering—​ suffering that would demand empathy for the self in much the same way their beneficiaries require empathy, and a seeing of the self as being equal to the other. Instead, advocates speak, act, and develop policies in ways that reinforce notions of difference. By doing this, they fail to embrace the fact that trafficking, and all the injustices associated with it, are as much a “catastrophe” of the West as they are of the developing world. DAR attends to these perceptions of difference by offering a space for reflection to all members of a given community—​a space in which advocates are challenged to move beyond the roles they play in their work lives, and step into their authentic selves. It is a space in which the beneficiaries—​in this case, female migrant laborers—​are invited to express themselves, witness their own stories being told, and feel what it is like to have others witness their stories, as well. In addition, it is a space where the artists—​those who are doing the creative “telling”—​are also invited to engage with the storytelling process more authentically. Beyond merely “playing a role,” the artists’ own understandings and experiences are seen to inform the way the story is told. In this way, they become an essential part of the dialogue that is fostered by DAR. Finally, I  want to make clear the connection between DAR as a feminist epistemological praxis, and the uniqueness of musical theater as a means of engaging those feminist epistemological foundations. While DAR projects can incorporate many art forms, musical theater provides a unique way to convey the ethics and foundations of feminist epistemologies. This can be seen in musical theater’s inherent attention to liminality. Musicals, when done well, help us dwell in those “in-​ between” spaces—​the moments of uncertainty, transition, and risk that mark our everyday lives. Emotive musical expressions help unearth the fragile, yet powerful emotional complexities that characterize the human experience. As a testimonial practice, musicals invite audiences to bear witness to the subjective experiences of characters who sing what can’t be spoken—​to express emotionally what has gone silent because it is too powerful to communicate through words alone. In this way, the musical aspect of musical theater becomes essential. When music is used to convey meaning via a character’s musical “voice,” audiences are transported into the emotional world of that character, feeling that character’s textures, nuances, and colors. In this way, musical theater creates an arena of empathy—​a space in which we may simultaneously experience the realities of many characters through the visceral, emotive modality of their expression. Musical theater “holds” liminal space for the audience, allowing us to suspend the impulse to draw fixed conclusions that separate us from the story being told. While they are certainly not the only possible form that DAR projects can take, musicals have a unique ability to accomplish DAR’s epistemological goals. The arts can also provide a means of voicing counter-​narratives, which serve as powerful witnessing techniques. Such narratives are an essential aspect of combating social catastrophe and fostering restoration and renewal, not only among oppressed populations, but also among those doing the oppressing. In the case of human trafficking in Thailand, the witnesses to the human rights atrocity of [ 30 ]  Rewriting the Victim

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trafficking comprise not only the female trafficking “victims” and their abusers, but also the advocates working to remedy the situation. As members of this movement, each of these actors’ experiences inform a collective understanding of the issue of trafficking. Musical theater provides an effective medium for aptly voicing this understanding in all its nuance. In sum, then, feminist epistemologies, particularly those engaging the feminist research ethic and issues of positionality and situated knowledge, shape the contours of DAR as a praxis that articulates lived experience, and troubles the artist/​ researcher-​subject binary. Musicals are unique to achieving these goals, as they invoke liminality in the performance context and witnessing practices attuned to the ethics of feminism. Having established these feminist epistemological foundations, I now turn to the methodological frameworks—​the tools of engagement—​that help form the basis of DAR.

METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS

In considering methods that live at the intersections between creative practice and social science research, two approaches emerge as suitable for advancing the aims of DAR: Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Practice-​Based Research (PBR). While both have limitations, they nevertheless offer important ways of conceptualizing the location of participants, and the value of lived experience—​two key elements that inform the conceptualization of DAR.

Participatory Action Research

In recent years, Participatory Action Research (PAR) has emerged as a new paradigm in the academy, largely in response to the failure of positivist approaches to acknowledge the responsibility of academic scholarship to the communities they study. The researchers behind the push for this approach, hailing from the fields of liberation psychology, education, trauma studies, and various areas of the communication field, argue that by becoming actively involved in their research projects and interventions, research participants—​or “subjects”—​can be reframed as agentive partners in scholarly inquiry (see Altrichter, Kemmis, McTaggart, & Zuber-​Skerritt, 2002; Dura & Singhal, 2009; Kim & Ball-​Rokeach, 2006; Ledwith & Springett, 2010; McTaggart, 1997; Selener, 1997; Watkins & Shulman, 2008). In PAR, the repositioned researcher is able to build knowledge through direct experience rather than distanced abstraction. Similarly, by being situated in a horizontal, or equal, relationship with their subjects, researchers are able to help bring previously unrecognized social realities to the fore. PAR is often situated precariously in the social sciences due to the difficulty in measuring its validity. As I’ve discussed elsewhere (Kamler, 2013), PAR is in need of rigorous analysis on the validity of its impact on both researchers and communities. In addition, the relative newness of the approach means that there has been limited T h e or i z i n g Dr a m at i z at i o n a s R e s e a r c h  [ 31 ]

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attention to the evaluation of its efficacy, particularly with regard to arts-​based endeavors. Despite these limitations, PAR works well with DAR in that both approaches are premised on the involvement of all members of a given community in undertaking research. Because of this, PAR offers a useful conceptual entry-​point for the DAR praxis.

Practice-​B ased Research

Another method that can be used to advance the conceptual framework of DAR is Practice-​Based Research (PBR). Often discussed in relationship to projects focusing on creative arts practice (see Barrett & Bolt, 2010; Beck, Belliveau, Lea, & Wager, 2011; Bolt, 2010; Clark, 2003; Piccini, 2002; Rye, 2003; Sullivan, 2005), PBR provides a useful way for considering how dramatization can inform social science research. PBR was originally conceptualized in the UK in the 1990s (Nelson & Andrews, 2012; Piccini, 2002). Like PAR, this method relies on “tacit knowledge” (Barrett, 2010):  that is, knowledge gained through direct experience rather than distanced abstraction (p. 2). PBR also relies on the “situated knowledge” described by Haraway (1988), which privileges perspectives that are “particular” and idiosyncratic (p. 4). PBR, like PAR, privileges direct experience over theoretical abstraction. PBR provides a useful framework for DAR, in that it engages theory and practice simultaneously, in what Bolt (2010) called a “double articulation . . . whereby theory emerges from a reflexive practice at the same time that practice is informed by theory” (p. 29). According to this logic, theater is well-​suited to informing research, for unlike other mediated forms of creative practice (such as film and TV), theater relies on live repetition to achieve its communication aims. Actors and musicians perform on stage, recreating communication moment by moment, privileging the flow of dynamic experience-​in-​motion over static, clearly bounded events. As Dolan (2005) has noted, theater privileges the “temporary” over the “fixed.” Central to the tenets of PBR is a philosophy of embodiment—​the idea that actually physically engaging in creative practice can open up new ways of knowing. As such, PBR is often discussed in relation to theater, with its advocates debating the epistemological saliency of mediatized documentation and narrative (see Auslander, 1999; Phelan, 1993). As a methodological approach, PBR relies on “doing” as the foundation for “knowing.” This requires paying specific attention to the creative process, and privileging this process over the outcome of a creative endeavor (Carter, 2010). In this way, PBR asks that we pay attention to the material, technical, often seemingly banal nature of creation: the bodies of actors; the physical materials of sets, costumes, lights; and the making of music. As Conquergood (1991) reflected, embodiment lives at the center of PBR. PAR and PBR share a number of philosophical approaches to research. Both refute the ideals of positivism, rely explicitly on tacit and “situated” knowledge, and are inherently active, immersed in the ongoing process of change. Perhaps most critically, though, both methods involve the incorporation of collaborations, partnerships, and [ 32 ]  Rewriting the Victim

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horizontal relationships between researcher and subject. PAR treats the researcher as an active participant in the research process, which renders her a subject in her own right. PBR takes this idea even further, regarding the artist as a researcher who is able to unearth discoveries through her participation in the creative process. As close methodological cousins, PAR and PBR lend themselves to dramatic projects that engage real events, and strive to make meaning out of subjects’ participation in the creation, production, and reception of artistic work. Whether we are talking about theater, documentary film, or narrative film, then, it is the engagement with the subjects of research (and with their positions as subjects, rather than objects) that informs the potential success of a DAR project. These projects are concerned with unearthing silences within a community and helping give voice to pressing social issues. As the next section will show, in addition to these epistemological and methodological foundations, DAR also draws on fundamental ontological foundations for its assessment—​foundations that incorporate the ethic of liberation.

ONTOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS

As we think about projects that live at the intersection among creative practice, social justice advocacy, and research, questions emerge as to how best to evaluate the essential nature—​the ontology—​of DAR. I would suggest that we do this by looking at the practical effects DAR has on the communities for which it is intended. To get to the heart of these effects, we need to remind ourselves that the fundamental objective of DAR is to be liberatory. We can then understand that the ontology of DAR is found in the liberatory effects these projects have on relevant participants—​that is, the liberatory effects they have on researchers, subjects, and artists. Furthermore, with Watkins and Shulman (2008), I would suggest that proactive, rupturing, dialogical, consciousness-​raising and performative qualities of a community’s experience—​ qualities that, as we will see in the following chapters, well describe the experience of the community of researchers, artists, and subjects in my own DAR project—​best lend themselves to a conceptualization of liberation, and can therefore be used as evaluative criteria for the success of DAR projects. Liberation psychology provides an excellent frame for measuring these effects. Deriving from the liberation theology movements of the 1960s, liberation psychology resists the idea that the goal of psychological health be focused around an individual’s personal happiness. Instead, the health of the whole community should be the goal of this work (Caruth, 1996; Martin-​Baro, 1994; Prilleltensky, 2003; Shabad, 2000; Watkins & Shulman, 2008). Liberation psychology draws on participatory approaches to helping subjects deal with collective trauma, a phenomenon in which the “the victim is not a sole individual but a whole group” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008: 14). Since trauma is understood to be rooted in social processes and not merely in individual suffering, liberation psychology practitioners argue that trauma can only be remedied by “psychological practices that can repair the bonds among people as well as the narrative threads of an individual life history” (p. 14). T h e or i z i n g Dr a m at i z at i o n a s R e s e a r c h  [ 33 ]

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As an alternative way to approach trauma and healing, liberation psychology focuses on critically evaluating problematic social processes that define a community’s circumstances (Martin-​Baro, 1994: 37; Smith, Chambers, & Bratini, 2010: 22). People living in poverty or other marginalized conditions are often labeled as “resistant” or “unsuitable” for psychotherapy (Smith, Chambers, & Bratini, 2010), when in fact, it is often psychotherapy—​a limiting and, it should be noted, traditionally masculinist way of attending to trauma—​that is unsuitable to the marginalized, as it fails to account for their collective experiences of trauma, or acknowledge the social structures that have created and perpetuated that trauma. Indeed, were one instead to try to practice psychotherapy in a more traditional manner with these individuals, one would be doing them an oppressive disservice. In a very real sense, accepting the limits of traditional psychotherapy is akin to accepting the conditions of oppression (p. 23). By recognizing the limitations of traditional psychotherapy and embracing the possibilities of alternative approaches, we may expand the idea of what it means to heal. This is where the idea of liberation comes in. Drawing on Watkins and Shulman’s discussion, we see that true liberation requires adopting a critical, self-​reflexive stance to any discipline or practice intended to give voice to traumatic experiences and expand our understanding of those experiences. Indeed, researchers themselves must be willing to “dis-​identify with aspects of their training and practice that reinforce the divides a critical participatory action approach questions and works to heal” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008: 269). Five criteria are needed for evaluating whether projects (and here they refer specifically to arts-​oriented projects) are liberatory for the participants involved. In order to be considered liberatory, a project must be: 1) Proactive (i.e., engaging ways of building shared understanding of history and social context in a community environment that will witness past events in order to prevent future violence and exclusion); 2) Rupturing (i.e., disrupting dominant, hegemonic narratives); 3) Dialogical (i.e., inspiring communication between individuals or groups); 4) Consciousness-​raising (i.e., generating new insights about one’s personal and social role in society); and 5) Performative (i.e., communicating through a performance medium such a theater, dance, music, film, etc.). I suggest that practitioners of DAR use these criteria as an ontological basis for evaluating the liberatory impact of any given DAR project. When taken together, these criteria reveal that DAR is dedicated to much more than targeted behavioral change (as in E-​E interventions), or reinforcing political binaries (as in the Marxist-​ oriented TO method). Instead, these criteria draw on participatory methodologies to propose a more holistic way of evaluating the transformations that take place on a psychic level for individuals and communities. In order to unpack the concept of liberation—​the ontological basis on which we can evaluate DAR projects—​I want to step back again, and discuss the work of two

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important theorists: Paolo Freire and Augusto Boal. Their thinking lends important insight into our understanding of the psychic and social transformations that occur through liberatory praxis, and thereby helps ground the ontological foundations of DAR.

Freire’s “Conscientization”

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paolo Freire (1993) defined “conscientization” as a process by which the oppressed move from a position of powerlessness toward one of humanity. Through this process, oppressed communities begin to unearth silences, understand their own structural positions within society, and overcome fear (p. 39). In attempting to understand the components that make a DAR project liberatory, I suggest that we begin with Freire. Freire’s theory of “conscientization” is premised on the idea that every human being has the capacity to be critical. To become critical requires engaging in praxis—​ a combination of reflection and action—​through which we may move beyond the limitations of academic abstraction and embrace the realm of lived experience. Freire explained that prior to becoming critical, or “conscientized,” the oppressed remain enshrouded in a culture of oppression that manifests both internally and externally. Simultaneously, the oppressors themselves engage in an ongoing continuum of oppression, as what Watkins and Shulman (2008) have called “bystanders” (p. 61) or, to put it in Freirean terms, defenders of the status quo. These oppressors have, according to Freire, internalized a subject-​object relationship with those whom they dominate (1993: 57). Freire explained that every person has the right to speak—​to “name the world”—​ and in so doing, strive to realize humanism. He distinguished between humanism and humanitarianism, the latter of which he saw as being premised on a kind of paternalism that perpetuates the objectification of the oppressed through rendering them dependent on the (false) goodwill of “helpers.” Often, he explained, those wanting to help are merely invested in maintaining dominance, as they fear their own liberation (as oppressors) on the journey toward manifesting a fuller humanism (p. 58). This fear of freedom is predicated on the false notion that “to be is to have” (p. 58)—​that is, to be is to oppressively possess the other; that one must exist either as an oppressor or the oppressed. Those who fear their own freedom see their demise in the liberation of the oppressed, so that one person’s liberation is a threat to those who are, in turn, forced to lose the privilege that perpetuates oppression. Freire explained: Any restriction on this way of life, in the name of the rights of the community, appears to the former oppressors as a profound violation of their individual rights—​ although they had no respect for the millions who suffered and died of hunger, pain, sorrow, and despair. For the oppressors, “human beings” refers only to themselves; other people are “things” (p. 57).

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Freire asserted that negating freedom can come from both the Right and the Left, as these groups’ “circles of certainty” serve to close off possibilities of collective liberation (p. 39). In contrast, he explained, the “radical” person is open, always listening (p. 39). The concept of “conscientization” adds richness to the liberatory criteria that Watkins and Shulman suggested should be utilized to guide and evaluate arts-​ oriented research projects. “Conscientization” is proactive, as it engages ways of building shared understanding of history and social context in a community environment that will witness past events in order to prevent future violence and exclusion; rupturing, in its disruption of hegemonic narratives; dialogical, in that it inspires communication; and consciousness-​raising, as it generates new insights. One productive way of approaching arts-​based research, then, is to empower the artist as a vehicle for change through processes that echo the “conscientization” Freire described.

Boal’s “Poetics of the Oppressed”

Another theorist whose contributions help us understand the criteria for liberation—​ specifically, the performative criteria—​is Augusto Boal. Drawing on the notion that artists have the potential to be active agents of social change, Boal (1979) developed the praxis of Forum Theatre, which responds to what he saw as a hegemonic condition of the Western theatrical tradition. Created under the umbrella of his “Poetics of the Oppressed” (p. 122), Forum Theatre is a modality that encourages both artists and audiences to engage in dialogue and consciousness-​raising activities through performance. One of the goals of Forum Theater is to push back against the social and political objectives of Aristotelian tragedy. A decidedly political art form, Aristotelian tragedy became the accepted modality for dramatic storytelling at a moment when theater went from being an event of the people to an event propagating the interests of the state (Boal, p. xiv). In this context, Boal explained, Aristotle constructed a “poetic-​ political system” designed to intimidate the spectator (or audience) and “eliminate” their tendencies toward politically subversive behavior through dramatic catharsis (p. xiv). He believed that art’s purpose was to imitate men as they “should be,” not as they are—​that art was meant to support a view of the ideal social and political culture of the time, recreate the creative principle, and “correct nature where it has failed” (p.  20). “Nature,” in Aristotle’s view, included social structures, laws, and class stratification—​what Freire might call products of social inequality. According to Boal, Aristotle did not see these structures as problems; on the contrary, he saw them as ideals. Tragedy, then, was an imitation of the world “as it is,” with the specific social goal of “correcting” the bad tendencies of the people, and steering them toward becoming socially acceptable, law-​abiding citizens. Tragedy, Boal explained, was seen by Aristotle as a manifestation of man’s irrational actions (passions) as he searches for happiness. Happiness, in turn, was virtuous, and defined as a way of fitting into [ 36 ]  Rewriting the Victim

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society (p. 20). Explaining that “catharsis is correction” (p. 29), Boal suggested that the purpose of an audience member’s catharsis is to purge herself of her impulse toward engaging in the bad behavior that marked the tragic character’s downfall. This is accomplished through the elicitation of pity and fear: the spectator pities the tragic character through empathizing with that character, and in so doing, fears the implications that the character’s tragic actions could have on her own life, were she herself to go down the path of the bad-​behaving protagonist. The tragic character, in other words, resembles us (p. 29). In empathizing with this character, we the audience experience a kind of “homeopathic cure” (p. 32) for our own tendencies toward antisocial behavior. Empathy, in Boal’s view, could be used by dramatic artists to perpetuate political control. It was, Boal surmised, the single most dangerous weapon a dramatist has to wield. Responding to what he saw as a decidedly oppressive theatrical tradition, Boal developed an alternative technique whereby the actor “trains himself for real action” (p.  122). The goals of Boal’s “poetics” were to support a Freierean notion of “conscientization” through changing the habits of the human body in the material world, as the first step toward changing the human spirit (p. 128). Basing his work on the notion that an idealist theater arouses feelings, while a Marxist theater incites action (p. 106), Boal’s “poetics” offer further engagement with Watkins and Shulman’s liberatory criteria. In addition to encompassing aspects of rupture, consciousness-​raising, dialogue, and proaction, Boal’s “poetics” also draws on the performative aspect of liberation. Taken together, these theories help situate “liberation” within an ontological framework that can be measured according to specific evaluative criteria. Successful DAR projects, I suggest, must employ all five of these criteria, as these set the praxis apart from other interventionist approaches that fail to promote “conscientization” and action within the artist herself. In this way, DAR stands apart as a unique praxis whose goals are to liberate not only the marginalized subject, but all members of a given community, including the theater artists and researchers who become part of that community through their work on the DAR project.

PRACTICAL FOUNDATIONS

Set against a backdrop of this theoretical framework, let me now conclude the discussion by offering a bare-​bones outline (to be filled in in ensuing chapters) of how I  tangibly made use of the DAR praxis to uncover salient truths about the world of trafficking in Thailand. What follows is an outline of the practical methodological tools I  utilized in each phase of my own DAR research process. These phases focused on three activities:  First, fieldwork, designed to uncover the lived experience of the subject position of migrant women who had been deemed “trafficking victims”; next, the creative process of developing the script and score for Land of Smiles, which was designed to recover these voices; and finally, the production of the musical in Thailand, leading to focus groups that served as a platform for dialogue among participants, thus fostering the articulation of the lived experience of the T h e or i z i n g Dr a m at i z at i o n a s R e s e a r c h  [ 37 ]

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subject through the theatrical medium. Each of these three phases required making practical choices to support its objectives. Realizing that each part of the project would require engaging different analytic tools, I drew on a range of qualitative research methods—​including interviews, ethnographic field note-​taking, participatory action research, and focus groups—​as guidelines for each phase, as follows:2 (1) In the initial fieldwork phase, which was designed to uncover lived experience of migrant women inappropriately deemed trafficking “victims,” 3 I chose to conduct interviews as my primary methodology, as they were, I felt, the best way of accessing the dominant trafficking narratives as told by an array of stakeholders. As a guide for these interviews, I drew on principles of the feminist research ethic as discussed by Ackerly and True (2010) to establish a context in which women’s voices could be expressed and analyzed in nonlinear ways. Putting primacy on the participants’ narrative agendas—​that is, allowing them to tell the stories they want to tell—​fosters a strong research process leading to measurable results, and supports the idea that data exists within an informant’s subjective understandings of her world. (2) The creative phase, which was designed to recover and reposition the voice of the female migrant subject, would incorporate ethnographic and participant observer note-​taking. These methods are, by their nature, dependent on the researcher’s subjective location and interpretation of her own environment. During the creative phase, I revisited the initial interview transcripts while relying on dramaturgical engagement to develop the musical. This phase was guided by ethnographic and feminist voice-​centered method, as these methods naturally situated me and my experiences as part of the research process. As noted by Conquergood (1991), ethnography is well-​situated for critical theory and projects that interrogate creative processes, as it works with themes of embodiment, reflexivity, boundaries, and performance. Above all, this method allowed for personal reflection and self-​ discovery to come to the fore. The feminist voice-​centered method also became salient during this phase of the project. This method requires becoming attuned to the relationship between culture and the psyche by “listening” for the internalization of dominant social discourses (Brown & Gilligan, 1992). As artists, we are already required to listen to our inner voices, allowing seemingly disparate ideas, themes, and emotional discoveries to emerge. In the DAR method, this reliance includes not only the psychic, emotional well of information from which we draw our creative material, but also our attention to the field data emerging from the original research inquiry. A double process must be employed, in which the artist-​researcher analyzes the themes that emerge in the original interviews, while simultaneously reading “beneath the text” of her or his own response to this field data. (3) In the production phase, which was designed to articulate the lived experiences of community members, including the now-​repositioned subject through the production and postproduction dialogue, I  chose to rely on focus groups as a way [ 38 ]  Rewriting the Victim

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of interrogating the narratives of the anti-​trafficking community as a whole. I wanted to see how the liveness of the theatrical event might contribute to collective discoveries made on the part of participants. Focus groups, I reasoned, were the best way to identify ruptures as they occurred in a group setting. By selecting from an array of methodologies at different phases of the research process, this study is decidedly qualitative and arguably (to borrow from Haraway) “idiosyncratic.” This approach, I suggest, is part of what gives DAR its academic rigor, allowing it to refute the generalizing and abstracting framework of positivism imposed by traditionally masculinist research methodologies, and replace it with a framework that is participatory, feminist and liberatory.

Art has the power to transcend contradictory logics. We can communicate our lived experience in a myriad of ways—​ways that are deeply humanistic, that unite somatic and intellectual processes, and help us transcend the boundaries of the here and now. As a higher octave of communication, art can create a universe that allows for the seeming disparities in understanding to dissolve, and for a new means of communication to emerge. In this chapter, I’ve talked about how we may use the arts—​and specifically musical theater—​to engage any dominant narrative about a human rights crisis. In the case of this project, that narrative focuses on the issue of trafficking in Thailand. I’ve explained that DAR is a liberatory, feminist praxis designed to communicate lived experience through a three-​phase process of uncovering, recovering, and articulating that experience, and that the goals of DAR involve creating a space for participants to reflect on collective trauma and develop a new awareness of that trauma through liberatory processes. The remainder of the book invites the reader on a journey through the DAR process. Before diving into Phase One, though, I want to first step back and look at the broader context in which the discourse on trafficking is situated. In the next chapter, I  set the stage for the DAR praxis to unfold by first presenting a critical analysis of the anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand, situating it between two distinct, but interrelated national identity projects. This analysis frames the chapters to follow, and forms the bones of Land of Smiles.

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PART ONE

The Field Research Phase

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CHAPTER 2

Setting the Stage National Identity and the Trafficking of Women in Thailand

What looks from the outside and from a distance as a bounded group appears much more divided and contested at closer range. Culture is more often not what people share, but what they choose to fight over. —​G. Eley and G. Suny (1996: 9)

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woman in a longyi1 traverses a hillside—​fertile, yellow-​green and burnt by the sun. The sun that refuses to set, until quite suddenly it changes its mind, ducking behind the mountain and turning the ever-​hopeful, seemingly-​calculable journey into a vast stretch of unknown. She is weary. Her slipper-​clad feet are swollen and sore. This journey of steep mountains, tangled jungles, and deep evergreen forests could be traveled in under an hour by plane, but she has no knowledge of this. From the sky, it would all be reduced to rolling hillsides and sugar cane fields, a landscape unfolding peacefully, dotted not by roads, or agriculture, or industry, but by bursting greens and earthen browns and rivers that snake like arteries through miles of untouched Burmese land. From up there it would look quiet, and pristine. But there are no quiet migrations. Not from ethnic Burma, where war still rages; where Tatmadaw2 soldiers set fire to villages in the night; where women’s bodies are torn like pages from a notebook, crumpled up and cast into the wind. And there are no pristine migrations. Not into Thailand, where the sacred covenants of “chat, satsana, phra mahakasat”—​or “nation, religion, monarchy”—​rule supreme, rendering this migrant and others like her mere props in a drama of national pride. She stands on the banks of the “Meh Nam Khong,” the Great Mother River that separates her world from that new world—​a world where she will be wholly, irredeemably foreign. Then, like many others before her, she steps into the water and begins to swim.

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Migration stories have become familiar to us. As we move through the tumultuous early decades of the twenty-​first century, they are distinctly recognizable—​iconic markers of our collective, contemporary experience. But who narrates these stories, and how are they consumed? How do we understand the “imagined” migrant in context, as well as the forces of history, politics, and culture that shape her reality? Here is where our journey begins. With the imagined story of one, that is in fact the story of many. It’s the story of women who travel, against all odds, from Burma—​ a country marked by decades of isolation, military dictatorship, poverty, tribalism, and war—​into Thailand—​a country marked by a pride so strong it only increases as the decades and distance from the threat of colonial conquest go on. As a dramatist and researcher, I started my journey into the world of DAR here. Armed with a collection of questions, I wanted to understand this imagined female migrant—​the figure who would later serve as the foundation for the character Lipoh. What was her relationship to her homeland? To her destination? To her community? How was her experience informed by structures of oppression that were not of her own making? And what avenues could she find—​if not to change these structures, then to at least try to resist them? Uncovering the stories that help us answer these questions is the focus of Phase One of DAR. These are stories of nations, of cultures, and of individuals for whom history is still very much alive and acting upon them. They are stories of identity, and the way it informs one’s world. But perhaps most important, they are the stories of narratives themselves—​of how they become produced and maintained, and frame lived experience. Thus, the stories uncovered in the first phase of the DAR praxis are not only about people’s lives—​they are stories about how stories are told. In order to understand our imagined migrant, the broader problem of trafficking in Thailand, the way the problem is narrated, and the way that narrative is consumed, I first needed to step back. Like all journeys, this one is framed by history. And so we begin by “zooming out” to look at how the histories of three countries—​Thailand, Burma, and the United States—​inform the story of our imagined migrant, coloring it in deep shades of umber and green, setting it against a majestic gold backdrop, and flanking it with the brazen promise of stars and stripes. Together, these histories form a rich, though improbable palette from which I  would begin to understand the webs in which the imagined migrant was tangled, and build a framework for dramatizing her. That palette, and the narratives that emerge from within it are the subject of the next four chapters. In this chapter I start by providing a broad context for understanding the problem of trafficking in Thailand. I  do this by first introducing two fundamental national identity projects—​one that relates to nationalism in Thailand, and the other to nationalism in the United States. Both projects, I  suggest, rely on the intersection of gender and citizenship for their maintenance. More specifically, in this chapter I will provide background on the anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand by situating it in the context of what I call “Thailand’s National Identity Project” and the “U.S. Abolitionist Project.” We will see how, together, these projects reveal the way the anti-​trafficking movement responds to the constructed idea (i.e., the artificially manufactured notion put in place to deal with a whole complex of other problems) of [ 44 ]  The Field Research Phase

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trafficking. Following this, in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 we will see how these two projects and the narratives they bring about impact all the actors in the trafficking arena—​ but most significantly the female migrant laborers who are caught in their crossfires.

THAILAND’S NATIONAL IDENTITY PROJECT

For the better part of the past century, Thailand has been embarking on a modern nation-​building project—​an attempt, fostered by the Thai government and reinforced throughout the culture to define itself as a unique, coherent nation-​state. This project plays out in numerous ways, and involves a rigorous self-​definition of what constitutes “Thainess,” or “Kwampben Thai” (Thongchai, 1994). In order for Thai citizens to feel they belong to the nation-​state, they must adhere to certain characteristics and behaviors. These include, among other things, speaking the central Thai language (and dialect) (Anderson, 1983: 45; Diller, 2002), paying reverence to the monarchy, and practicing Theravada Buddhism. While cultural assimilation, accommodation (i.e., allowing other cultural groups to coexist within the dominant group, without attempting to assimilate them), and exclusion are all ways in which national identities are constructed (Mylonas, 2013), in the case of Thailand exclusion has been the dominant tactic. While most people living within Thailand’s borders (see Figure 2.1) are considered Thai citizens, certain ethnic groups, particularly in Thailand’s northern provinces, are not granted this designation. Though many members of these ethnic communities have resided within Thailand for generations, and while many others have sought refuge in Thailand from the politically unstable nation of Burma, Thailand nevertheless does not recognize them as being Thai citizens. Often, members of these ethnic minority and migrant communities are rendered “stateless,” possessing no land rights, no educational opportunities, no access to healthcare or political protections by the Thai government. It is my contention that the Thai government renders these and other ethnic minority groups “others” as a way of strengthening its national identity. As a result of this othering process, many ethnic minority community members face stigma and discrimination in almost every aspect of their daily lives. The places they can live are marked by it, as is their ability to move freely within Thailand’s borders. Moreover, their labor opportunities are limited by their othered status. Migrants are frequently burdened with being unable to find regular paid work in Thailand. Because of this, they often turn to informal labor—​an unregulated sector in which exploitation and human trafficking are frequent occurrences—​in order to survive. Othering, then, is a prominent feature of Thailand’s National Identity Project. In addition, the Project is dependent on a second aspect of self-​definition for its maintenance—​one involving gender relations and the role of the prostitute in Thai society. This aspect of Thai self-​definition revolves around the cultural acceptability of prostitution within Theravada Buddhism. Buddhism forms the cornerstone of Thailand’s national image of “chat, satsana, phra mahakasat” or, “nation, religion and monarchy”—​the official three pillars of Thailand’s identity (Chongkittavorn, 2011). As I will discuss later in the chapter, Theravada Buddhism, as practiced in Thailand, S e t t i n g t h e  S tag e  [ 45 ]

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Figure 2.1:  Map of mainland Southeast Asia.

has historically relied on gendered notions of women’s sexual impurity and the institutionalization of male promiscuity (Truong, 1990) for its maintenance. Gender, and more specifically, the acceptance of prostitution within Theravada Buddhism, plays a second central role in the construction and maintenance of Thailand’s National Identity Project. In this section of the chapter, I  will unpack each of these two aspects of Thai self-​definition in turn, starting first with the practice of othering ethnic minority [ 46 ]  The Field Research Phase

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communities, then turning to the issue of gender and, more broadly, the role of the sex industry as a site of national identity construction in Thailand. Taken together, these two aspects of Thai self-​ definition underscore Thailand’s larger National Identity Project. Later in the chapter, I’ll return to this discussion to show how this project not only creates the conditions for trafficking of women to occur, but in fact, also thrives on them.

Ethnic Minority Communities in Thailand

The plight of ethnic minorities in Thailand, many of whom are migrants fleeing political persecution and state-​sanctioned violence in Burma,3 is articulated in the advocacy efforts of a number of NGOs and CBOs in Thailand that address the issue of trafficking from rights and indigenous-​based perspectives. Organizations such as Development Education Programme for Daughters and Communities (DEPDC), The Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT), and Asia Indigenous People’s Pact (AIPP) situate the issue of human trafficking in a citizenship and indigenous-​ rights-​based paradigm, explaining that a lack of citizenship status often underscores and exacerbates the problem of trafficking, and augments the insecurity of ethnic minorities in Thailand’s north4 (DEPDC Staff, personal communication, 2009; Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand, 2011; Kamler, 2015a). To illustrate this plight, I draw on the examples of three ethnic groups that have faced ongoing discrimination in Thailand. These are the Shan, the Kachin, and the Ahka. These minority communities are continually at odds with the Thai government, and suffer from the othering practices I describe here. I focus on these communities because they provide diverse examples of othering, and because—​particularly in the case of the Kachin and the Akha—​they represented the majority of the female migrant laborers who participated in Phase One of my research. The Shan State comprises over 64,000 square kilometers of land overlapping portions of eastern Burma, Southern China, Northern Thailand, and Western Laos. Situated along the border of Northern Thailand (see Figure 2.2), Shan State is home to a multitude of ethnic minority groups, including the Shan, or Tai-​Yai; the Kachin; and the Akha. Like all ethnic territories in Burma, the Shan State existed long before the creation of identifiable national borders. Thus, many Shan define themselves by their ethnic identity first, and by the national identity of the country they occupy only second. Having faced economic hardship and political repression under, first, British rule and then, following the end of colonialism in 1948, the military regime, thousands of Shan have fled across the border into Thailand seeking asylum. Despite being considered “phee nong” (brothers and sisters)—​or ethnic “kin”—​by the Thai, the Shan are considered “aliens” upon migrating into Thailand (Jirattikorn, 2017), and even those whose families have been in the country for generations remain unrecognized as citizens by the Thai government. 5 Kachin State, Shan State’s neighbor to the north, represents an equally ancient civilization rich in culture and history. Having descended from Indo-​Tibetan origins, the predominantly agrarian Kachin have practiced Christianity (particularly Baptism S e t t i n g t h e  S tag e  [ 47 ]

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Figure 2.2:  Political map of Myanmar (Burma).

and Roman Catholicism) for over a century (Leach, 1970). While tensions between the Kachin and the Burma government date back to the era prior to Burma’s independence, violent conflict was cemented following the 1947 Panglong Agreement, which was intended to guarantee autonomy for Burma’s seven ethnic states, but was never substantively implemented (Walton, 2008). Subsequently, the Kachin have faced almost constant active armed conflict against the Tatmadaw for the better part of six decades (Sun, 2014). The conflict—​spurred both by Kachin grievances over the lack of recognition from the central Burmese government and by ongoing ethnic discrimination—​escalated in 1961, and was fueled by the newly formed Kachin Independence Organization

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(KIO) and its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) (Global Witness, 2005). One of a number of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in Burma, the KIO/​ KIA are known for their political organization and military prowess (Lintner, 1997), having, by the early 1990s, trained over 6,000 troops, plus militias (Global Witness, 2005). The conflict continued until 1994, when a ceasefire agreement was reached between Burma’s then-​governing body, the State Peace and Development Council (SLORC), and the KIO, resulting in 17  years of relative peace (Woods, 2012). The ceasefire was ultimately broken, however, with a June, 2011 Burmese military offensive in Kachin State (Human Rights Watch, 2012), and active conflict continues at the time of writing. As a result of the conflict, conditions on the ground remain volatile for the Kachin. Fighting has escalated in and around KIO-​controlled areas, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) face worsening insecurity in and around the camps in the form of humanitarian aid shortages (Pistor, 2017); threats, torture, and interrogation (Human Rights Watch, 2018; 2012), and sexual violence (Women’s League of Burma, 2014). Many have had to flee across the China border to escape the fighting (Kamler, 2015b; Quintana, 2014). Between 2011 and 2012 alone, 70,000 civilians fled their homes due to state-​sanctioned violence (Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand, 2011), and this number has continued to climb in the wake of escalated fighting in 2016 (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA], 2018; Human Rights Watch, 2016). A recent United Nations fact finding mission estimated the number of displaced civilians to have reached 100,000 (United Nations Human Rights Council [OHCHR], 2018: 13). The Akha, another ethnic minority group, live in the highlands of Burma’s Shan State, and comprise a population of approximately 100,000 (Smith, 2002). Possessing neither a delineated territory of their own, nor an organized state or government system, the Akha are considered “stateless” in both Burma and Thailand. Living in relative isolation from the Western world for centuries, in recent decades, the Akha have faced an erosion of traditional village life and rampant drug addiction, which has degraded their social conditions (Kammerer, 1992). This, along with ongoing economic hardship, has influenced the trend in migration into Thailand, where many Akha work informally in the sex industry. For ethnic minority women from these communities, the journey traveling to Thailand in the hopes of finding employment and helping to support their families back home is not uncommon. Burma, a country known for being “near the bottom” of developing countries with poor human rights standards (White, 2004), instigates these journeys. Women from Burma’s ethnic areas typically migrate by any means necessary—​by oxcart, elephant, flatbed truck, and even on foot—​seeking a better life across the Thai border. Upon their arrival in Thailand, however, ethnic women often face equally harsh circumstances. Regardless of their plight, the Thai state does not award them the same rights or privileges accorded to Thai nationals. Displaced refugees living along the Thai-​Burma border areas, for example, are perceived entirely in accordance with their political situation—​their identities wholly defined through the lens of their asylum (Tangseefa, 2007). Furthermore, the Thai government does

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not recognize all ethnic minority populations as refugees, and regularly denies certain groups such status (Shan Women’s Action Network, 2003). Ethnic women from Burma are, therefore, among the most vulnerable populations in Northern Thailand. Due to Thailand’s failure to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention (Shan Women’s Action Network, 2003), an agreement that advocates for the rights and protections of people seeking political asylum, the Thai government is complicit in perpetuating the desperate circumstances faced by refugees from these communities. Lacking legal status and political recognition, many Shan and Akha migrants turn to the sex industry (Guadamuz et al., 2010), and many Kachin turn to domestic, construction, and other unregulated labor sectors in order to survive.

“Zomia” and the “Wild People”

The Thai government’s relationship with ethnic groups such as the Shan, Kachin, and Akha has long been a site of struggle among ethnic minorities who, despite having lived in Thailand for generations, continue to be rendered stateless, unlike rights-​ holding ethnic Thais (Toyota, 2007). In the early part of the twentieth century, the concept of statelessness did not yet exist, as notions of nationhood and state sovereignty were not used to define citizenship. In Siam’s precolonial era, the political boundaries between “highland” and “lowland” territories were extremely blurred, as “the borders of center-​oriented ‘galactic polities’ of the traditional state were ‘porous and indistinct’ ” (Tambiah, 1977). It is said that people in these margins were, at that time, living under the indirect rule of the Thai authority (Toyota, 2007: 94). As James Scott (2009) noted, however, when such rule became overwhelming, “subjects moved with alacrity to the periphery or to another state” (p. 7), reinforcing a pattern of fluidity in ancient state formation. “Hybrid identities” in the hill communities thus accurately describe many of the ethnic populations of Northern Thailand and Burma—​a territory Scott has referred to as “Zomia.” During the reign of the Lanna kingdom, multiple ethnic groups lived and worked on the land without regard to the boundaries of what is now the sovereign Thai state. Tribes, villages, and vast communities with overlapping languages, cultural practices, and political and spiritual allegiances migrated freely across what are now the borders of Thailand, Burma, Yunnan China, and Laos. During this time, political boundaries were merely a “patchy, disconnected network of power units” (Thongchai, 1994: 79). While these communities paid allegiance to local overlords, the very idea of physical borders remained unknown to them. It wasn’t until Siam emerged as a “buffer state” in the late nineteenth century during France and Britain’s colonial conquests of neighboring Southeast Asian countries, that Western-​oriented mapping techniques were adopted by Siam (Toyota, 2007: 95), thereby relegating Zomia’s populations to the framework of the classical state. By the twentieth century, the modern paradigm of nationhood had manifested in what is now known as Thailand’s north (Thongchai, 1994). The implementation of Western mapmaking techniques created a new paradigm for both administrative and military operations in Siam, and influenced significant [ 50 ]  The Field Research Phase

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changes in the political construction of nationhood (p.  130). The development of a Siamese nation-​state, with physical borders and territorial boundaries, spurred a new need for Siam to define its national identity. Indigenous ethnic groups who had once lived freely on the land were suddenly required to pay allegiance to either Burma, Thailand, China, or Laos (p. 130). The Shan State in particular, which had stretched across pre-​national boundaries for generations, became partitioned across three different countries, each of which possessed wholly different national identities. This compartmentalization of space, and the corresponding need to adhere to the rules of the nation-​state created problems for ethnic communities who were unable to speak the national languages or understand the newly institutionalized customs and laws. Indeed, “nationhood” was a paradigm to which ethnic minorities did not readily adhere. Dubbed “wild people” by elite Bangkokians, these ethnic “hill tribes” were said to have little in common with the elites in the capital, a discrepancy that delineated the muang (center) from the pa (highland) (Scott, 1991), and was used as a way to separate urban-​dwelling Thais from the rural population of non-​Thais (Toyota, 2007). This nation building process was first introduced in the mid-​twentieth century under the administration of Prime Minister (and virtual military dictator) Phibul, and later bolstered by the U.S. military presence in Thailand—​thus, marking the moment when ethnic minorities in Thailand’s north became a national “problem.” In the advent of the Cold War, the United States occupied Northern Thailand, promoting it as a lawless northern frontier in an attempt to ward off communist insurgencies in surrounding China and Laos (see Fineman, 1997; Hyun, 2014; Numnonda, 1978). In the face of a perceived communist threat, the U.S and Thai governments established the Border Police and the U.S. Operation Mission (USOM), which implemented training programs in Thai citizenship. These programs consisted of distributing photographs of the Thai King to border villages to instill patriotism among the population (Kunstadter, 1967; Toyota, 2007) and delivering instructional speeches that targeted a new category of “hill tribe” people, or, in Thai, “chao khao” (Cohen, 2009). By the late 1960s, minority communities were required to prove that their families had been living on Thai soil for at least three generations in order to establish citizenship in Thailand. This proof would earn one a “pink card,” and, theoretically, the ability to claim one’s citizenship status (Toyota, 2007). This process, however, turned out to have dire consequences for ethnic minority populations who did not share the Thais’ language or transcription system, and therefore were unable to understand the details involved in this registration procedure (Akha migrant, personal communication, December, 2011). Furthermore, few “hill tribe” peoples possessed written identification documentation, which effectively negated the possibility of their obtaining citizenship. Lacking proper documentation would render a person an “illegal migrant;” in effect, turning him or her into a criminal overnight (Toyota, 2007). Thousands of ethnic people were arrested, deported, jailed, or fined. Land rights were denied, educational opportunities revoked, employment options dissolved (p. 98). Despite the fact that a majority of the hill tribe population was rendered “illegal,” “non-​citizens” however, their presence in Thailand remained strong throughout the S e t t i n g t h e  S tag e  [ 51 ]

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remainder of the century and into today. A recent UNHCR report suggested that the stateless hill tribe population now stands at 450,000 (Spindler, 2015). In addition, migration from Burma’s ethnic communities has increased steadily over the past two decades (Jirattikorn, 2017).6 The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimated that the immigrant population entering Thailand from Myanmar (Burma) has reached 1,978,348 (International Organisation for Migration, 2015), and the International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated that migrants from Burma now make 75 percent of the labor force in Thailand (Martin, 2007). Statelessness has drawbacks as well as benefits. For many in Thailand’s rural north (as well as in Burma), being stateless is not merely a passing trend of history, but rather a self-​perpetuating condition. Avoiding governance has served as a way for the people of Zomia to maintain autonomy in the face of oppressive nation-​state policies (Scott, 2009). Nevertheless, when a family has gone unrecognized by the Thai state, the ripple effects are felt for generations:  both migrants and stateless ethnic peoples must adhere to strict legal restrictions that prevent them from fully participating in Thai society. These conditions have opened up a vast, seemingly endless dilemma for ethnic minority individuals seeking to work and participate in a society that offers them virtually no legal protections or rights.

“Push Factors” and the Feminization of Migration

We now return to the imagined migrant and her journey. Where does this woman come from? What is she running from, and toward? And can she hope to ever return home? Conditions of statelessness and discrimination against migrants in the informal labor sector in Thailand do not occur in a vacuum. Collapsed into this reality are the factors that drive women to migrate from the economically deprived and war-​ torn villages of upper Burma. These “push factors” (i.e., conditions pushing women from Burma to migrate into Thailand) not only set the stage for labor exploitation and trafficking to take place (see Sassen, 2002), they also play a role in the construction of Thailand’s National Identity Project. Explicating the connection between Thailand’s National Identity Project and the push factors underscoring women’s migration illuminates the reality faced by thousands of women throughout Southeast Asia, and concretizes a key aspect of my larger argument about human trafficking:  namely, that the best approach to confronting this issue from a policy perspective is to examine conditions that influence irregular migration, and work to eradicate women’s insecurity in the home countries from which they migrate. As I will show in the chapters that follow, this approach would prove more valuable and effective than addressing “end game” aspects of the trafficking cycle. I suggest, in other words, that rather than looking at trafficking as a kind of unitary end-​in-​itself target to isolate our focus on and subsequently eliminate, we should instead focus on the root causes of the problem—​ acknowledging that trafficking can only be eradicated if it is prevented from coming about in the first place. Its prevention can only be achieved by dealing with push [ 52 ]  The Field Research Phase

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factors having to do with political, economic, and social instability in the countries from which women migrate. Acknowledging the reality that women, who represent two-​thirds of the poor in Asia (UN Women, n.d.), generally face harsher economic circumstances than men, is a critical, yet often overlooked aspect of the discourse on trafficking. Additionally, it is essential to acknowledge that working as a prostitute in a destination city (such as Bangkok) is likely to earn a woman a higher wage than she would otherwise earn working in a rural village in Burma, for example. Indeed, contrary to myths that abound about migration and sex work being uniformly “forced” or “coerced” processes, many women migrate from Burma into Thailand voluntarily, as conditions in Burma are so dire that the precarious labor experiences they face in Thailand are more acceptable. Such disparities point to the way political and economic factors in migrants’ home countries often violate women’s economic and social human rights (see Kamler, 2014; Piper, 2003; Pogge, 2007; Richardson, 2015). Of central importance to the discussion of women’s migration (and in addition to a variety of other push factors having to do with violent conflict, patriarchy, and the legacy of authoritarianism that marks life in modern Burma) is the issue of neoliberal capitalism, or neoliberalism. As Sassen (2002) has discussed, neoliberal processes, which emphasize deregulation, and oversee manufacturing and new forms of profit-​making to remedy structural adjustment policies in the developing world, have opened up new labor markets in which women overwhelmingly participate. These markets, coupled with the structural poverty in home countries, propel women to migrate to destination countries, where they participate in a host of unskilled industries, including the sex industry, in what Sassen has called the “feminization of survival” (p. 258). In short, neoliberal capitalism has created new economies and enhanced the government revenues of deeply debt-​ridden countries—​all on the backs of poor women. Important here is the understanding that the world economy, under a neoliberal model, depends on women’s low wage labor for its maintenance (Parreñas, 2015; Sassen, 2002). Women’s unskilled labor helps boost GDP, economic hegemony, and even the national image of a country. As noted by Sassen (2002), “It is through these supposedly rather value-​less economic actors—​low wage and poor women—​that key components of these new economies have been built” (p.  255). Moreover, neoliberal capitalist practices have “reprivatized” women’s labor, moving the responsibility for their welfare from the state to the private, domestic sphere (Mohanty, 2003). Women bear the brunt of the social consequences of the privatization of social welfare, as it is their labor that goes unregulated, unpaid, and unacknowledged under conditions of neoliberal capitalism (p. 510). Later in the chapter, I will return to a discussion of neoliberal capitalism, with a more in-​depth look at its effects. In Thailand, the rise of policies that rely on women’s low wage labor for their maintenance is tied together with the Thai National Identity Project. In order to successfully uphold a specific body of nationalistic traits and practices, the Thai state must perpetuate an identity of an “other,” a group of people who clearly do not belong, and therefore do not receive the benevolent treatment that the state offers to those who demonstrate citizenship in the specific ways I’ve described. Enter the unskilled S e t t i n g t h e  S tag e  [ 53 ]

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workers who, facing appalling labor conditions, are manipulated by a system that can easily exploit them. These migrants, as explicitly non-​Thai workers, are rendered illegal enemies of the Thai state. The nature of women’s irregular migration, then, coupled with the quest for an established Thai national identity has given rise to an increase in the exploitation of migrant workers from Burma. This exploitation, I suggest, subsequently bolsters the image of the Thai nation-​state. The existence of national borders gives rise to the establishment of state identity, as the ability to define an “other” more readily helps one define oneself (Toyota, 2007). Thai identity is, in this way, a politics of exclusion. Creating definitions of the non-​Thai “other” not only contributes to the construction of Thailand’s strengthened self-​image, but also to its role as a regional power. Trafficking, then, is not so much a result of Thailand’s assertion of its national identity and regional dominance, as it is a means. The exploitation of female migrant laborers has become a form of currency for the Thai government—​a tool for constructing Thai identity, and a way to differentiate between populations who belong (and thus are not exploited) and populations who don’t belong (and thus, must turn to irregular, exploitable labor as their only means of survival). Viewing these ethnic migrants as problems due to their participation in the informal labor sector is one example of how the othering process plays out in Thai society. Shan, Kachin, Akha, and other minority women are rendered both troublesome burdens and exploitable commodities whose personhood is exchanged for their othered role. This role, in turn, helps uphold the legitimacy of the Thai nation-​state.

Gender and the Thai National Identity Project

The second aspect—​and what I  would, in fact, call a cornerstone of Thailand’s National Identity Project has to do with the role of gender in the construction of Thai identity. Specifically, I’m referring to the role of the prostitute, and by extension, Thailand’s sex industry. It is not accidental that prostitution has risen alongside Thailand’s climb to economic hegemony. While perhaps an unconscious manifestation of cultural self-​definition, prostitution, its acceptability in the Thai Theravada Buddhist tradition, and its role in constructing the nation through regulating the behavior of middle class men (see Jeffrey, 2002) is a central component of Thailand’s National Identity Project. In traditional Buddhist thought, sexuality “is tied to the natural world, the world of suffering and ignorance” (Truong, 1990: 134). As such, women, who are seen to be the source of sexual desire, and the degradation that accompanies it, are feared and disdained within Buddhist institutions and Buddhist thought (pp.  134–​135). Buddhism further allows for polygamy on the part of males, while placing the idea of sexual impurity on women—​a concept that was institutionalized in Thai law during the reign of King Rama I (pp. 146–​147). As a result, the category of “prostitute”—​a “woman publicly shared by all noblemen and their sons”—​became a legal category in 1805, and remained so during the reign of King Rama V (1868–​1910) (Siriphon, [ 54 ]  The Field Research Phase

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2003: 29), with many brothels managing clients and prostitutes from China, Japan, and even the West (Metta-​rinanondhu, 1983: 30). Building on this foundation, we see that prostitution, and the sex industry more broadly have been sewn into the fabric of Thailand’s development. In the late 1990s and 2000s, Thailand saw its reputation as a destination for sex tourism increase (Nuttavuthisit, 2006). Following the 1997 economic crisis, women from the rural northeast and other economically deprived areas flocked to Bangkok to find work as unskilled laborers, many turning to prostitution. During this time, the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation also increased. While some studies estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 prostitutes were working in Thailand in 1997 (International Labour Organization [ILO], 2009), others claimed this number to have reached 2 million by 2003 (Blackwell, 2003). By this time, Thai officials were well aware that “policies to encourage the growth of tourism, promote migration for employment, promote exports of female labour for earning foreign exchange . . . contributed indirectly to the growth of prostitution” (ILO, 2009). Illegal services ranged from prostitution that was freely chosen by women to the commercial exploitation of children (Guzder, 2009), and it was widely thought that police corruption and complicity played a large part in the industry (Chuang, 1998). With Western television shows promoting its beaches as easy places to purchase sex, and bar girls crowding Bangkok’s tourist-​district streets, Thailand’s image as a destination for sex tourism was on the rise. The supposed “epidemic” of human trafficking originally emerged from the Western tourism industry in Thailand during the 1980s (Siriphon, 2003). When American troops initially withdrew from Vietnam, “sex tourism took over the existing sex-​related infrastructure. Bangkok and Pattaya became sex havens for men from all over the world” (p.  2). Tourism (and leisure, as a broader category) in Southeast Asia thus became connected to the maintenance of the U.S. military apparatus and a new “international working class and managerial class” comprised of Western men (Truong, 1990: 100). New types of leisure activities and the labor that went along with them were geared toward maintaining the welfare and pleasure of foreign men (p. 100); in essence, serving as an “alternative development strategy,” in which tourism and sexuality were inextricably linked (p. 101). As a result of becoming so integral to Thailand’s development, prostitution, which had been criminalized in 1960, occupied a different legal category by the mid-​1990s. In 1996, Thailand passed a law on the suppression and prevention of prostitution, which was designed to shift the focus away from levying fines on prostitutes, and onto consumers and purveyors of prostitution. More recently, the government debated legalizing the industry, in order to tax revenues from the estimated 4.3 billion-​dollar-​ a-​year trade (“Thailand mulls legal prostitution,” 2003). As Truong (1990) explained, such seeming liberalism around attitudes toward prostitution were the result of a tradition of the institutionalization of Theravada Buddhist thought within Thai law. Gender thus constitutes a second layer of analysis of the Thai National Identity Project, with prostitution situated squarely in the middle of this analysis. Rather than being considered a degrading act that diminishes Thailand’s legitimacy as a cohesive nation-​state, prostitution instead is a culturally acceptable act that S e t t i n g t h e  S tag e  [ 55 ]

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contributes to the maintenance of Thai identity. Gender, culture, and citizenship are thus bound together in Thailand’s National Identity Project. As I will discuss further in a later section of the chapter, the social processes that are rooted in Thai Buddhist thought sit uneasily with the U.S.-​based agenda of eradicating trafficking. Instead, like Thailand’s othering of migrants from neighboring Burma, they are aspects of the trafficking drama that both inform and bolster the Thai nation-​state.

THE U.S. ABOLITIONIST PROJECT IN THAILAND

This analysis of Thailand’s National Identity Project set the stage for my exploration of the life of an imagined migrant, whose experience traversing the war-​torn Burmese landscape would become the site of a dramatic musical. But this analysis still only tells us part of the story about the anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand. In addition, another project is underway—​one that also set the stage for the dramatic narrative of Land of Smiles to unfold. Here, I’ll connect the Thai National Identity Project with a second one, the U.S. Abolitionist Project—​a national identity project, driven by the United States, that manifests itself in the global movement to eradicate prostitution through combating trafficking. I suggest that through the use of narratives conflating trafficking with prostitution, this movement promotes the normative values of the United States, while, simultaneously, distracting audiences away from the effects of the U.S.’s neoliberal policies in the developing world, and thus, also away from the plight of the women who the movement is trying to help. As with Thailand’s National Identity Project, the U.S. Abolitionist Project is predicated on a panic around immigration, and on the maintenance of a gendered notion of the state—​in this case, the reliance upon normative ideas about femininity and the proper role of women—​to uphold a shared understanding of American identity.

Historical Roots of the U.S. Abolitionist Project

As I noted in the intro chapter, the U.S. culture wars of the 1980s were the site of fierce debates about prostitution. Radical feminists argued that prostitution represented violence against women and rejected the validity of woman’s consent to using their sexuality as a source of economic empowerment. Sex radical feminists resisted this argument, asserting that sex work was a complex terrain of struggle, and a site for resistance. More recently, these debates were adopted by the anti-​trafficking movement and “exported” into the developing world through U.S. foreign policy. Far from being an invention of the culture wars of the 1980s, however, the abolitionist movement in fact began a century earlier, in the context of a national panic about white women’s sexual promiscuity and the influence of men of color on those women. These foundations were concretized in two important projects: the White Slave Panic of Victorian England, and the Mann Act and Page Laws of early twentieth-​ century America. In addition to regulating the sexuality of women and immigrants on America’s shores, the latter two laws foreshadowed the repressive foreign policy [ 56 ]  The Field Research Phase

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legislation of the George W. Bush administration that continues into the present. Importantly, these historical roots of abolitionism provide clues as to why the discourse on trafficking continues to inflame ideological arguments between feminists, and underscore tensions around issues of migration and the sovereign state. The roots of the initial Western cultural concern over “trafficking in women” can be traced back to the “White Slave Panic” era of Victorian England (Doezema, 2010). In its earliest conception, “trafficking” was an elusive concept—​something difficult to pin down, precisely because of the discourse that surrounds and constructs it. This discourse is marked by a melodramatic narrative that stems from the myth of white slavery in the UK, and draws on an idea of the victimhood of “good women” (i.e., women who do not want to be prostitutes, who wish to remain “pure,” but are coerced into the trade against their will) juxtaposed against the equal and opposing image of the “bad harlot” (i.e., the criminal prostitute who, through her consent to disgraceful and dangerous acts, negates any chance of receiving empathy or goodwill from society at large) (Doezema, 2010). This narrative was based on a myth, intended to normalize the social structures and value systems of the middle class—​in particular, the social roles of white, middle class British women during the Enlightenment era (Doezema, 2010). During this time, middle class British women’s social roles were tied to the values and practice of philanthropy. Middle class women often demonstrated their social status through philanthropic efforts to help sex workers—​women whom they deemed to be less fortunate than themselves (Agustin, 2007: 96). These seeming attempts at altruism produced a discourse around sexuality that was premised on the reinforcement of difference between the “fallen” prostitute as problematic object/​unit, and the “bourgeoisie woman”—​a category of citizenship created to inspire order and regulation in the emerging capitalist system (pp. 104–​105). As this discourse expanded, it began to encompass trafficking, and the binary categories of “victim” and “criminal”—​categories that were seen as fixed identities, rather than temporary conditions. Thus, the image of the white, bourgeoisie British woman as “savior” was born, simultaneously cementing the colonial trope about the victimhood of non-​Western women who sell sex (p. 39). These historical conditions and discursive constructions formed the root of the contemporary U.S. Abolitionist Project. Echoes of this earlier panic can be seen in the more recent feminist discourses, wherein the “third world” sex worker is presented as backward, innocent, helpless, and in need of rescue (Doezema, 1998; 2001). Through the discursive portrayal of this “victimized” sex worker, the relative superiority of the normative Western “savior” is re-​constituted and maintained. Just as today’s trafficking discourse is predicated on debates about whether women can truly possess the ability to consent to sex work, the earlier social panic was similarly preoccupied with the binary categories of consent and force. Indeed, during the Victorian era it was thought that in consenting to prostitution, a woman would “fall” from the grace of the middle class. This panic was exacerbated when white women began traveling from Europe to the Americas, suggesting that it was not only the act of commercial sex itself, but also women’s movement across national borders that provoked this cultural “concern.” S e t t i n g t h e  S tag e  [ 57 ]

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The White Slave Panic also served a powerful rhetorical device, evoking images of the transatlantic slave trade of the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Many of today’s anti-​trafficking campaigns, which use the term “modern slavery,” paint an equally powerful picture (see for example, Free the Slaves, 2015). However, in contrast to the institutionalization of the transatlantic slave trade, today’s forms of labor exploitation can largely be seen in processes such as debt bondage and indentureship—​processes that are “lodged in contractual, wage relations and principles of free labor power and its market exchange value” (Kempadoo et al., 2005: xx). It is a misnomer, then, to equate contemporary forms of “trafficking” with the transatlantic slave trade. Not long after the advent of the White Slave Panic, the United States adopted legislation of its own intended to police women’s sexual behavior and, simultaneously, curtail immigration on its shores. Following the 1904 International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic signed by leading nations of Europe, the United States amended its own immigration laws to criminalize the act of “importing” a woman into the United States for prostitution. The federal Mann Act, also known as the “White Slave Traffic Act,” made it a felony to knowingly transport “any person in interstate commerce or foreign commerce for prostitution, or any other immoral purpose” (U.S. Legal, 2003) or to coerce an individual into undertaking such acts. The law, enacted in 1910 by President Taft during a time of moral panic, was ostensibly designed to combat prostitution. However, it was more often used as a tool of political persecution and blackmail (Weiner, 2008). Additionally, not unlike the Palermo Protocol that would follow almost a century later, the vague wording of the federal Mann Act allowed the U.S. government to use it as a tool to regulate sexual morality in the domestic arena (McCoy, 2010; Weiner, 2008). The Act relegated women to the form of property, subject to regulation by the government and unable to consent to their own physical movement or sexual behavior (McCoy, 2010). Furthermore, the Mann Act cemented the constructed ideas of “women as potential victims” and “men of color as potential criminals” into the national narrative of the United States. In this way, it served the purpose of regulating the movement of men of color; in essence, targeting nonwhite male immigrants whose masculinity was seen as a threat to the purity and morality of the (white) middle class (McKoy, 2010). As such, it was more often used to publicize and criminalize extramarital sexual relationships than to actually protect women. Indeed, before being amended in 1986 to include more gender-​neutral language, the Act was criticized for stripping women of the right to willingly travel across state lines, under the assumption that such travel would be conducted for purposes of having an extramarital affair (McCoy, 2010). Travel, gender, race, and morality were thus bound together in the national narrative of the turn-​of-​the-​twentieth-​century United States. This narrative, while intended to create a cultural and legal “code” around citizenship and belonging, had the outcome of cementing gendered ideas about American identity. The legislation underpinning these acts illustrates the extent to which socially constructed notions of

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gender and the regulation of women’s sexuality were used to fuel the U.S. Abolitionist Project—​America’s very own national identity project. While the Mann Act served as a way of regulating women’s sexuality, construing promiscuous women as victims, and stripping women’s right to consent to making autonomous sexual choices, the Page Law focused on criminalizing immigrants. As the first restrictive federal immigration statute of the United States, the Page Law of 1875 banned the immigration of Chinese prostitutes, and targeted the practice of polygamy—​which was seen as being entrenched in Chinese immigrant culture (Abrams, 2005). Using language similar to that of the Mann Act, the Page Law banned the immigration of women who entered into contracts for “lewd and immoral purposes,” and made it a felony to “import” women into the United States for prostitution. The law was followed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which introduced an increase in fines and jail time for those transporting to or from the United States anyone from Japan, China, or any “Oriental” country without that person’s voluntary consent, and explicitly prohibited the immigration of Chinese prostitutes (Peffer, 1986). The Mann Act has been criticized for allowing the United States to gain legislative power over the sexual morality of white women. In tandem, the Page Law has been criticized for doing the same to nonwhite immigrant women. Ostensibly created out of concern for preserving the American conceptions of marriage, family, and whiteness by preventing the immigration of Chinese women who were prostitutes or in polygamous marriages, the Page Law, in effect, allowed the U.S. government to regulate female migrants’ sexual and marital behavior as a way of shaping and controlling the country’s racial demographics (Abrams, 2005). Under this law, prostitution and polygamy were conceptualized as “twin relics of barbarism” (p. 659): Just as prostitution, when entered into by white women, made victims of these women and was viewed as the antithesis of marriage, so too, was polygamy linked to victimhood and slavery—​with non-​monogamous marriage seen as an affront to the cultural values of the West. What we may understand from these historical roots, then, is that we have inherited a narrative framework premised on the panic over women’s sexuality and mobility—​a framework that circulates in the contemporary narratives used to uphold today’s anti-​trafficking policies. These policies, and the narratives that underscore them form the roots of the U.S. Abolitionist Project—​a white, Western feminist agenda that relies on the construction of gender and regulation of women’s sexual behavior for its maintenance. Furthermore, this construction of gender and regulation of women’s sexual behavior is linked to women’s roles as citizens. The discourse on trafficking that characterizes today’s U.S. Abolitionist Project upholds the binary between the “good victim” (read: citizen), and the “bad prostitute” (read: noncitizen), thereby linking sexual morality to citizenship status, and immorality to irregular migration. Most problematic, however, is the fact that absent from anti-​trafficking policies and the discourse that underlies them, are the voices of the women whom these policies actually affect.

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The Abolitionist Project and the “Palermo Compromise”

The U.S. Abolitionist Project was given legitimacy by the 2000 United Nations Convention to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women and Children, also known as the “Palermo Protocol.” As I noted earlier, the goal of those attending Palermo was to find consensus around an appropriate definition and subsequent policy response to the issue of trafficking. However, the Convention failed to yield these results (Chuang, 2006; Outshoorn, 2005). Instead, the Protocol cemented the ongoing, contested debate between neo-​abolitionist and pro-​rights feminists, with the U.S. government coming down squarely on the side of the neo-​abolitionist feminist position and using it as justification for exporting an abolitionist agenda worldwide. Let us look at how all this unfolded. The Convention at Palermo was largely influenced by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, or CATW, one of the early NGOs dedicated to fighting sex trafficking through the abolishment of prostitution. One of the primary missions of CATW was to make recommendations to Washington that would steer anti-​trafficking policy for the next generation (Doezema, 2010). Led by abolitionist feminist Kathleen Barry, CATW promoted the idea that sex work and sex trafficking are inherently synonymous, and that consent in prostitution is a misnomer, because prostitution is an inherently forced, rights-​violating circumstance (Barry, 1995). In other words, Barry and her camp believed that the only way to eradicate forced prostitution (i.e., real sex trafficking) is to rid society of prostitution altogether (Segrave, Milivojevic & Pickering, 2009). Several pro-​rights feminist groups also attended Palermo. Among these were organizations such as the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW), who argue that sex work should not be considered the same as human trafficking, as consensual sex work does not violate the rights of consensual sex workers (GAATW, 2007). Putting the rights of migrant and trafficked women at the center of the conversation, GAATW argued that the “trafficking” label could be misused to describe relationships that, in various different cultural circumstances, were considered acceptable, not exploitative. If the definition of trafficking were too broad and unnuanced, GAATW warned, female migrants, consensual sex workers, and those who legitimately sought to help them earn wages and cross borders could risk being criminalized (GAATW, 2007: 10). Because consensus on these divergent understandings of human trafficking was impossible to achieve, members of the U.N. Convention at Palermo settled on a compromise:  Individual states would be left to decide, for themselves, whether they viewed prostitution and trafficking as being one and the same (the abolitionist view), or whether, as GAATW and others urged, they would approach the problem of trafficking from a human rights perspective, adopting a more nuanced view of both trafficking and prostitution (Chuang, 2006: 442–​443; Segrave, Milivojevic, & Pickering, 2009). Attendees at the convention thus came up with a definition of human trafficking that was conceptually broad—​and, some have argued, deliberately

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vague—​in order to appease the many different stakeholders in the movement (Segrave, Milivojevic & Pickering, 2009). I  call this negotiation the “Palermo Compromise.” The Palermo Compromise resulted in the following definition of trafficking: The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2000: 2).

Other feminist scholars have critiqued the Protocol for its overly broad definition of trafficking, which, they suggest, makes trafficking virtually impossible to adequately identify or quantify (see Agustin, 2007; Beijer et al. 2011; Chuang, 2006; Doezema, 2010; GAATW, 2007; Kempadoo et  al., 2005; Parreñas, 2011; Segrave, Milivojevic, & Pickering, 2009). Additionally, the problem with the definition is that it encompasses many bits and pieces of other problems. Since “trafficking” cannot be exemplified by only one type of situation, advocates cherry-​picked from an array of issues, and focused on combating whatever sub-​issue served their interests. Furthermore, and problematically, the Protocol explicitly links trafficking to illegal immigration (Kempadoo et  al., 2005:  xiii)—​a conceptually sharp departure from the human rights frameworks offered by GAATW and other pro-​rights groups at Palermo. The Palermo Compromise succeeded in cementing a problematic discourse on trafficking—​ one in which definitions of exploitation mean vastly different things to different actors, in which terms such as “force” and “coercion” are often misunderstood or used interchangeably, and in which claims of suffering are based on scant empirical evidence.7 It also created a chaotic landscape in which an array of actors and organizations have been given the authority to steer the direction of policymaking according to their own ideologies. Palermo thus paved the way for the U.S.  government to construct new abolitionist institutions and apparatuses: from the development of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (JTIP), to the creation of the annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, which measures the compliance of every country in the world against the United States’ abolitionist standard, to funding pools benchmarked specifically for the programming of international faith-​based NGOs seeking to eradicate prostitution in the developing world through the promotion of Christian values. Palermo also set the stage for the U.S.  government’s creation of the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or TVPA. This mechanism authorized a sanctions regime allowing the president to withhold funding assistance to certain countries that did not comply with the United States’ abolitionist agenda (Chuang, 2006: 439).

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In enacting this sanctions regime, the U.S. government, now free to decide in its own terms how it wished to define human trafficking, launched an international campaign to eradicate prostitution around the globe (Segrave, Milivojevic, & Pickering, 2009)—​a campaign that explicitly conflated trafficking and prostitution in one fell swoop. Thus, rather than constructively bringing together abolitionist and pro-​rights feminists, the vagueness of the Palermo Compromise led to further divisions between these opposing camps, and has had the unintended consequence of cementing abolitionism as a framework for U.S. foreign policy. In the process, normative values of the “good victim’s” purity, the “bad harlot’s” impurity, and the ideology of the earlier White Slave Panic began to be exported around the globe. With all this in mind, let us now look at how U.S. foreign policy has come to work hand in glove with the abolitionist “rescue industry” currently operating in Thailand.

NEOLIBERALISM AND THE RESCUE INDUSTRY IN THAILAND

In Thailand, anti-​trafficking NGOs function as actors in what Agustin (2007) has called “The Rescue Industry”: a network of development organizations that receives funding from the U.S.  government, foundations, and individual donors to implement policies focused on combating trafficking. The conditions for this industry—​in which private-​public partnerships thrive as NGOs and other transnational actors depend on global capitalist practices for their survival—​have been created under the recent rise of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is an economic model that reorients funding provided by the state into the hands of private industry. Neoliberalism’s economic foundations include the deregulation of trade, the privatization of industries, and the rise of private-​ public sector partnerships that replace mechanisms of state and public funding. It is built on the idea that “the social good will be maximized by maximizing the reach and frequency of market transactions, and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market” (Harvey, 2005: 3). More than a theory of capitalism, neoliberalism is a politics of individualism; the idea being that the state creates the conditions whereby an individual has the opportunity to thrive in competition with others, and realize his or her economic potential. Within this framework, the social contract of embedded liberalism—​a post–​World War II project in which the rise of labor, state regulation of the economy, and other collectivist forms of social welfare were enacted as a “contract” between the state and its citizens—​is essentially dismissed, and is replaced by the idea of the individual as the sole agent responsible for her or his own welfare. While the stated intentions of those promoting a neoliberal economic agenda is to “free’ capital from a regulatory apparatus that would restrict economic growth, the outcome of neoliberal policies are, as Harvey (2005) has deftly unpacked, the restoration of privilege to the upper classes (p. 16). This outcome could be seen as the result of economic policies promoted by Thatcher, Reagan, and more recently, in the structural adjustment policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary [ 62 ]  The Field Research Phase

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Fund (IMF). With the liberalizing of trade and the opening of global markets came corporate projects involving manufacturing, tourism, and the commodification of virtually everything. Initially, these projects seemed to offer a way for economic growth to take place in the developing world. Such growth, however, was ultimately achieved at the expense of the lower classes—​deepening inequalities in contexts that were already politically unstable, and creating more vulnerability for workers whose standard of living continued to degrade as that of the upper classes continued to rise (p.  73). As a result, the liberalization of markets has devastated the social fabric of the developing world. In order for neoliberalism to be accepted by society, it must be justified as a necessary step in a society’s advancement (Harvey, 2005: 3). One example of this process can be seen in the United States’ embracing of the neoliberal economic model. In an ominous echo of Gramsci’s theory of “common sense” versus “good sense,”8 neoliberalism has played on the tensions between values of social justice and values of individualism that have long characterized American liberal society, thereby becoming normalized in American politics. As a “hegemonic form of discourse” (p. 3), neoliberalism provides a cynical answer to a liberal society’s strive for balance between the social and the individual good. Against this backdrop, claims to morality are often used to sway public acceptance of capitalistic practices. This can be seen in the “industry” of rescue that has been created around trafficking. For example, Agustin (2013) has discussed a phenomenon she dubs “Global Reality Tours”—​voyeuristic excursions in which American tourists visit developing nations to learn about the horrors of sex trafficking through “touring” brothels, bars, and slums. One such tour included a recent Thailand Delegation to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, aimed at “aspiring individuals”—​upwardly mobile, white, elite American liberals who received school credit for witnessing the horrors of trafficking (p. 1). These types of commercialized interventions can be seen as thinly veiled forms of Orientalism, as they are predicated on the perpetuation of a “clear differentiation between Subject (tourist) and Object (exotic other)” (p. 1). They also reinforce what I have described as a “spectacularized” discursive space, in which members of the developed world objectify “victims” in order to soothe their own anxieties. Moreover, such commercialized activities turn moral aspirations into commodities, linking upper-​class, Western privilege to the objectification of women in the developing world. The U.S. Abolitionist Project, which exports ideological and moral perspectives on gender, also reinforces the commodification of migrant laborers vis-​à-​vis the neoliberal capitalist apparatus. Looking at the Project through a political economy lens, we see how it in fact masks the race to the bottom—​a process by which private Western corporations set up offshore business and manufacturing mechanisms in the developing world as a way of keeping their labor costs low (Harvey, 2005)—​taking place throughout the developing world. This race to pay laborers as little as possible subsequently creates the conditions whereby migrant laborers are forced to work for impoverishing wages. This, in turn, enables large corporations to increase profit potential, thus creating the conditions in which actual trafficking and forced labor occur. The neoliberal model, then, having ostensibly been designed to “liberate” markets, S e t t i n g t h e  S tag e  [ 63 ]

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in fact creates and perpetuates the conditions for labor exploitation to thrive. As we have seen, this process has dire consequences for female migrants, who enter into unskilled labor vocations that leave them vulnerable to exploitation. Ironically, while this race to the bottom is being played out, the United States’ stated project of combating trafficking continues to gain traction and resources. As it grows stronger, the anti-​trafficking movement butts heads against corporate practices—​practices that have co-​opted the authority of the state’s regulatory abilities. These contradictory processes demonstrate the way “underground” and “legitimate” crime can work together hand in hand, and operate in symbiotic relationship (Kempadoo et al., 2005). While “legitimate” corporations create the conditions for labor exploitation to flourish, the state continues to penalize those engaged in “illegitimate” labor vocations. As a result, the women bound in these vocations continue to suffer. The relationship between the “legitimate” corporations that create conditions for labor exploitation, and the “illegitimate,” or exploitative, labor practices themselves intersects with the U.S. Abolitionist Project as follows: In order for corporations to flourish by enslaving workers, the attention of the public must be turned away from the practices that create such labor exploitation. Instead, public interest must be made to focus on “spectacles of suffering”—​such as the trafficking “victim,” whose experiences, on the surface, seem wholly divorced from Western capitalism and appear to be the result of misguided national and cultural practices that devalue women’s rights. We see this in the U.S. abolitionists’ overwhelming focus on the exploitation of female sex workers and almost nonexistent focus on the exploitation of factory laborers, domestic laborers, or those involved in other types of precarious work. This deliberate steering of attention toward one type of imagined exploitation is managed in such a way as to perpetuate the conditions of labor exploitation without revealing their source. As a result, sex workers—​many of whom are also migrants—​have become spectacularized scapegoats in a drama that should, instead, be focused on Western corporate greed.

THAILAND’S NONCOMPLIANCE

On the surface, Thailand appears to be complying with the agenda of the U.S. Abolitionist Project. As “partners” in the fight to combat trafficking, Thai NGOs receive copious amounts of State Department and USAID funding, and often engage collaboratively with American NGOs. In addition, from a policy standpoint Thailand has taken significant steps to adopt an official stance against human trafficking. Its numerous initiatives, which began in the 1990s, range from the National Policy and Plan of Action for the Prevention and Eradication of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (1996) to the 1997 amendment of the Act on Prevention of Traffic in Women and Children to include boys (Derks, 2000: 33). Thailand’s adoption of these policies demonstrates its willingness to treat human trafficking as a crime. Yet the Thai government’s actual implementation efforts often fail to conform to State-​Department-​driven anti-​trafficking initiatives. Part of this has to do [ 64 ]  The Field Research Phase

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with the framework for policy implementation itself:  Thailand’s domestic legal system. Operating from a vastly different cultural logic than the United States, this system more often serves as “an instrument of power exercised on behalf of the monarchy and other traditional institutions, rather than as a source of rights and redress for citizens” (McCargo, 2014: 417). In the case of combating trafficking, the same pattern holds true for Thailand’s response to international convention. Thailand has failed, for example, to comply with international norms mandating the penalization of traffickers. While the Thai government passed the 2002 National Plan and Policy on Prevention and Resolution of Domestic and Cross Border Trafficking in Children and Women, which emphasizes the protection of women and children (ECPAT International [ECPAT], 2006: 14), it remains unclear where the 500 million Thai baht allocated to its implementation has gone to combat the problem. ECPAT International has noted that implementation measures have been weak (p. 14) while law enforcement remains highly susceptible to corruption (p. 20). The Plan also fails to detail the process by which prosecution takes place, and the methodology used to stop individuals who facilitate human trafficking. Additionally, despite having formally adopted the Convention, the Thai government has specified two significant reservations to it: Article 7, on birth registration and Article 22, on children seeking refugee status in Thailand. These reservations indicate that while the Thai government has begun to take a stance against the trafficking of Thai citizens, it does not extend these efforts toward refugees. This shortcoming highlights the Thai government’s ongoing discrimination against ethnic minority and refugee communities, and points to glaring holes in its efforts to actually implement anti-​trafficking policy.

Passive-​A ggressive Refusal

Thailand’s unwillingness to comply with the parameters of the Protocol has evoked hostility and threats from the U.S. Department of State, as evidenced in the downgrading of Thailand from “Tier 2” to “Tier 2 Watch List” status in the 2012 Trafficking In Persons Report, and in a further downgrade to “Tier 3” in 2015.9 The Thai government’s lax response to U.S.-​imposed policies points to questions about the nature of these two projects, their inherent collisions, and the deeper meanings that underscore the global crusade against trafficking. As I have argued throughout this chapter, the exploitation of cheap labor serves simultaneous national, cultural, and economic purposes in Thailand: such labor both supports Thailand’s rise as an economic regional hegemon and at the same time upholds its National Identity Project—​a project seeking to reinforce the cultural and political authority of the Thai citizen in contrast to the immigrant other. Labor exploitation and trafficking not only support Thailand’s National Identity project, they constitute it. Thus we may conclude that if Thailand were to actually embrace the U.S. Abolitionist Project, its own economic development would stall. S e t t i n g t h e  S tag e  [ 65 ]

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Legitimizing Male Promiscuity

But there is another clear reason that Thailand resists the U.S. Abolitionist Project’s mandate. Here, I  return to my discussion of the gendered aspect of Thailand’s National Identity Project, again suggesting that the acceptance of prostitution within Theravada Buddhism plays a key role in upholding this project. The acceptance of prostitution as a legal category in nineteenth-​century Thailand allowed for the legitimization of social power relations that privileged the marketization of women’s sexual labor in service to the promiscuous sexual behavior of men. As a result, the sex industry of modern Thailand is not so much a stain on an otherwise culturally pure national image as it is a mark of the maintenance of traditional gender relations and power dynamics within Thai society. In other words, I am suggesting that the sex industry, which both legitimizes male promiscuity and reinforces male dominance in Thai society, also upholds the premise of the Thai National Identity Project. Because of this, Thailand’s resistance to the U.S. abolitionist agenda is as much embedded in cultural norms as it is in the maintenance of economic hegemony.

COLLIDING CULTURAL PROJECTS

The U.S.  abolitionists, meanwhile, would be hard-​pressed to allow Thailand’s sex industry to continue flourishing on the basis that it serves some kind of patriotic function. Moreover, the tensions between these very different views of gender and sexuality are rooted in a long history of Thai-​U.S. relations. The influx of Western commercial ties in the late nineteenth century forced Thailand to confront the social systems on which prostitution—​and polygamy—​were rooted, and begin a process of reforming these traditional gendered social processes. Here is where we see the first cultural collision between the values of the West, which find both prostitution and polygamy unacceptable, and the Thai Theravada Buddhist tradition in which these practices were rooted. In the early twentieth century, the Thai government accepted that it would need to reform these social systems in order to engage openly with the West. In doing so, as Truong noted, new processes of wage labor were introduced into the Thai economy. However, and crucially, the buying and selling of female sexuality continued (Truong, 1990:  153), demonstrating that Thailand would not be easily convinced to eradicate its sex industry under pressure from Western abolitionists. Complicating this tension between Thailand’s traditional acceptance of prostitution and the West’s project of eradicating it, Thailand’s sex industry has grown more recently with the influx of the United States’ neoliberal policies. The period from 1967 to 1977, marked by the push of poverty in the rural areas, as well as the pull of a new burgeoning sex industry in Bangkok and Pattaya spurred by the American war in Vietnam, resulted in a rise in female migration within Thailand (Siriphon, Nataya, & Chutima, 1997). Following this initial influx, however, the conditions surrounding women’s entry into the sex industry began to change. While poverty continued to incentivize young women’s migration and entry into prostitution, families also saw the sex industry as a means of creating wealth, and began to independently “sell” [ 66 ]  The Field Research Phase

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their daughters into the industry (Siriphon, Nataya, & Chutima, 1997: 31). The rise of young Thai women’s entry into sex work that began at around the moment that Western neoliberal policies were making their way into the developing world perfectly exemplifies the collision of Thailand’s National Identity Project and the U.S. Abolitionist Project. Thailand’s noncompliance shows us the extent to which two states appear to be colliding over finding solutions to the problem of trafficking—​a problem that, as I’ve shown, is vastly misunderstood. At the same time, we see a clash taking place between two colliding cultural projects: While on the one hand the U.S. Abolitionist Project seeks to eradicate prostitution, thereby priming “illegal” ethnic migrant sex workers for deportation back to their home countries, Thailand’s National Identity Project relies on the othering (and thus, also the presence) of these migrants within its borders, as well as the ongoing functionality of the commercial sex industry, for its maintenance. Bowing to pressure by the West to change social processes rooted in traditional Buddhist thought and ingrained into Thai society for centuries has not been, nor will be on the agenda of the modern Thai nation-​state (Truong, 1990). Thailand’s noncompliance with the U.S. Abolitionist Project can be understood, then, in terms of prostitution’s roots in the Thai framework of social power relations—​a framework that privileges the marketization of women’s sexual labor in order to legitimize the promiscuous sexual behavior of men.

And so we see that the anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand is driven by a variety of actors and institutions whose agendas are often not aligned. As a result, the issue of trafficking can be seen embedded in a number of secondary mechanisms and debates: from U.S. foreign policy on international development and the debates on how and where that development aid should be spent; to the ideologically informed work of feminist advocates; to Thailand’s own National Identity Project, which is predicated on an anti-​immigration agenda; to the Western capitalist march toward progress in the developing world. Each mechanism, debate, and its associated actors use the issue of trafficking to serve a specific goal. These disparate goals create the chaotic landscape that is the anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand. Moreover, both the Thai National Identity Project and the U.S. Abolitionist Project have elevated trafficking to being the sole “problem” that they must combat, rather than seeing this issue as part of a larger problem involving push factors, migration, and the impact of neoliberal policies in the developing world. Each of these projects tackles trafficking from the perspective and within the context of its own agenda, creating a confused arena in which the larger issues impacting female migrant laborers often go overlooked or unaddressed. The fact that this movement is driven by two contradictory projects raises questions as to how any movement can function when the goals driving it are so disparate. Inevitably, one set of actors and their corresponding agendas must be compromised, or the movement itself risks losing cohesion. Moreover, it raises questions as to how such a collision will ultimately impact the women intended to benefit from the movement’s stated concerns. As the next few chapters will show, S e t t i n g t h e  S tag e  [ 67 ]

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this collision has real consequences for migrant women in Thailand. It is these women who are left to work in devastating labor conditions, not only as a result of inadequate migration policies and institutionalized ethnocentrism, but also as a result of the policies of the U.S. government. The movement that was created to help them is the same movement now responsible for their exploitation. All globalization processes possess a cultural dimension (Castells, 2010). Thailand’s National Identity Project and the U.S. Abolitionist Project are no exceptions. Caught in the crossfires of these projects are female migrant laborers, whose labor, as well as its exploitation, have been co-​opted to serve the interests of two very different nation-​states with competing agendas of dominance. But rather than address the actual problems that female migrant laborers face, both the U.S and Thai governments instead focus on combating a constructed problem, “trafficking.” Having set the stage for our understanding the context informing women’s migration from Burma into Thailand, in Chapters 3, 4, and 5, I will return to a discussion of the discourse on trafficking, disentangling the narratives that are commonly used by anti-​trafficking advocates. I’ll do this by looking at three prominent narratives that emerged within various sites of my Phase One field research. These are (1) the victim-​versus-​criminal narrative, (2) the rescue narrative, and (3) the narrative of resistance. These narratives and the policies and practices through which they are communicated each have implications on female migrant laborers who are construed as trafficking “victims”—​the subjects of this DAR project. Together, these narratives help us more deeply understand the way Thailand’s anti-​trafficking movement is constructed and maintained. Moreover, they lay the foundation for understanding our imagined migrant—​the figure who would later inform the character Lipoh in Land of Smiles. As we will see later in the Phase Two chapters, Lipoh is a young woman who has had to grow up too soon—​but who has, through that growing, managed to accomplish her goal of finding a way to survive. Impacted by national identity, culture, history, and politics well beyond her understanding, Lipoh would come to represent the collision of these forces in all their contentious complexities. Thus, while Lipoh had not yet been conceived of in Phase One, the stage was set for her creative development. Thailand’s National Identity Project and the U.S. Abolitionist Project form the structure on which the Land of Smiles characters would be later dramatized. In the next three chapters we will see how narratives of victimhood, criminality, rescue, and resistance helped to advance that structure.

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CHAPTER 3

“Smart Raids” and the Victim-​versus-​Criminal Narrative THEY DISMISS US AND IGNORE US BUT WE KNOW THAT THEIR POLICY’S A SHAM HOW THEY’D MISS US IF THEY FORESWORE US WHORING’S JUST AS OLD AS OLD SIAM —​Mae and Buya, Land of Smiles

T

he brothel is a small wooden house that sits unassumingly beneath the open sky. It looks nothing like a brothel one would imagine if one were from the West—​if one had only ever consumed the sensationalist images of back-​alley, “third-​world” prostitution rings and violent trafficking gangs that fill the Western imagination. This brothel is not the opposite of that, but it is not that either. Trees and grass surround it. Somewhere nearby, in the mornings, a rooster clucks. Before it, a road stretches to the east and west, heading in one direction toward the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai, and in the other, toward the Burmese border town of Tachilek. A karaoke bar catering to ethnic men of modest means, in the evenings it is covered by a canopy of stars. It is sometimes a site of pain, most certainly, but it is also sometimes a site of agency, however precarious, and this paradox does not go unnoticed by the women on whose labor it thrives. “Nut” tends to the outdoor fire while her sister “Mo Mo” smokes. They are ethnic Akha who recently migrated to Thailand. They stick together, these sisters. Their social network is a dense web of other Akha who dwell in small, Thai-​style homes on back alley sois lit by firelight and fluorescence. Homes that sometimes moonlight as brothels. Makeshift homes and precarious vocations—​the quintessential migrant experience. Sometimes a farang, or foreigner, ventures down

07

these roads, but not often. Usually it is Akha men who come here, keeping the social network alive and reinforcing the tightly knit nature of the Chiang Rai migrant community. Until one night, when the raid comes. When Thai police and a bevy of uncomfortable-​looking social workers descend, sending the women scattering, sending the mama san running, sending the money into the hands of the state. Just like everything else in a migrant’s life, that too will eventually be taken. The women who are caught stand powerless against authorities, and face two choices: claim to be victims, and begin the long road through detention, prosecution, and rehabilitation; or claim to be criminals—​and face stigma and deportation. These are the only options available to a migrant prostitute caught in one of Thailand’s “Smart Raids.”

In the previous chapter, we looked at the imagined migrant in the context of the larger identity projects that shaped the conditions of her migration and set up the dilemmas she would face upon reaching her destination. Here, we begin to look at the actual lived experiences of migrants caught in the crossfires of these projects as they play out on the ground. Drawing on interviews with ethnic migrant sex workers in Chiang Rai, as well as employees of local and international NGOs1, in this chapter I  show how the anti-​trafficking movement uses “Smart Raids”—​collaborations between NGOs and the Royal Thai Police to raid brothels, karaoke bars, and massage parlors—​in an attempt to rescue women working as prostitutes against their will. Digging more deeply, we will see how this policy traps female migrant sex workers in a binary framework that pits the non-​consensual “victim” against the agentive “criminal” in what I call the “victim-​versus-​ criminal” narrative. By doing this, Smart Raids not only fail to achieve their primary goal, they also have detrimental effects on the very women they are designed to help. As a vehicle for uncovering and understanding lived experience, DAR requires a balancing act. As artists and researchers, we need to constantly move back and forth between the social world and the imagination in an ongoing interactive dance. Following our imagined migrant into her collision with Thailand’s anti-​trafficking movement, we begin at the site of the brothel—​a site that would ultimately serve as the dramatic opening to Land of Smiles. By looking at the experiences of migrant sex workers who are caught in these brothel raids, we will see how they become trapped in a web of narratives spun by outside actors—​narratives that render them voiceless, powerless, and invisible. The first step in the DAR praxis, then, involves uncovering the lived experience of the marginalized “subject” as a way of starting to understand the narrative frameworks that have been used to manage, silence, and bury that experience. As with the Thai and U.S. identity projects, here we will see another example of how narratives about trafficking are communicated through policy. But in order to understand all this, I want to first ask the reader to step back as we look at the broader context of Thailand’s Smart Raids. [ 70 ]  The Field Research Phase

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SMART RAIDS IN THAILAND

The year 2012 marked a pivotal moment in Thailand’s anti-​trafficking policy efforts. That year, the country came under fire for failing to comply with recommendations outlined in the U.S. Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. The 2011 TIP Report cited problems with Thailand’s inability, or reluctance, to comply with the minimum standards of anti-​trafficking policies that were identified in section 108 of The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) (U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons [U.S. Department of State], 2011). It then called for Thailand to increase its efforts to prosecute cases and penalize traffickers. Finally, it downgraded Thailand to “Tier 2 Watch List” status—​the second-​to-​lowest ranking in anti-​trafficking compliance status for all countries around the world, and a ranking that the U.S. government threatened would carry a heavy penalty for any country that failed to turn its policies around. One of the immediate responses to this downgrade was an increase, both on the Thai government’s part and on the part of the international community, in strengthening anti-​trafficking policy implementation in Thailand. Specifically, the State Department responded to Thailand’s downgraded status by increasing funding for Smart Raids. In a Smart Raid, an NGO will collaborate with the Royal Thai Police to raid a brothel, karaoke bar, or massage parlor—​places where suspected underage prostitution might be taking place. The women working in these establishments are arrested and taken to one of Thailand’s International Detention Centers (IDCs) where they are held while social workers and NGO staff enact a “weeding out” process, working to identify which are consensual sex workers and which are under age 18, and thus automatically deemed to be victims of human trafficking. Sometimes, the women are held in detention for several months to over a year, while authorities attempt to facilitate the prosecution of the establishment’s owner on trafficking charges. Consequently, these raids are often devastating to women doing sex work by consent. Not only do they objectify and paternalistically shame women who have chosen to enter this vocation, but they also hinder the women’s ability to provide for families who rely on their incomes to survive. While Smart Raids are meant to address the needs of trafficking victims, they more often than not end up penalizing consensual sex workers while reinforcing a victim-​versus-​criminal binary and a gendered construction of citizenship that does real harm to female migrant laborers working in the sex industry, regardless of whether they are victims of human trafficking. As noted in Chapter  2, policies designed to combat trafficking in Thailand are recent inventions. Human trafficking only emerged as a central concern for the U.S. State Department within the last two decades, and formally crystallized into an official global problem with the 2000 Palermo Protocol. But formal problems demand formal solutions, no matter how flawed they may ultimately prove to be. Smart Raids were designed as a mechanism for freeing victims of human trafficking while “minimizing harm to others” (U.S. Department of State, 2012). Ideally, these raids are “grounded in real evidence, have a well-​defined goal grounded in law, and “ S m a r t  R a i d s ”  [ 71 ]

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are planned to ensure the safety of everyone involved. They should also include arrangements to segregate supervisors, conduct victim-​centered interviews, cross-​ reference victims’ accounts, and quickly transition to post-​rescue care and shelter for identified victims” (U.S. Department of State, 2012). The TIP Report distinguishes these interventions from “Blind Sweeps,” which do not rely on credible surveillance or verification of the evidence of trafficking victims being present in the targeted location. The Smart Raid policy, however, fails to live up to the standards outlined above. Instead, as was noted by a number of respondents, they seldom succeed in identifying actual victims of human trafficking, and more often serve the purpose of harassing, intimidating, and disrupting the work of consensual sex workers. Moreover, in 2011 the Smart Raid policy, though well funded and diligently enacted, succeeded in producing only a scant number of trafficking prosecutions in Thailand (Anti-​trafficking NGO employee, personal communication, 2011)—​not enough to demonstrate adequate compliance. For the women working in Thailand’s brothels, the policy has two primary detrimental consequences: First, it puts the onus on sex workers to demonstrate their status as either a “victim” (i.e., forced) or “criminal” (i.e., consensual) prostitute. If rendered a consenting criminal, the sex worker is further penalized. Such a purposeful and strategic form of punishment, enacted with copious amounts of funding from the U.S. government, can be seen as a way of reinforcing Western stereotypes, moralisms, and gender norms. Smart Raids are also problematic because they assist the state in penalizing “illegal” migrants, many of whom are fleeing repressive regimes, armed conflict and structural violence in their home countries. As we saw in Chapter 2, female migrants from Burma are often unable to secure the proper documentation needed to migrate formally into Thailand. This results in their hiring “carriers” to help them manage their migration processes. These informal arrangements, lacking support by state apparatuses, often leave women vulnerable to exploitation. Smart Raids, however, do nothing to challenge the structural conditions underlying such processes. Instead, they problematically legitimize the Thai state’s mistreatment of female migrants who enter the sex industry. The dual threats of deportation on one hand, and exploitation on the other, must be analyzed together, since both serve as components of the state project of gendering the citizenship of female migrants. We see, through the Smart Raid policy, how the state becomes an actor to whom women must either demonstrate their loyalty by identifying as victims, or demonstrate their defiance by identifying as consenting sex workers. Legitimacy is thus bound to the women’s demonstration of agency or victimization, illuminating the gendered nature of their relationship to the Thai state. Moreover, the gendered nature of migrant women’s status as noncitizens in Thailand has implications on the extent to which they can control their own bodies. In the absence of a nuanced understanding of sex work, the state mediates the relationship between a female sex worker and her body, imposing limitations on her ability to make her own choices. The result is that the state itself invalidates the [ 72 ]  The Field Research Phase

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notion of “consent.” In this way, Smart Raids perpetuate the state’s domination over a women’s physical agency. Above all, and as I’ll discuss in more detail throughout this chapter, Smart Raids flatten the lived experiences of female migrant laborers in Thailand by assuming these women have uniform experiences of migration, labor, and gendered identities. In this way, the raids contribute to the silencing of the voices of female migrant laborers in the trafficking discourse. Rather than putting the subjective experiences of women at the center of the anti-​trafficking policy conversation, Smart Raids override this subjectivity, privileging instead the agendas and ideologies of the Thai National Identity and U.S. Abolitionist Projects.

THE ORIGIN OF SMART RAIDS

Prior to concretizing human trafficking as a global concern at the 2000 U.N. conference at Palermo, Western NGOs had already begun setting up shop in Thailand to combat a problem that the Thai government was failing to address. Their efforts were largely functional before the advent of Palermo, operating in ad-​hoc collaborations with the government, civil society, and local NGOs. Palermo then introduced the participation of the U.S. government into what quickly became a full-​fledged anti-​ trafficking movement. The benefit of that introduction is that it has legitimized human trafficking as a concern on the world stage and an international human rights priority. The drawback is that the collaborative efforts of NGOs and the U.S. government, though well-​intended, often backfire and negatively impact the very women they are designed to help. One of the problems with the U.S.  government’s taking up the fight against trafficking concerns the accompanying legislation that was imposed under the umbrella of U.S.  foreign aid. In January 2003, President Bush implemented the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR—​a five-​year plan for public health outreach to 15 countries, allotting 15 billion U.S. dollars to address the “social, cultural and behavioral causes of HIV” (Masenior & Beyrer, 2007), AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Embedded in the plan was another policy initiative called the Anti-​Prostitution Loyalty Oath (APLO), or the Anti-​Prostitution Pledge. The “Pledge,” as it became known, denies U.S. government funding to any organization with activities that “promote or support the legalization or practice of prostitution,” and requires that any organization receiving PEPFAR funding officially adopt a stance opposing prostitution (One Hundred Eighth Congress of the United States of America [PEPFAR], 2003). The controversial legislation, which was continued under the Obama administration by then-​U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, was overturned domestically in 2013, as it was deemed to violate the First Amendment rights of NGOs (see Brennan Center for Justice, 2009; Grant, 2013). At time of writing, however, the legislation continues to remain in place in the U.S.  foreign policy apparatus. The Anti-​Prostitution Pledge is the site of deep divides among NGOs in Thailand. Prior to the legislation’s implementation, coordination among and between religious “ S m a r t  R a i d s ”  [ 73 ]

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international and secular NGOs had been largely functional. Even sex workers’ rights organizations had been brought into these collaboration efforts, which recognized and openly acknowledged the differences between human trafficking and consensual prostitution. These organizations maintained an organized (albeit fragile) communication network, and worked together to try to solve the problem of “actual” trafficking.2 The George W.  Bush administration’s Anti-​Prostitution Pledge put an end to this cordiality. To better understand this policy and its history, I turn to an interview with NGO employee, “Roseanne.” Roseanne was the director of an organization supporting sex worker rights in Thailand. This organization had existed for 30 years, and was an activist site dedicated to empowering sex workers through reforming the conditions of the industry, rather than treating them as victims in need of rescue and reform. I asked Roseanne to explain the origins of the Smart Raid policy and its implications on NGO collaborations in the early days of Thailand’s anti-​trafficking movement. She noted that during the Bush administration, when the Anti-​Prostitution Pledge took effect, coordination efforts between NGOs working on trafficking issues began to break down. She referred to this breakdown as “a messy divorce.” “Back in 1980, three-​hundred women were rounded up in a brothel in Chiang Mai,” she recalled. “The new head of police needed to show power, so he did a crackdown. Organized all the bribes. That’s always been happening. A police-​prostitution connection. Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights [an NGO advocating for children’s rights] jumped in as part of it, and in 2001, International Justice Mission [a faith-​based international NGO]—​the ‘cops for Christ’—​descended from heaven into Chiang Mai. The money from George Bush had arrived,” she added with a note of sarcasm. She then went on: For us, we could say that the motivation was all about border control for America. Our analysis is that somewhere in their mind, gangs, drugs and women all follow the same big transnational crime networks. Before the Anti-​Prostitution Pledge, people could sit around the table and talk about the issues freely. But once the Anti-​ Prostitution Pledge came, it became a dividing line [between NGOs]. We had to talk about it and it divided us.

Roseanne went on to explain how this coalition of NGOs attempted to work together to conduct Smart Raids in the early 2000s, shortly after the Anti-​Prostitution Pledge was implemented. Despite these attempts, however, the imposition of the policy created a rift in inter-​sector collaboration efforts. The new moralistic stance against prostitution that all organizations were forced to adopt affected the efforts of those that felt no need to integrate such dogma into their work. Once the U.S.  government became a vocal actor in anti-​trafficking policy, relationships between NGOs deteriorated. Criminalization efforts deepened, as NGOs began to view their efforts as being oriented toward “fighting crime” rather than offering services and support to trafficking survivors. Above all, the imposition of the U.S. government’s agenda on NGOs working to combat actual human trafficking rendered silent the lived experiences of female [ 74 ]  The Field Research Phase

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migrant laborers, as well as their advocates. These approaches leave little space for reflecting on the subjective experiences of women who are directly affected by the policies intended for their benefit.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SMART RAIDS

Uncovering the experiences of female migrant laborers working in the sex industry requires understanding the specifics of how Smart Raids are implemented in context. One Thai female NGO employee working for a local NGO whom I will call “Paithoon” described this process, as her organization was responsible for conducting many of the Smart Raids that occurred in 2011 and 2012 in Chiang Mai. Paithoon painted a vivid picture of the process of raiding a brothel. “We first need the senior police to give us the command,” she explained. “We are the social work team, [but] we must follow the police. Make sure it’s safe. Make sure they don’t have guns inside the establishment. “We follow the police inside [the brothel],” she went on. “Our duty is to take care of the women. We have to inform them who we are, because in some cases they start to cry. They are very afraid. We need to protect them from the media. It’s very messy.” Paithoon then described the way the NGO identified actual trafficking victims. “First we point to our target,” she explained. Usually, she elaborated, this target was a young woman who appeared to be under 18, which would, if confirmed, automatically render her a victim in the eyes of the law. “But we have to understand that some people—​some women want to work,” she noted. “Some blame us. ‘Why do you come here?’ [They say.] ‘This is my job. We don’t want you here.’ But our objective is to protect the victims who need help. Underage women need help,” she said emphatically. “What about the other women [working by consent]?” I asked. “What happens to them?” “We need to take them all out [of the establishment],” Paithoon went on. “There is an appropriate way to talk to them. We say, ‘We need your cooperation.’ ” When asked whether the non-​victims cooperate, Paithoon responded, “We don’t force them. We ask for their cooperation. They usually do. I think the women know that prostitution is against the law.”

THE EFFECTS OF SMART RAIDS

In addition to having negative material impacts on consensual sex workers, Smart Raids also reinforce several powerful narratives that paint sex workers in a negative light, strip them of their agency, and silence them. Here, I discuss four ways in which Smart Raids communicate messages that conflict with female migrant laborers’ own stated experiences and restrict their ability to effectively communicate those experiences. These messages include: “ S m a r t  R a i d s ”  [ 75 ]

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1. “Sex workers should be punished” (Judgment message) 2. “Sex workers are slaves” (Victimization message) 3. “Mama sans cannot be trusted” (Criminal message) 4. “ ‘Life Skills’ are a viable alternative to working in the sex industry” (Reform message)

1. “Sex Workers Should Be Punished” (Judgment Message)

As I’ve explained, the Smart Raid policy punishes sex workers regardless of whether they consider their work to be consensual. Several women whom I spoke with revealed that under the Smart Raid policy, sex workers are held in detention centers without due process, access to mobile communication technology or appropriate translation services. Those who are considered trafficking “victims” may be held for many months to over a year while they await trial. While the ultimate goal of freeing women from the sex trade is to empower them, the notion that women’s empowerment can best be attained through a carceral approach favoring anti-​organized crime initiatives and other legal remedies has been challenged by feminist scholars (see for example, Berman, 2003; Bernstein, 2010). Relying on legal frameworks and processes to right the wrongs of supposed oppression ignores the underlying structural conditions that cause the inequalities leading to women’s migration and entry into sex work. Moreover, and perhaps more to the point, by detaining women in environments in which they have virtually no freedom of movement or interaction with members of the outside world (see Segrave, Milivojevic, & Pickering, 2009), the Smart Raid policy robs female migrant laborers of their agency and dignity. While meant to be a tool for empowerment, the policy in fact ends up violating their human rights. These rights violations, when described by advocates of the policy, are often seen as little more than “collateral damage” (Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, 2007)—​the notion being that sex workers should expect to, and thus accept, having their rights violated, because those who consent to doing this work deserve to be punished. The idea that a person should expect to have her rights violated because her vocation renders her deserving of punishment, however, is grossly problematic. It reinforces the idea that rights are in fact not universal—​that while the “good” (i.e., “non-​consenting”) prostitute is a deserving holder of rights, the “bad harlot” remains undeserving of rights, and is thus less human. Moreover, and as I have discussed, the punishment of women who engage in consensual sex work reinforces the age-​old abolitionist idea that prostitution cannot be considered a legitimate form of labor. While many of the sex workers I interviewed explained that they were working in the industry consensually, Smart Raids do not take these perspectives seriously. As a vehicle for reinforcing the criminalization of migrants, the Smart Raid policy inadvertently increases women’s risk of exploitation within brothels, as their precarious labor and migration status makes them vulnerable to a host of difficult relationships with managers, customers, and middle-​men, and leaves them unable to depend on the police and other authorities for protection. [ 76 ]  The Field Research Phase

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Criminalization of prostitution also creates a double bind for women who are actual human trafficking victims, as these women, too, are “compelled to lead ‘illegal’ lives” (Kempadoo, Sanghera, & Pattanaik, 2005: 9). By contrast, a rights-​based approach to combating trafficking would offer measures that ensured sex workers were treated as legitimate laborers and protected in the workplace (Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, 2010; Ham, 2011; Jordan, 2010). Such an approach would diminish the threat of violence, illness, and abuse encountered by sex workers, and help to prevent the loss of dignity they often face under the control of pimps and other potentially dangerous actors (Nussbaum, 1998; 2012).

2. “Sex Workers Are Slaves” (Victimization Message)

As a means of promoting the U.S. Abolitionist Project in Thailand, the Smart Raid policy legitimizes the false idea that all that sex workers are bound in slave-​like conditions—​locked in brothels, abused, and unable to control the use of their time. In addition to abolitionist actors such as CAATW and other NGOs that took a cue from Palermo, this sensationalist view has been used in the mainstream media by journalists such as The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof to create an “ideal type” of victim—​a rhetorical move that pulls at the heartstrings of a well-​meaning Western audience who knows little about the actual experiences of sex workers (Bosworth, Dempsey, & Hoyle, 2011). We see, then, how the Smart Raid policy works in tandem with these broader narratives to promote the U.S. Abolitionist Project’s abolitionist agenda. Contrary to this message of victimization, my interviews with sex workers in the Akha community in Chiang Rai dispelled the myth that the conditions of sex work are akin to conditions of slavery. Many of the women explained that sex work was but one of an array of vocations available to them in the informal labor sector. However, sex work, unlike other jobs, offered the women more freedom of movement, flexibility, and independence. Many also explained that this form of labor was more lucrative than other jobs. Finally, many expressed the need to implement regulations within the industry such as minimum wage, mandatory condom use, the abolishment of customer quotas, and caps on percentages given to brothel owners as strategies for protecting sex workers from exploitation. Such critical and well-​defined policy recommendations were more often the norm in my conversations with sex workers, rather than the exception. This illustrates the depth to which the women had evaluated their own circumstances and drawn well-​thought-​out conclusions about what could be done to improve them. A number of interviewees explained their decision-​making processes for entering the industry—​processes that refuted the Western narrative of sex workers being forced or coerced into this vocation. For example, one Akha sex worker in Chiang Rai, who I call “Nu Nu,” described her peers’ incentives for working in a karaoke bar: A lot of people come here with friends. People know this place. They talk and talk, say they will get a lot of money so they come with friends. Their parents and their “ S m a r t  R a i d s ”  [ 77 ]

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families are very poor so they want to help their parents. Some sex workers, they are afraid their parents know. So some people go to Bangkok and work. A lot of people in ethnic groups, they come from the mountains to help their parents. Then their parents send for money. A lot of sex workers have very poor families.

For many women, the incentive for doing sex work is rooted in economic necessity and strong ties with family and community. The Akha, like other ethnic minority communities in Thailand, experience a sense of responsibility for taking care of their extended families. This is especially true among oldest daughters, who are often primary breadwinners. Nu Nu explained that the desire to care for families living in remote villages in Burma’s Shan and Kachin states motivated both her and her friends’ entry into sex work. She explained that karaoke bars were popular places where people “come with friends,” and added that she was free to come and go as she pleased. Another female migrant, “Ah Noh,” echoed this perspective. Ah Noh explained that her work in the sex industry was hardly coerced; rather, sex work was simply one of many vocations that allowed her to earn a living. In Ah Noh’s words: In the day there is acheap—​“another occupation,” like construction, or agriculture. Another labor job. You know? I need to get more money. My income and my spending are not balanced. I  need more money so I  work here [in the brothel]. I don’t know how much I will make in one month working in here. Some days we have a lot, some days we don’t have anything. I make about 150 Thai Baht every day,3 but in the evening, not sure. It depends on my experience in the job during the night. But I have to pay for light and water.

Ah Noh’s reasoning suggests that sex work affords women the ability to pay for electricity, water, and other necessities, and that it is often necessary for migrants to take on a number of different jobs in order to make ends meet. Other women reiterated this perspective. Given the options, they explained, sex work was a practical choice that allowed them to generate the income necessary to survive. These responses remind us of the precarious and limited situations many migrants find themselves in once they have crossed the border into Thailand. As noted previously, the Thai government restricts the access of migrants to a range of services, including education, healthcare, and employment. Given these restrictions, sex work often becomes the most economically beneficial vocation for women such as Ah Noh. But the Smart Raid policy leaves no room for such a nuanced look at women’s choices. Instead, through its carceral framework, Smart Raids reinforce the essentialist claim made at Palermo that all sex workers are “victims” of human trafficking.

3. “Mama Sans Can’t Be Trusted” (Criminal Message)

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who control the movement, finances, and labor conditions of sex workers. In contrast, my interviews revealed that many women’s experiences did not match with this sensationalized view. Contrary to the stereotypical “victim” who is locked in a room and controlled by a violent pimp, the sex workers who spoke to me revealed that they had close ties with the individuals who facilitated their transport and employment (i.e., their supposed “traffickers”), and that they in fact trusted their mama sans. “Do you have problems with your boss?” I asked one Akha sex worker, “Mo Mo.” She responded, “I have no problem with my boss. We are like sisters. When I have work, I will do my work. If I have free time I go home. If I have a problem then the boss helps me. [We are] like a family,” she explained. Mo Mo’s depiction of her close relationship with her mama san illustrates the discrepancy between the assumptions reinforcing the flattened paradigm of the Smart Raid policy, and the nuanced subjectivities of women’s reported experiences.4 While the Smart Raid policy regards all mama sans as traffickers who enslave their “victims,” in reality, these individuals often serve as support systems for sex workers, offering them protection in a context where no other such resource exists. Another Akha sex worker, “Nut” explained that due to a lack of citizenship documents and access to formal banking structures, some sex workers rely on their mama sans to hold their earnings. Nut elaborated: When I finish my work the boss gives me my money. Some people want to save their money with the boss. When they need money, they get it from the boss. Some people get their money, like 500 baht, but they buy something. Where does the money go? I don’t know. This is the example [of how we might waste our money]. So we give our money to the boss to save. In one month we can have a lot of money saved.

Contrary to speculative data in the TIP Report, which suggested that sex workers in Thailand were forced to repay large debts to their traffickers (U.S. Department of State, 2012), this interviewee reported that she trusted her mama san and was, in fact, relying on her to help her save money. This evidence suggests that the notion of trafficking in Thailand having reached a point of crisis that can only be remedied by abolitionist policies is, in fact, a fallacy. Contrary to this belief, many of the sex workers who spoke to me reported that they did not consider themselves to be trafficking victims. Instead, they worked in collaboration with their bosses to develop informal strategies for economic advancement in the face of state systems that left them at a disadvantage.

4. “ ‘Life Skills’ Provide a Viable Alternative to Sex Work” (Reform Message)

The final message that the Smart Raid policy implicitly communicates is the idea that alternative forms of income generation, such as the “life skills” promoted by many NGOs, could easily replace the remittances of sex workers, offering them a viable “ S m a r t  R a i d s ”  [ 79 ]

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alternative for generating income. Embedded in this view is the idea that sewing, cooking, handicrafts, and other “women’s work” offer a more dignified alternative to the selling of one’s sexuality. In addition to being an economic alternative, “Life Skills” represent the imposition of normative ideas about sexuality and reform. A number of the female migrant laborers doing sex work who spoke to me challenged the assumption that such skills offer viable financial alternatives. One Burmese migrant, who I  call “Thida” explained that doing these “life skills” rarely allowed sex workers to generate the income needed to leave the sex industry. “If I was sewing, I would maybe only make 150–​180 baht per day,5” she explained. “If I was a Thai person, [I would make] 200 baht per day. But if I am a migrant, only 120 per day. In Mae Sot,6 only 80 baht per day.” By contrast, Thida explained, sex work was a far more lucrative vocation. She offered the example of a colleague who had earned enough money doing sex work to buy farm equipment and start her own business. Given that women from Burma are prevented from working in Thailand’s formal labor sector, such an opportunity is often seen as being impossible to pass up. “In Mae Sot, customers aren’t paying a lot but the women are still making three times the minimum wage,” Thida added. Thida’s analysis illustrates the reasons behind many migrant women’s decision to enter the sex industry. While Smart Raids reinforce a panic about the dangers of sex work, the sex workers I  spoke with stressed that their work afforded them opportunities for real economic advancement. The broad disparity between these contrasting perspectives about sex work suggests that women’s views about their own lives need to be taken into account, if we are to fully understand the implications of anti-​trafficking policies. But Smart Raids allow no room for these nuanced experiences to be expressed.

SMART RAIDS AND RHETORICAL SILENCE

Smart Raids and the narratives they communicate silence the voices of female migrant laborers by imposing assumptions about their lived experiences and rooting these assumptions in policy. They also reinforce an emotional concern about trafficking—​which continues to be described as being “on the rise” by abolitionist-​ oriented researchers (see Bales, Trodd, & Williamson, 2009; Kara, 2010). Why do Smart Raids have the effect of silencing the very women they are intended to help? Why does “crisis” rhetoric continuously override an evidence-​based analysis of sex workers’ experiences? Again we return to the U.S. Abolitionist and Thai National Identity Projects. Here, I offer three readings of the way these projects use Smart Raids to concretely advance their political aims. First, Smart Raids advance the Thai and U.S. National Identity Projects by displacing the threat of trafficking (and the corresponding preoccupation with “victims”) onto sex workers themselves. In this way, they provide Westerners “looking in” at the spectacle of trafficking a way to deal with social anxieties related to identity, nationalism, and morality. Social threats—​anxieties that circulate below the consciousness of individuals in a given culture or context—​often manifest as [ 80 ]  The Field Research Phase

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fetishized concerns, or panics. As Ahmed (2004) has explained, this often happens as a result of unknown fears being displaced onto the social issue itself (p.  133). Reinforcing the idea that sex workers are criminals allows NGOs and members of the public to take refuge in the “myth” of the danger of sex trafficking—​a myth that, I  have shown, underscores aspects of both the Thai and U.S.  national identity projects. In the context of sex trafficking in Thailand, it is the brothel owners, recruiters, and transporters—​that is, the “traffickers”—​who are seen as the source of this threat. But there is another dynamic at play too, and this involves the agency of consenting sex workers. I argue that they are also viewed by the anti-​trafficking movement as the source of the trafficking threat, for their very existence challenges the notion of victimization that is perceived as a necessary condition of women who are trafficked into the sex industry. It is therefore not just the “external agents” of the brothel who are held under scrutiny by the Smart Raid policy model—​it is female sex workers themselves. Second, Smart Raids advance the Thai and U.S.  identity projects by implicitly promoting the deportation of migrants—​a cornerstone of the Thai National Identity Project. These raids serve as a convenient mechanism for “catching” undocumented migrants, detaining them, and forcing them out of the country. The Thai state relies on these deportations to reinforce the citizenship status of those who are seen as “belonging” in the country. As noted in c­ hapter  2, Thailand also paradoxically depends on the influx of these migrant “others” to uphold these notions of citizenship and belonging. Smart Raids, can, therefore, be seen as demonstrations of both the United States’ ongoing anxieties about the role of immigrants (in the form of the “bad harlot”/​noncitizen), and as expressions of Thailand’s attempts to promote nationalism within its border by actively—​and performatively—​ridding itself of the other. Again, we see how social tensions dealing with belonging and non-​belonging are displaced onto the fetishized arenas of sex work and migration. Finally, in reinforcing the identity of the Thai citizen in contrast to the Burmese or ethnic migrant, Smart Raids contribute to the gendering of female migrant citizenship in Thailand. Inherent in this move is a restriction on the right to paid labor—​a right wholly denied to migrant women from Burma. To unpack the idea of gendering citizenship, I turn to Orloff (1993), who argued that the key to analyzing states’ effects on gender is whether and how they guarantee women access to paid labor (p. 318), and Walby (1994) who explained the need to analyze conditions of citizenship through a gender lens, as women have historically had their access to citizenship denied. Here, we see these issues come together in the responses of migrant sex workers, who explained that access to paid employment was a necessary condition for their emancipation, as such access would provide them with legitimacy in the eyes of the Thai state. Regulating sex work, which meant, in their view, having the freedom to set their own schedules, earn a minimum wage, enjoy safe working conditions (such as safe sex), and not have to adhere to a customer “quota” system would allow them to function as professionals, rather than as criminals. It would also reduce the potential of being exploited.7 The Smart Raid policy negates the rights of female migrants by supporting the Thai state’s de-​legitimacy of their labor, in whatever form that labor may take. In other “ S m a r t  R a i d s ”  [ 81 ]

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words, Smart Raids uphold Thailand’s project of discriminating against the “noncitizen,” and “gender” this discrimination by explicitly targeting female sex workers and criminalizing them for both their migration practices and for participating in a vocation that is dependent on the use of their female bodies. The question of whether sex work can and should be considered legitimate work is central to the construction of female migrant laborers as agents in achieving personhood under the Thai state. Both trafficking victims and consensual prostitutes are non-​subjects, possessing no rights to the full benefits of citizenship. Both types of women suffer under the Smart Raid policy and are caught in a double bind: “trafficking victims” are punished for being noncitizens while simultaneously tasked with the burden of proving their loyalty to the Thai state in the form of witness testimony. “Consenting prostitutes” are criminalized for being noncitizens and for being “illicit” sex workers, while simultaneously blamed for the existence of trafficking (in the eyes of abolitionists). Citizenship and legitimacy are thus gendered by virtue of the fact that sex work, as a form of labor, defines the women’s status in relation to the state. Furthermore, as citizenship is an inherently embodied reality (see Orloff, 1993: 309), and as sex work is enacted via the bodies of women, where and how it is regarded by the state constitutes where and how sex workers are situated in relation to the state. Smart Raids, as a state policy that explicitly targets female sex work as a gendered form of labor, advances the Thai and U.S. national identity projects that construe certain types of workers as noncitizens, and therefore rendered undeserving of social protection by the state. Through this analysis, we return to the neoliberal roots of these colliding projects, which eclipse a view of labor exploitation in other informal sectors by redirecting attention onto the “crisis” of trafficking. Smart Raids reinforce this dynamic.

The Smart Raid policy, along with the victim-​ versus-​ criminal narrative it communicates, has detrimental effects on the women the policy is ostensibly designed to help. Rather than curbing trafficking, Smart Raids penalize consensual sex workers and serve as a mechanism for halting migration—​a process that then ripples out to families and communities who are dependent on the labor of migrants. Furthermore, the raids reinforce gendered citizenship in Thailand, a circumstance in which undocumented female migrant sex workers are explicitly targeted for their noncitizen status. The female bodies of migrant laborers are implicated in a “victim-​ versus-​criminal” binary, in which they are stripped of subjectivity and agency. Most importantly, Smart Raids silence the voices of female migrants, overriding their lived experiences and replacing these experiences with manufactured myths about sex trafficking. The brothels of Northern Thailand are paradoxical sites. They are sites of empowerment and constriction, sites of community and isolation, and sites where bonds between women—​however precarious—​are formed. The complexity of the brothel, and the damaging implications of the Smart Raid policy would later serve as the launching point for the dramatic narrative of Land of Smiles.

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In the meantime, though, Phase One of the DAR praxis required me to continue uncovering the lived experiences of other actors who make up the anti-​trafficking “community”—​actors trapped in equally problematic narrative webs. In the next chapter, I look at the experiences of NGO employees in Thailand who advocate on behalf of supposed trafficking victims, and the narrative of rescue that influences their work. Again, we will see how trafficking narratives and the practices and policies through which they are communicated have the power to steer the movement in a direction that often does more harm than good.

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CHAPTER 4

NGOs and the Rescue Narrative NO WOMAN FIGHTS TO BE A PROSTITUTE “CHOICE” IS A FALLACY NO SELF-​RESPECTING WOMAN THINKS SHE CAN ESCAPE GOD’S FINAL DECREE —​Lewelyn Brand, Land of Smiles

M

“

ary Kate” was an American in her fifties who had lived in Northern Thailand for over two decades. Smart, accomplished, and full of warmth and smiles, she was what you might call a handsome woman—​wearing a look of ease usually reserved for powerful men. Mary Kate had dedicated her life’s work to abolishing prostitution. Her world, as she described it, revolved around this singular focus. For her, abolitionism was a pull more potent than home, more consuming than family, and more spiritually meaningful than any other vocation she could pursue. She never expected the work to be easy. Sometimes she was alone, deeply alone. Sometimes things would happen that tested her beliefs, challenged her commitment and made her goals seem utterly impossible. But Mary Kate stayed the course. Twenty years and funding ups and downs and policy changes and staff turnovers came and went but would not sway her. Unlike many in this line of work, who seemed to be able to take or leave a job so casually, Mary Kate lived her faith—​faith that through her actions, little by little and day by day, she would help the forgotten women of Thailand transform their lives. Faith in the promise of “rescue.”

Cultural narratives, as expressions of a community’s values, offer us a way to understand the meanings that others have placed on experience. Abolitionism, the quest to “save” women from prostitution—​an act perceived as being among the darkest violations of a woman’s human rights—​is a powerful narrative in its own right. It is a narrative rooted in not only decades, but (as we have seen) centuries of ideas

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about the proper role of a woman in society, the moral righteousness of the Western liberal order, and the path to a more just world through the eradication of commercial sex. It is an emotional narrative, told by those from the West who are moved to uproot their lives in service to improving the lives of women half a world away. In this chapter, I interrogate the experiences of those whose work responds to the plight of supposed trafficking “victims”—​the employees of abolitionist anti-​ trafficking NGOs. Many of the NGOs where these employees worked provided shelter to former sex workers after a Smart Raid had occurred. Others were focused on advocating for policy change. Here, I’ll discuss the world of these NGO employees, and show how their narrative of rescue frames the issue of trafficking. This world, and that narrative, would later inform the story of Land of Smiles. To unpack this rescue narrative and illustrate its power, I  wanted to first understand who these advocates were. Who speaks for ethnic migrant sex workers in Thailand, and how do these speech-​acts influence the lives of the migrants themselves? Moreover, how do anti-​trafficking advocates narrate their own histories, experiences, and goals, and how do these narratives define the broader aims of the anti-​trafficking movement? To answer these questions, I visited the field offices of a range of international and local anti-​trafficking NGOs conducting rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration efforts throughout Thailand. I  interviewed employees working in various roles—​from caseworkers, to program managers, to administrative staff, to CEOs.1 The interviews focused on understanding how employees, as primary actors in the movement, narrate the issue of trafficking to members of the public as well as to themselves, and how this “rescue narrative” gave voice—​or failed to give voice—​to the lived experiences of the female migrant laborers whom the organizations were trying to help. Five dominant messages emerged, each of which informed the larger narrative of rescue with which this chapter is concerned. These messages highlighted the challenges employees faced navigating the intercultural dimensions of their work, and the struggles they experienced trying to implement policies and practices related to rescue. They also help us understand the deeper personal struggles encountered by many employees, and the way these struggles often hinder the effectiveness of their work. Before turning to these messages, however, I want to first back up and frame the role of NGOs as development actors in Thailand’s anti-​trafficking movement.

ANTI-​T RAFFICKING NGOS IN THAILAND

As agents of the U.S. Abolitionist Project, international anti-​trafficking NGOs began operating in Thailand in the early 1990s and remain active today. Largely funded by the U.S. State Department, these organizations often sport signage on the walls of newly remodeled buildings and proudly broadcast their missions, while other, local NGOs maintain lower profiles, communicating little to the outside world in order to prevent interference from brokers and gangs. The burgeoning presence of these NGO s a n d t h e R e s c u e N a r r at i v e  [ 85 ]

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groups in Thailand and throughout the Greater Mekong Sub-​Region demonstrates the United States’ commitment to combating sex trafficking through eradicating prostitution in the developing world. As private actors conducting activities that fall beyond the scope of the government, the stated intentions of these organizations, as well as the role the organizations play in creating legibility around humanitarian crises, differ according to the landscape in which each organization operates. While some NGOs work closely with governments to achieve social change, others operate outside the purview of the state, and each organization’s methodology differs somewhat according to the cultural background of its employees. The rise in prominence of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) over the past few decades can be seen as a direct effect of globalization processes. As governments’ ability to respond to and manage global crises diminishes, these organizations, along with smaller, grass-​roots civil society organizations (CSOs) and community-​based organizations (CBOs) have increased their role in combating development and human rights problems (Castells, 2008). U.S.-​based NGOs, having emerged during the 1970s as actors representing “new forms of struggle and solidarity” (Kellner, 2002:  825), were receiving about 20 percent of the U.S. government’s development funding by the 1990s (Hailey, 1999:  467). This led to an increasing trust, among publics, of the work of these organizations. In 2010, an annual “Trust Barometer” surveying attitudes in six Western and BRIC countries found that NGOs were “more trusted than governments or businesses” (The Economist, 2010). The expanding presence of NGOs in civil society, their increasingly sophisticated promotional campaigns, and their ability to harness communication technology to promote their causes suggests that the status of these actors in the global public sphere is still on the rise. NGOs help advance the national interests of developed countries by providing aid or services to developing ones. In this way, they also play a diplomatic role, strengthening ties and goodwill between nations. By promoting the stated values of their home countries, NGOs perform “good deeds” for the world, while simultaneously advancing the geopolitical and cultural interests of the nation from which they originate. NGOs also play an intelligence role. Governments often seek to form ties with NGOs who do the work of gathering information about conditions in hard-​to-​reach areas of the developing world. The U.S. Department of State, for example, relies heavily on reports from American-​run NGOs in the developing world for intelligence about human rights abuses, as well as data from the “ground” that could impact the United States’ geopolitical interests in a given far-​flung region. Importantly, Western NGOs are generally viewed by their home governments as representing and promoting Western cultural values. NGOs promote these values through both their policies and their rhetoric, using language to position themselves as benevolent actors advancing humanitarian development aims. One obvious example of this strategy can be seen in anti-​trafficking NGO’s use of the term “victim” to describe the women whom they seek to rescue. NGOs in Southeast Asia and elsewhere commonly use this term in promotional [ 86 ]  The Field Research Phase

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literature, formal reports, and online communications to highlight their organizations’ missions. This rhetorical frame reinforces the stereotyped view of sex workers as being innocent, immature, and in need of reform. By using “victim” terminology, anti-​trafficking NGOs situate themselves in positions of power in relation to their beneficiaries (Timmer, 2010), sending a clear message to donors, governments, and the public about their roles as benevolent caretakers of the wounded women of the third world. Moreover, the “victim” rhetoric used by anti-​trafficking NGOs in Thailand often construes “rescued” sex workers as martyrs, having narrowly escaped the clutches of the shadowy traffickers who lurk somewhere unseen. In a Foulcaultian sense, such a rhetorical construction of the sex worker as both victim and martyr speaks to a social need to condemn an illicit “other.” In the drama of the anti-​trafficking movement, this condemnation has taken numerous forms throughout history: the victim rhetoric implies the existence of an evil, dark, male “trafficker;” a poor unsuspecting white slave (as discussed by Agustin, 2007 and Bumiller, 2008); a harlot/​sexual deviant who challenges normative gender constructions (as unpacked by Chapkis, 1996; Doezema, 2010, and Doezema & Kempadoo, 1998); and in this context, a new conceptualization—​the female migrant laborer—​who merges these categories and fuels Western anxieties about each. Above all, the victim rhetoric promotes a static image of the female migrant laborer as being unchanging, un-​improving, and perpetually in need of rescue. This rhetorical strategy also serves another purpose:  to silence the voices of consensual sex workers, and in so doing, gloss over and simplify their experiences (Desyllas, 2007). Anti-​trafficking NGOs do this in a number of ways. Much of their work involves serving as communicative mediators and translators for supposed victims, in order to help share their stories with the world, and demonstrate the plight of women in the regions in which they work. They do this both literally, by providing translation services to supposed trafficking victims, in order to educate Western audiences about the difficult conditions these women faced before coming to the NGO for help. And they do this figuratively, by “packaging” the stories of the women in line with more sensationalist narratives that are used to promote their own work. Through both of these practices, NGOs claim to “speak for” their beneficiaries. But these misguided speech-​acts often have the unfortunate consequence of creating what Stucky (2006) has called “rhetorical negative space” (pp. 287–​309)—​a conspicuous absence of voice in contexts in which that voice should be being heard. Stucky explained: . . . absence is an overt lack, a hole of which everyone is aware but which no one dare acknowledge. This silence works to maintain the relevant status quo by disempowering potential challenges to it, for one cannot object to that which is never even acknowledged (2006: 302).

As I  unpack the rescue narrative used by anti-​trafficking NGOs, we will see how the voices that remain conspicuously absent are those of the migrant women NGO s a n d t h e R e s c u e N a r r at i v e  [ 87 ]

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themselves. Seldom are supposed trafficking victims present in interviews with the Western press, for example, or in bilateral meetings with government officials or other stakeholders in positions of authority. When they are visible, these women are more often than not presented to external audiences in ways that serve the institutional interests of the NGO, rather than give prominence to their own lived experiences.2 To elaborate: anti-​trafficking NGOs often talk about human trafficking in the form of short, sound-​bite-​length stories about the kidnapping, luring, or deception of vulnerable young women into the sex trade.3 Such narratives paint a picture of an innocent young woman who is unwittingly “tricked” into forced prostitution. While the details of such transactions are rarely explained or interrogated for their complexity, what is made clear is that an anti-​trafficking NGO has come to the rescue, helping the sex worker “escape” from her captors and make her way onto a righteous path of reform (Doezema, 2001; Segrave, Milivojevic, & Pickering, 2009). Often, these stories are communicated via media campaigns that portray victims receiving much-​ needed care and advocacy from the NGO (Shaeffer-​Grabiel, 2011). These depictions of victimhood and rescue, narrated and mediated by NGOs, reinscribe notions of “otherness,” while upholding the relative superiority of the West. Narrating development problems is a crucial task for all development actors, as these narratives provide their donor base with stories that appeal to their own values. Development narratives also serve the purpose of humanizing the experiences of NGO staff members, and reminding Western audiences that the activities of NGOs are justifiable foreign policy expenditures. For the religiously motivated, these stories also provide a platform for demonstrating the power in spreading moral ideologies. But these narratives do more than promote values—​they also have explicit policy implications. Publications such as the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report encourage NGOs to report on the issue of trafficking in the countries in which they operate (see, for example, U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report, 2010; 2011; 2012; 2013; 2014; 2015; 2016; 2017; 2018). Problematically, the U.S.  government draws heavily on the scant, self-​ reported, often methodologically unsound data gathered by NGOs about trafficking as source material for this annual report (see Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, 2010; Segrave, Milivojevic, & Pickering, 2009). We see, then, how the narrative frames used by anti-​trafficking NGOs are inherently political constructs. They reinforce the roles of NGOs as being the most credible voices in the conversation about trafficking, while contributing to a policy conversation that has decidedly concrete implications on the lives of female migrant sex workers. Despite these problematic rhetorical strategies, I  contend that the narratives used by NGO employees about trafficking are seldom consciously intended to silence the women they are trying to help. Rather, these narratives help the employees grasp and make sense of the challenging and sometimes illegible cultural spaces in which they operate. Here is where our inquiry into NGO narratives of trafficking becomes most salient, and leads to a rich discussion about the complex motivations of those who work in this field on a day-​to-​day basis. [ 88 ]  The Field Research Phase

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Before going into this broader discussion, however, let us first look closely at my field interviews with anti-​trafficking NGO employees. Here we will see how five dominant messages emerged as part of the employees’ broader narrative of rescue.

FIVE PRIMARY MESSAGES OF THE RESCUE NARRATIVE

The messages that emerged in the field interviews showed that NGO employees often rely on normative values to frame the issue of trafficking, and their own roles as advocates. Each of these messages underscored a larger narrative of rescue, which I suggest defines the world of these advocates and, by extension, the goals of the anti-​trafficking movement. The five messages included: 1. “Thailand is backward” (Civilizing message) 2. “Thailand is unethical” (Moralizing message) 3. “They should be grateful” (Savior message) 4. “Thailand is illegible to the West” (Othering message) 5. “Sex workers lack agency” (Victim message) In subsequent subsections, I  discuss these messages in detail, showing how they allow NGO employees to frame, categorize, and manage the complex challenges they faced as development actors. I’ll then talk about the way these messages communicated the NGO employees’ own lived experience, but in a way that was “partial”—​rendering the employees as bystanders, unable to critically evaluate their roles in Thailand’s anti-​trafficking movement.

1. “Thailand Is backward” (Civilizing Message)

Several employees expressed the idea that Thailand exists in an “interim” stage of development, both economically and socially, and that trafficking was, in essence, a product of the country’s nascent road to development. This view of a country’s development as being a kind of “upward climb” toward a more “civilized,” “modern” way of life, echoes what some International Relations theorists have described as a modernization continuum (see Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). This continuum sees “progress” in social areas—​such as a society valuing human rights and democracy—​ as being aligned with a country’s economic progress. In line with this thinking, a number of employees, for example, described a vision for Thailand’s future in which economic prosperity would automatically lead to an increased value placed upon human rights—​particularly around the issue of labor. One respondent who expressed this view quite clearly was a Western male employee whom I call “Carl.” Carl worked for an organization that sought to help migrant laborers in Thailand form unions. His organization received support from the U.S. Department of State and other donors working to strengthen core international labor standards, end enforced labor and discrimination in the workplace, support NGO s a n d t h e R e s c u e N a r r at i v e  [ 89 ]

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freedom of association and collective bargaining, and promote labor unions and democracy. Carl described the case of a garment factory in central Bangkok in which a large number of trafficked migrant laborers from Burma had been held against their will. In reflecting on this situation, Carl expressed frustration with the difficulty of getting Thai business owners and government officials to see slavery as a problem. “The owners were a Thai couple. It was a clear case of forced labor,” he explained. [When the story broke], “the wife got up in front of the news cameras and said, ‘Well, we had to lock them in. We pay the agents a lot of money to bring them here. If we didn’t [lock them in], they’d run away.’ ” Carl seemed bewildered that the business owner’s wife was willing to so openly discuss—​and accept—​the enslavement of the migrant laborers. Drawing on ideas of difference, he then claimed that Thais are “not like us” and that it was “our” job to teach “them” how to be more civilized. When I questioned him further about whether the Thai “acceptance” of slavery he described was based in a particular value system commonly held in Thai culture, Carl offered another example of the essential differences between Thailand and the West: If you ride on the highway here, the chances of your getting killed are ten times higher than in the U.S. There’s not an understanding that this should change. With trafficking, it’s the same attitude: it’s just the way it is. In cases of trafficked foreign nationals, you have issues of nationalism and immigration. Sixty percent of Thais think foreigners shouldn’t have rights. The majority of Thais don’t care about Burmese workers at all.

Carl went on to suggest that this attitude would change slowly over time, and that “this change will relate to the economy as it develops.” Carl’s discussion of the essential differences that exist between Thais and Westerners underscores the “static” understanding of culture that many NGO employees inadvertently adopt when narrating their organizational activities. Drawing simplistic comparisons between Thai and Western values enabled Carl to discuss the goals of his organization in a clear and legible way—​indeed, the differences he described, if taken at face value, demonstrate the importance of advocating for labor rights in this context. The outcome, however, was that Carl reinforced an Orientalist narrative premised on the idea that Thailand is childlike, in need of reform by the enlightened West. Carl’s narrative also supports the premise of modernization theory—​the idea that in development contexts, a society’s economic progress will automatically beget values of individualism and human rights. In this example, Carl relied upon a normative cultural framework to reinforce a notion of the “other” as being different and “less than” himself. Carl used this narrative to try to make sense of a challenging cultural situation—​one that was difficult to comprehend. Because of this, Carl was unable to move beyond his own assumptions, or to critically evaluate those assumptions in a productive way. Instead, his ideas about Thais-​versus-​Westerners remained static—​ preventing a more nuanced understanding of both Westerners and Thais. [ 90 ]  The Field Research Phase

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Another example of the civilizing message can be seen in the responses of Mary Kate, whom we met at the beginning of this chapter. Mary Kate was the American CEO of a small, faith-​based NGO in the Northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. As we will see later on, she became the inspiration for the Land of Smiles character Lewelyn Brand—​the head of a Christian NGO dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating trafficking victims. In our interview, Mary Kate described life among the ethnic minority communities where many of the girls her organization “rescued” came from. When I asked her to describe her organization’s work with these girls, she explained: Rehab is the essence of what we do here at [The Organization], for girls coming out of emergency circumstances. And we have many, many different activities. The first activity that we have is education, and that is our primary goal. Education across all levels for girls. And when I say education, I'm not just talking about academic education—​we view education holistically, including life skills training, reproductive health, nutrition, maternal health and childcare, fire safety, and knowledge of human rights.

Mary Kate explained that the organization offered “therapeutic activities” to the girls, which included music, baking, dancing, and art. “We rent an art studio around the corner, we have the girls do art,” she noted proudly. “All of the products in this room were made by girls in our handicraft program.” She gestured to the walls around the room, which displayed colorful paintings and drawings created by the organization’s beneficiaries. One drawing, done in crayon, depicted the figure of a young woman. The caption underneath read, I have the right to not be raped. Mary Kate explained that these therapeutic programs accomplished two main goals:  “One is developing creative thinking, and the second piece is developing opportunities for income generation.” She gestured to a colleague. “[Kachin Female Volunteer 1] actually runs the baking program. When we do intern evaluations, the girls here often say they find that the most therapeutic. Baking stuff and eating it and laughing, and having fun.” While the activities described by Mary Kate may well have had a therapeutic effect on the young women living at the NGO, I suggest that these “life skills” also have a more symbolic meaning. These skills, which focus solely on domestic activities, are designed to emulate Western tropes of femininity. While skills such as handicraft production may seem, upon first glance, to be viable alternatives to sex work, these activities and the products they produce rarely generate the income necessary to support a migrant or her family. Rather, I  would argue, they serve as a symbolic, or rhetorical tool for the NGO to show donors and Western members of the public how labor activities that are “morally righteous” can remedy the “immoral” activity of sex work. These activities highlight the fact that the stated intentions of certain types of NGO programming can be different from the actual outcomes of that programming. “Life skills” are more than a program activity—​they are also used as a rhetorical NGO s a n d t h e R e s c u e N a r r at i v e  [ 91 ]

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tool, representing a civilizing endeavor. The NGOs’ mission was to provide former trafficking victims with more “wholesome” means of earning a living. By doing this, it reinforced the notion that prior to the implementation of such a project, ethnic migrants in Thailand existed in a state of “backwardness.” Recalling my interviews with the Akha migrants in Chiang Rai, however, we note that a number of these women saw little promise in the economic viability of handicraft production. Instead, they found themselves needing to piece together a number of assorted jobs—​including sex work—​in order to survive. By calling attention to the importance of “life skills,” Mary Kate inadvertently reiterated an Orientalist view of her beneficiaries as being childlike and in need of reform. While we cannot know to what extent Mary Kate actually understood the complexities of their situations, what we can observe is the narrative that she used to construct a picture of the NGO’s missionizing work. This narrative relied upon Western cultural norms and values to describe the challenges faced by the beneficiaries her organization served. As such, the narrative left little room for the possibility that some migrant sex workers may have made agentive choices about entry into the trade, or that morality may not always be the most important consideration in one’s life choices, or that sex work might serve as a real, if complex, site of agency for the young women she sought to rescue. Moreover, this narrative left no room for the possibility that some women might not see the “life skills” being promoted by the NGO as being productive. The viewpoints of both Carl and Mary Kate illustrate the dynamics of the civilizing message that circulates among some employees of anti-​trafficking NGOs, and the limitations this message imposes on their sensetivity to the complex and nuanced experiences of those they seek to help.

2. “Thailand Is Unethical” (Moralizing Message)

A second message that emerged under the broader frame of “rescue” was the moralizing message. While the civilizing message focused on promoting norms and behaviors that were considered “advanced,” the moralizing message incorporated judgments around the perceived ethical differences between “them” (Thailand) and “us” (the West). “Brian” was an American NGO employee who worked in Bangkok, training the Thai police force in anti-​trafficking protocol. Part of this training, as he described it, involved trying to instill the value of justice in the Thai police. The police needed to understand that there was more to anti-​trafficking work than simply following rules, Brian explained. It was up to him and his organization to teach them the social value of the rule of law. When asked about the extent to which cultural issues affected the behavior of the Thai police, Brian expressed frustration. Many of the Thai police he worked with seemed to care little about securing justice for trafficking victims. Moreover, few demonstrated a real commitment to upholding human rights:

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“Well, [the issue is either] culture or laziness,” he remarked. “[The Thai police] have too much to do. It’s a pain-​in-​the-​ass kind of thing to deal with. Culturally, cops are the same all around the world. They’re not incentivized. Do you get money? Do you get extra benefits? An award? No. You just get more paperwork. You get nothing. They don’t get our idea of individual human rights,” he said. “They don’t get it at all.” Brian framed his discussion of the Thai police and their apathy as an “us” versus “them” paradigm, in which the United States’ values of rights, justice, law, and order conflicted with Thai values. He noted that the police rely on external incentives such as money and promotions to do their work, rather than valuing justice as a laudable end in itself. He noted that despite the “universal laziness” of police across all cultures, the Western value of universal human rights remains superior to the values held by Thai police. Brian’s difficulty accepting differing cultural perceptions of justice served a pragmatic, as well as ideological, purpose. Like most NGO employees, the success of his work depended on the willingness of the community with whom he was working to accept the premise of his organization’s activities. Brian’s work involved persuading the Thai police to not only practice, but also internalize the values that were being promoted by the NGO. The failure to do so would imply a failure on the part of the organization. The moralizing message was also evident in Mary Kate’s interview, in which she described what she felt were inherent differences between the West and the ethnic minority communities of the girls that her organization sought to rescue. These differences, she suggested, were not just behavioral, but deeply embedded in two fundamentally contrasting value systems. In her view, a Western, Christian moral system promoted the values of romantic love (as opposed to sex work, or sex without love), protecting children from exposure to sexuality before the age of 18 (as opposed to sexualizing teenagers), and obtaining individual betterment through hard work (as opposed to the dependence on family members—​particularly young women—​as breadwinners). I asked Mary Kate to elaborate on what she saw as inherent cultural differences between ethnic minority communities and the West. She responded by suggesting that in contrast to Westerners, some ethnic minority community members held an inherent “death wish:” “We just had a case of a girl who was a victim of human trafficking—​sex trafficking and forced labor,” she began. Explaining that the victim had lived in the shelter from age 9 to 14, Mary Kate described her as being HIV positive, and coming from a “horrendous case” of sex trafficking, and abuse. “We cared for her for five years,” Mary Kate went on. “We have a one-​on-​one counselor who spent literally hours with this child, counseling her and talking to her about dignity and self-​worth. “And she decided in the end, last summer . . . we let her go back to her village area, she has a father who’s disabled, and for the first time we allowed her to go back for a week by herself. And she chose to leave us. And she is now living with some Thai guy, and selling [drugs] on the street.”

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Mary Kate went on to explain her theory as to why the young woman had chosen to return home: I come from a clinical social work background and I guess in those rare occasions, what I see and—​this is extremely blunt—​but . . . Men and women have this suicide wish—​and part of becoming an adult is dealing with that. Sometimes I wonder in these rare cases where you have this eighteen-​year-​old who's HIV positive, who received so much love here . . . We tried to love her as best we could, and give her opportunities, and yet [why] does she still grapple with that essential sense that she is worthless? That she doesn't have a hope and a future? That what happened to her was so damaging? Is she still stuck in that space psychologically?

Mary Kate expressed concern that her beneficiary chose to leave the NGO, when the home environment to which she returned was inherently damaging. She described this home environment as a place in which the young woman’s quality of life was degraded:  she was “living with some Thai guy,” selling drugs, and back in contact with a disabled father. While the stated intention of this employee was one of care for a beneficiary whom she felt was not yet ready to leave the NGO, her narrative communicated a much deeper, morally coded message. Mary Kate suggested that her beneficiary’s decision to return to her home village called into question the beneficiary’s value of human life. This implies that the organization’s rescue efforts were not merely intended to combat labor exploitation—​they also represented an attempt to remove women from indigenous cultural (and racial/​ethnic) environments that the organization deemed to be unsafe, or even unethical. Again, here we see how an NGO employee’s narrative about cultural difference reinforced a moral judgment and rhetorically silenced those she was trying to help.

3. “They Should Be Grateful” (Savior Message)

A third message that emerged under the broader frame of “rescue” depicted the Western NGO worker as a “savior” of the helpless Thai or ethnic minority “victim.” This message was communicated again by Mary Kate, who went on to describe the NGO’s mission of “giving love to the girls.” When I asked Mary Kate how she felt when a beneficiary returned to the sex industry (as is often the case following a Smart Raid), she offered an emotional response: If you want to talk about my feelings when that happens, I feel profoundly sad. I feel regret. I feel so disappointed, and I feel very sorry for her. Here at [The Organization], we try to love each girl so much. We try to provide the best in the world for her. And we also try to teach her that she's valuable in the eyes of God. And we try to introduce these concepts that she has worth, she has dignity, she has value, and that she can have the knowledge of the love of God for her. And when she—​if she goes back into an old situation. . . . You know, girls leave our program—​we're not a jail. We [ 94 ]  The Field Research Phase

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only hope that she did have a period where she was loved, she was cared for, and hopefully someday she will draw on that which she received.

Mary Kate explained that while staying at the NGO, her beneficiary had had the opportunity to receive love; something, it was implied, that she would not otherwise receive from her home community. She equated the love given by the organization with the love of God—​in essence, aligning her own efforts with those of God. Again, while this employee’s intentions were coming from a place of care, the narrative she utilized to describe her role illuminates the extent to which she remained limited by her own cultural framework, unable to step into the shoes of her beneficiary, or show empathy for those in her beneficiary’s home community. This was exemplified further in her description of the home villages of her beneficiaries: “There’s a village in the Northeast that has a party for a girl when she sells her virginity to a guy in Bangkok,” Mary Kate said. “The girl who receives the highest amount of money gets rewarded by elders. “ ‘Isn’t that great?!’ ” She went on sarcastically, as if to imitate members of the girl’s community. “ ‘You got 50,000 baht! You got 80,000 baht! Now you can buy your grandmother a house!’ ” In these passages, Mary Kate’s concern for the girl’s welfare was overshadowed by a narrative about her own duty as a savior—​a duty that had, in essence, been undermined by an ungrateful beneficiary. Furthermore, while Mary Kate focused on the village’s preoccupation with money and material possessions, poverty itself did not seem to concern her. Rather, it was the imagined values of the families in the girl’s village that troubled her—​values that were not aligned with her own, and that actively undermined her efforts to enact her savior role. Again, we cannot know to what extent Mary Kate was aware that the Northeast region of Issan is the most impoverished region in Thailand, with many people living under the official poverty line, earning as little as 1,242 Thai baht4 per capita per month (Coronini-​Cronberg, Laohasiriwong, & Gericke, 2007)—​or that in such a circumstance, prostitution is often one of the only viable economic options available to women. By not acknowledging the structural constraints imposed on the young woman she was trying to help, however, this employee communicated a narrative that reinforced ideas about cultural difference, rather than one that offered solutions to the challenges faced by her beneficiaries. On a personal level, Mary Kate’s perception that her beneficiary had not accepted her “love” made her feel extremely sad, as if the young woman had personally rejected her. By equating this “love” with her own sense of purpose, Mary Kate reinforced her role as a savior of the ethnic minority “other,” whose moral compass remained inferior to her own. In this way, Mary Kate’s expression of her own lived experience came through quite genuinely. However, she seemed to have few tools with which to navigate or manage this experience, other than to feel “profoundly sad.” Instead, she called into question the motivations of the beneficiary and, indeed, the developing society as a whole. This response illustrates the limitations of the savior narrative, and the constraints this narrative imposes on employees. It also illustrates the difficulty NGO s a n d t h e R e s c u e N a r r at i v e  [ 95 ]

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some NGO employees have reflecting on the complexity of their own experiences, and interrogating the way these experiences might shape and prejudice their opinions of the women with whom they work.

4. “Thailand Is Illegible to the West” (Othering Message)

The fourth message involved the reinforcement of a self-​versus-​other binary between Thailand and the West. This message communicated the idea that Thai culture is fundamentally illegible, or incomprehensible, to those in the West. Participants who expressed this narrative when they spoke about their work included two Thai female NGO employees in their thirties, who I call “Lawan” and “Boonsri.” Here, the interviewees used the othering message to make essentialist claims about the ubiquity of sex work in Southeast Asian cultures. They explained that in many trafficking situations in Thailand, the family of the female migrant (i.e., the “trafficking victim”) is directly involved in the trafficking scenario. As noted in the literature, this is because in Thai and other Southeast Asian cultures, girls and women are held responsible for upholding the family’s economic well-​being (Siriphon, 2003; Siriphon, Nataya, & Chutima, 1997). Given conditions of economic deprivation and job insecurity in home villages, however, resources are scarce and opportunities for economic success are few and far between, leaving many young women to migrate and become sex workers in destination cities (Sassen, 2002; Siriphon, Nataya, & Chutima, 1997). In prior research, I observed that Western NGO employees were often critical of families’ seeming complicity in their daughters’ migrations (Kamler, 2012). When asked about their impressions of trafficking survivors’ families, however, the Thai employee Lawan offered a very different perspective: “In Lao, the family is involved,” she explained. “The girl or boy feels responsible for taking care of the family. Mostly traffickers approach the family. A recruiter gives a fancy offer. The families don’t know the truth about what will happen to their child [after he or she migrates].” Adding her thoughts, Boonsri stated, “As a mother, I don’t think I would be happy sending my family members into the sex industry.” When asked for clarification, both women agreed that families were often aware of what their children would be doing once they reached destination cities, but not how extreme some of their situations might be. “They don’t know it will be torture,” Boonsri said of the families. Lawan elaborated, “They have no idea how difficult or how bad [it will be].” Lawan then went on to explain that in addition to “not knowing how bad” the situation might be, Asian cultural norms allow for the families of trafficking survivors to simply “forget” the bad things that happened to their children: “In Asian culture, people think, ‘If it was difficult for me, I should just try to forget it. Karma will take care of the person who did the bad thing to me,’ ” Lawan explained.

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In addition to their desire to just “forget it,” girls may also be reluctant to speak about their experiences because, as Lawan explained, “Losing face is also an issue. You lose face by talking about it.” In discussing the context in which trafficking occurs, Lawan and Boonsri relied on a narrative about Thai and Lao culture to explain families’ acceptance of the practice. Boonsri, however, qualified this explanation by suggesting that she, as a mother, would not be comfortable engaging in this practice. These responses highlight the tensions that can be experienced by national staff members who work for international, or Western, organizations. Engaging an othering narrative to explain the practice of trafficking helped the employees make this practice legible to a Western audience. It also, however, required negotiating a discussion of their own identities as Thai women. Thus we see that like the other NGO narratives, the othering message incorporates ideas about difference and reinforces divides, rather than deepening our understanding of the experiences of female migrant laborers.

5. “Sex workers Lack Agency” (Victim Message)

The final message that emerged in the NGO employee interviews involved Western interviewees’ difficulties reconciling the difference between forced prostitution and consensual sex work. As I  discussed in c­ hapter  2, the 2000 UN Palermo Protocol sets forth a description of human trafficking in what the International Labor Organization has admitted are vague parameters of the term “coercion” (Lisborg & Plambech, 2009). As I discussed further in c­ hapter 3, these vague parameters result in the conflation of forced prostitution with consensual sex work, resulting in the implementation of policies that are detrimental to the women they are supposedly designed to help. It was in the context of this discourse that I asked Carl, the American labor union organizer, whether he believed that consensual sex workers in Thailand were able to benefit from the policies that his NGO was championing on behalf of other migrants (such as factory workers, farmhands, and domestic laborers). “You mean like . . . a sex workers union?” he asked. “No. The U.S. Government would never condone something like that. We can’t receive U.S. grant money if you support the premise that sex work is legitimate work,” he said plainly. Carl then commented that he couldn’t imagine “something like that” existing in Thailand. As we saw earlier, however, such an organization does exist, and has for over 30 years. Describing this organization as a “Thai sex worker organization working across a broad range of issues to promote the rights of sex workers, including migrant sex workers,” NGO employee Roseanne argued that prostitution was a cultural “given” in Thai and ethnic minority societies. Anti-​trafficking NGOs needed to accept this, she said, because “when you talk to Shan women in Burma, it’s not a question of if they’ll go to Thailand [to do sex work], it’s a question of when.”

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Rather than agreeing with the abolitionist premise that prostitution was a social ill, Roseanne framed sex work as a ritualistic part of the Shan experience. She then reinforced the fact that her organization was comprised of active sex workers (“not ‘former,’ ” she reiterated), whose work in the trade was largely agentive. As numerous pro-​rights feminist scholars have explained, this type of sex-​positive narrative evokes a fundamental rejection of the “trafficking frame” itself (see Brennan, 2005; Doezema, 2001; Parreñas, 2011; Pollack, 2007; Segrave, Milivojevic, & Pickering, 2009). Roseanne saw cultural practices and economic incentive as acceptable explanations for the prevalence of prostitution in Thailand, and argued that these motivations for Shan women’s participation in sex work should be respected by anti-​ trafficking advocates. This example shows how one NGO employee understood the needs of her organization’s beneficiaries when viewing these needs through a cultural lens. That understanding allowed for a more nuanced window into the experiences of the beneficiaries themselves.

NGO EMPLOYEES AS BYSTANDERS

What do these five messages suggest about the actual psychological world the NGO employees reside in? My initial inquiry in this set of interviews focused on how anti-​ trafficking NGO employees in Thailand construct a broader narrative of rescue—​ a narrative that tells us a very specific story about human trafficking. I wanted to understand whether that story allowed for the lived experience of female migrant laborers to come to the fore. A key finding was that NGO employees rely on normative cultural values and frameworks to help them navigate work experiences that can be emotionally and intellectually challenging. The challenges that come with working in the anti-​trafficking field, and the institutional constraints that are put on employees to uphold the normative values of their home countries and organizations’ agendas, work to constrict NGO employees—​in a sense, rewarding them for their static views of difference. In maintaining these static views, however, employees fail to grasp the complex perspectives and realities of the beneficiaries they are trying to help. Instead, they rely on othering as a way of making sense of their environment. This sets up a situation in which NGO employees act as passive bystanders, and have difficulty recognizing the role they play in perpetuating the social catastrophe that surrounds human trafficking. To unpack this idea of NGOs as bystanders, I first take as my premise the disconnect that I  observed between Western NGO employees’ intercultural work experiences and their apparent inability to suspend judgment about the culture(s) in which they worked. As scholars such as Suzuki (1998) noted early on in the burgeoning NGO movement, Western NGO employees are often slow to adapt their communication practices to the realities on the ground, as the structural intransigence of their organizations inhibits their ability to navigate cultural realties that demand fluidity. This, I would suggest, is tied to an impulse among NGO employees to “take refuge” in their own normative values, as a way of coping with challenging day-​to-​day experiences in the field. The need to retreat from challenging experiences [ 98 ]  The Field Research Phase

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is strong enough to sway these employees, so that they do not alter their cultural frameworks even when it may be in their professional interest to do so. Rather than allowing for the idea that actors from different cultural backgrounds might hold multiple understandings of trafficking (and the related issues of sex work and, more broadly, development) these employees narrated trafficking according to essentialist ideas about identity and difference. They also relied on difference to communicate their own lived experiences, which often came through in feelings of frustration about the slow progress, or “backward” behavior of Thai nationals or ethnic minorities. This shows us that anti-​trafficking NGO employees often lack the tools to critically evaluate their own normative perspectives and subsequently, their roles as advocates. This limitation creates barriers for employees in grasping the complexity of female migrant laborers’ lived experiences, rendering those voices silent through the rhetorical “negative space” described by Stucky (2006). The static notions of difference illuminated in the rescue narrative and its underlying messages also suggests that employees seldom step back to critically interrogate the broader discourse on trafficking—​that is, the debate between abolitionist and sex-​positive feminists and the role of their organizations within this debate. Instead, many are caught in an institutional framework that promotes a narrow view about trafficking, and ideologically based policies to combat it. Because of this, anti-​ trafficking NGO employees remain passive bystanders in the social catastrophe of trafficking in Thailand. But rather than stopping on this thought, I suggest that we look more deeply at the role of these employees. When considering the demands placed on NGO employees in development contexts, it is not difficult to understand why it might be desirable to retreat into familiar normative ideologies, rather than think critically about one’s own role. The employees I  interviewed confronted sobering, dangerous, and rapidly changing conditions on a daily basis—​conditions they often characterized as “emergency situations.” Some of the situations described included: illegal border crossings, rape, sexual abuse, memory loss, negotiations with criminal networks, imprisonment, torture, death threats, corruption within law enforcement, starvation, poverty, and lack of confidence in the rule of law. For employees who are constantly forced to confront experiences of trauma, normative values—​expressed in these interviews as static understandings of cultural difference—​offer a way to navigate uncertainty. They provide a space of psychological safety—​a coherent frame through which employees can view the world and manage their daily work experiences. By retreating to this rigid normative space, however, NGO employees often miss opportunities to connect on a deeper level to the beneficiaries they are working to help. Moreover, something gets lost in these employees as they stand on the sidelines, “watching” what they see as the problem of trafficking play out, rather than engaging with their own role in this complex drama. A part of themselves is lost in this process. The lost nature of the bystander is one of the core issues that liberation psychology addresses, and seeks to overcome. As bystanders, the employees I  interviewed actively resisted acknowledging migrant women’s lived experiences and the complexities that underscore them. NGO s a n d t h e R e s c u e N a r r at i v e  [ 99 ]

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Lacking the tools to understand their own normative frameworks, or cope with the challenges they faced in the field, the employees rhetorically silenced the migrant women’s voices and perspectives. In doing this, they also limited their own ability to promote social change.

The dominant narrative about the trafficking of women in Thailand is premised on the central importance of rescue. It incorporates a number of other related messages, and is communicated by NGO employees tasked with “speaking for” trafficking victims, sex workers, and, indeed, for Thailand’s anti-​trafficking movement more broadly. Employing “thin human rights talk” (Hauser, 2008) that rarely, if ever, incorporates the actual voices of supposed trafficking “victims” into its rhetoric, NGO employees adopt static notions of difference that eclipse their understanding of the realities of their own beneficiaries, and stunt their ability to deeply and complexly interrogate their own experiences, rendering them passive bystanders in Thailand’s trafficking drama. The rescue narrative used by NGO employees would become central to my telling the story of Land of Smiles in all its complexity. Some of the contours of the DAR intervention I was conceptualizing were now becoming clear: I would need to construct a project that would reposition the lived experiences of female migrant laborers at the center, while also asking NGO employees to critically evaluate their own narrative of rescue, as well as their roles in the social catastrophe of the anti-​trafficking movement. In thinking through this intervention—​both the construction of the musical I would write, as well as the broader framework of participant involvement, I knew I would need to give voice to the problematic perspectives of NGO employees—​not only their flattened understandings of the migrant women they were trying to help, but also, and perhaps even more devastatingly, their flattened understandings of themselves. Thus far, we have seen how narratives pitting “victims” against “criminals” along with the narrative of “rescue” have had detrimental consequences on both migrant sex workers and the advocates who are trying to help them. What lies beyond these narratives? Are they the end point—​the final destination in Thailand’s anti-​ trafficking drama? Or are there other, alternative narratives that broaden our understanding of this world? In the next chapter, I’ll look at the trafficking discourse in Thailand from a different perspective, showing how a marginalized group of actors is, in fact, working to reframe these problematic tropes of victimization, criminality, and rescue. Through their work on trafficking, these actors told a very different story—​engaging a “narrative of resistance” that would ultimately help advance the dramatization of Land of Smiles. Chapter 5, then, marks the final part of my Phase One field research, and the site in which the voices of female migrant laborers spoke louder and clearer than ever.

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CHAPTER 5

Community-​Based Organizations and the Narrative of Resistance If we pay attention to and think from the space of some of the most disenfranchised communities of women in the world, we are most likely to envision a just and democratic society capable of treating all its citizens fairly. —​Chandra Talpade Mohanty (2002: 510)

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hey set up an office in a modest compound down a dusty road lined with palm trees and jungle brush. If you stroll beyond the compound, in the not too far distance you’ll see wooden dwellings and soft, rolling fields that merge gracefully into a landscape of farmland and hills. Shades of bright lime green and deep forest green and soothing grass green and dark moss green, windswept and swirling in patterns so perfect and so random they look as if they’ve been painted on. The borderlands. This is where the migrant women of Burma have come to organize, and fight back. Lush golds and reds dot the landscape too—​roads carved into hillsides, stretching through the fields like veins. Bright sun beaming down on a calmer earth. Sometimes, on quiet days, the world feels pure and untouched. Not like the war zones these women have left behind. Not that devastation, but precisely the opposite: soothing, cool, nourished by rain. If you stand on the front porch of the compound, it sometimes feels like the past could all be a dream. Inside, everyone has a job to do. After breakfast, the main room, basic and unassuming, is crowded with women. Women at computers, typing policy briefs and activity reports, planning advocacy strategies, holding meetings with visitors. At times, when I visit this office, I get the overwhelming feeling that I’ve stepped onto some kind of Southeast Asian Shtetl. Run by female migrants, serving female migrants, dedicated to the world of female migrants. A commune of women, a retreat. Except there is no retreat when your job involves battling gender inequality, labor exploitation, and a legal framework that sees you and all the women around

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you—​the women you call your “sisters”—​as enemies. And so life in the office is a state of constant liminality, moving from sanctuary to battleground—​at turns safe and tenuous, desperate and serene. Such is the nature of community-​based women’s organizations on the Thai-​Burma border.

In this chapter, I talk about a final participant group whom my research led me to meet—​the women of migrant community-​based organizations (CBOs) operating in Thailand. I show how, in the face of the problematic activities of anti-​trafficking NGOs and the Thai and U.S. governments’ harmful Smart Raid policy, other self-​ organizing groups have emerged to combat labor exploitation in wholly different ways. Run entirely by ethnic women and operating “below the radar” of the anti-​ trafficking movement, their work is generating more productive results. Community-​based women’s organizations address the issue of trafficking from a unique perspective. Rather than pressuring sex workers to enter “rehabilitation” programs, these groups operate in greater solidarity with female migrants, fostering participatory, rather than top-​down approaches to combating trafficking. As a result, these CBOs engage an ethic of “horizontalism”—​an organizational approach to social change that is based on partnership, trust, and mutual understanding between the organization and its beneficiaries. This ethic, as I’ll discuss, evokes Freire’s ideas of “conscientization”—​the critical reflection about lived experience that helps community members overcome the effects of collective trauma. As such, it offers female migrant laborers positive alternatives to the narrative tropes commonly used by anti-​trafficking NGOs. Here, we come to the final narrative uncovered in the Phase One field research—​ what I call the “narrative of resistance.” In this chapter, I’ll show how activist CBOs use this narrative to challenge ideas about victimhood, criminality, and rescue, and actively combat their own marginalization. Drawing on interviews with CBO leaders, staff members, as well as the domestic workers, sex workers, and factory workers who received their support, I show how the participatory strategies of these organizations represent best practices in anti-​trafficking advocacy.

ACTIVIST CBOS IN THAILAND

Migrant-​ led community-​ based organizations operating in the Thai-​ Burma borderlands have a rich and important history. Emerging from grass-​roots civil society, many of these organizations are run by leaders from Burma’s “88 Generation”—​ a group of student activists that formed a pro-​democracy movement to oppose the rule of then-​Burmese dictator Ne Win (Hlaing, 2008). Spurred by a desire for a peaceful transition to democracy, many of these activists fled Burma in the 1990s and early 2000s and formed exile groups on the Thai side of the border. There, they mobilized to resist the authoritarian regime, and combat the human rights violations and mass displacement of civilians that have resulted from ethnic armed conflict (Petrie & South, 2013:5).1 [ 102 ]  The Field Research Phase

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These exile groups include a number of women’s and migrant advocacy organizations. The women who make up the fabric of these organizations—​both as leaders and as beneficiaries—​come from what we may characterize as “atrocity environments” marked by militarization, silence, isolation, and terror (Watkins & Shulman, 2008). As such, much of their work is dedicated to creating a human space in which community support, expression, and healing are encouraged. CBOs do this by fostering critical reflection and political engagement, both around the pressing human rights issues that continue to plague their homelands and their circumstances as migrants in a foreign land. I characterize these types of organizations as “outliers,” as they often fall through the cracks in visibility, remaining virtually unnoticed by policymakers and government actors. Despite—​or perhaps because of—​their low profile status, these organizations maintain a strong sense of autonomy when compared to larger NGOs. Because their organizational strategies are based on resistance, they tend to reject the narratives, debates, and impractical solutions promoted by the formal anti-​trafficking movement. Their informal structures allow them to operate in an autonomous space defined by illegitimate citizenship status and cross-​border mobility. Often seen as enemies of the state due to their noncitizenship status and political alignment with the efforts of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in Burma, these groups have been able to reach female migrant laborers—​including trafficking victims and potential victims—​more effectively than their NGO counterparts. Because of this, they are more successfully able to form strategies for long-​term social change. In discussing the achievements of these groups, I will look at examples of three organizations that have made noteworthy contributions to anti-​trafficking advocacy work in Thailand. Organization One provided support to ethnic Kachin migrants in the Northern Thai city of Chiang Mai; Organization Two offered support to migrant sex workers throughout Thailand; and Organization Three promoted collective bargaining strategies among factory workers in Samut Sakhon, a seaside factory town south of Bangkok. I structure this chapter according to organization to show examples of how different CBO groups engage a common narrative of resistance. Unlike anti-​trafficking NGOs, whose collective narrative of rescue illuminated a number of sub-​narratives and themes (which I teased out in the previous chapter), here it is not the nuances of sub-​narratives that I am concerned with but rather, the broader, collective experience of the CBO actors themselves. I look at how these actors engage a singular narrative that challenges the dominant tropes of victimhood, rescue, and reform that are so prominent in anti-​trafficking advocacy work, and I discuss the implications of this narrative of resistance on both the CBO employees and their beneficiaries. My interviews revealed that female migrant laborers undergoing precarious migration processes often proactively tried to connect with these CBOs, rather than asking for support from police (whom they considered their adversaries) or anti-​trafficking NGOs (who work with police and therefore appeared to also be adversaries). As the following cases illustrate, in contrast to the strategies used by many anti-​trafficking NGOs, it is neither low-​level “life skills” training, nor moralistic teachings about appropriate sexual behavior that help migrants improve their C o m m u n i t y - B a s e d Or g a n i z at i o n s  [ 103 ]

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situations. Rather, female migrant laborers seek support, legitimacy, community, and concrete opportunities for economic advancement. By receiving these, migrants become subjects in their own lives, rather than victims of a movement that is premised on their objectification.

THREE CASE STUDIES 1. Organization  One

The first case I’ll discuss focuses on a CBO (Organization One) stating that its mission was to meet the needs of the growing Kachin migrant population in Northern Thailand. The organization’s members came from Kachin State where, as I’ve noted, civilians have suffered from decades of armed conflict. The organization’s founders, as well as its members, were closely linked with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Organization One sought to advance gender equality within the Kachin migrant community through programs dedicated to supporting migrants living in Chiang Mai. It also conducted advocacy to the Burmese government focused on recognizing the social and political needs of Kachin women inside Burma. My research took me to the offices of Organization One, and later to a safe house in Chiang Mai that was being used as a drop-​in center for local Kachin migrants. As the center, migrants were offered computer skills training courses, English and Thai language courses, and social support services for those struggling to find employment. The center was run by other Kachin migrants who had experienced similar difficulties of leaving their villages back in Burma to seek a better life in Thailand, only to face discrimination upon their arrival. The women who ran the safe house described the obstacles created by this discrimination. Ethnic migrants—​ particularly undocumented ones—​ have few opportunities to receive formal education in Thailand. Healthcare is also denied to them in both private and government-​run hospitals (NGO employee, personal communication, 2015). Moreover, though a number of the women I spoke with had received formal education in Burma, their “illegitimate” citizenship status resulted in their earning lower wages than Thai citizens doing the same work. Not surprisingly, these discriminatory practices led to extremely precarious life situations for the migrant women who lived and worked in the safe house. They also posed obstacles for the organization itself. “Seng Nu Tsawm,” the program director of Organization One explained that the organization had been unable to officially register with the Thai government. This created a situation in which the staff members had to rely on informal relationships in order to conduct their work activities. “This year we’re trying [to register]” Seng Nu Tsawm explained, “but it’s a process. It is difficult. We have to discuss this with the owner of the house [where the office is set up] who is Thai.”

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I asked Seng Nu Tsawm how the citizenship status of the CBO staff members affected this process. I  wondered, for example, whether the staff members had passports. “Some have passports,” she replied. “But most do not have travel documents. This is a big challenge for us. Some don’t have Thai labor cards. We need to think about many situations,” she explained. “If we were registered [with the Thai government], we would have to report [the status of our employees] to the government.” Seng Nu Tsawm explained that without proper documents, members of the organization could not work openly in Thailand, nor could the organization own property or liaise with the government—​basic aspects of organizational functionality that are paramount to establishing a cohesive organizational identity. Without them, Organization One was unable to reap the benefits of the legal protections afforded to Thai citizens.

Unity of Experience

Despite these obstacles, I  suggest that Organization One’s precarious status was, in fact, an asset to the women working there, as well as to its beneficiaries. The challenges faced by the organization fostered a community of solidarity, which in turn created an ethic of participation among its members. Being part of a marginalized group, the leaders of Organization One were situated in similar structural conditions to the women the organization served, creating what I call a “unity of experience.” This led them to view their beneficiaries not as others—​women less fortunate than them, women whom they needed to rescue—​but as equal partners in the larger community’s struggle for empowerment. Equality, trust, and respect were fostered in the relationships between the organization’s leaders and its members. An example of this can be seen in the story of “Shayi,” a Kachin female migrant laborer who was also a trafficking survivor. “I grew up in Tachilek2,” Shayi recalled. “In 1982 my family moved to Myitkyina.3 In 1990 I got married. In 1997 my husband passed away and left me with two girls.” Shayi laughed. “I am laughing,” she said, “because we hear this story a lot. “After he passed,” she went on, “the children needed to go to school, and I needed to support them. I knew that there was money to be made in Tachilek, so I decided to go there in search of work. I  left my daughters with a relative in Rangoon4 in 1998. I came to Tachilek and found work as a housekeeper in a Chinese house, where I worked for four months. My salary was 1000 baht per month5 in 1999. At that time, I was keeping only 200 baht for myself and sending 800 baht home to the children. “During this time, my cousin was working in a different house in Mae Sai.6 She told me there was a job in Chiang Mai for a housekeeper. ‘We’ll both go and work for 750 baht per person,’ she said. So the boss brought us to Chiang Mai. But on the way, the police stopped us. The boss gave some money to the police but I don’t know how much.” Shayi recalled, “In 1999, I  worked in Chiang Mai for seven months. My salary increased, but I wanted a regular salary [instead]. So I looked for another job.”

C o m m u n i t y - B a s e d Or g a n i z at i o n s  [ 105 ]

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In her search for employment, Shayi contacted members of the Kachin church in Chiang Mai. “I heard there was a health training [class] in Mae Sot,” she said. “At that time, it was the year 2000, and [Organization One] had just formed. They said, ‘Does anyone want to go to represent [Organization One]?’ [Organization One] helped me to get there.” I asked Shayi how many women were working in Organization One at the time. “Around ten,” she responded. She then described receiving two years of medical training, after which she returned to Burma to work in the KIA-​controlled areas, serving as a nurse in a mobile clinic. Shayi worked in Burma for five more years. She recalled: I worked in fourteen villages. I got the mobile health clinic funding from the Burma Relief Centre7 here [in Chiang Mai]. I was the head of the nursing clinic. We went around to the villages, curing diarrhea and malaria. We gave training to the villagers about traditional birth, hygiene, education to schools, children and family planning. There was a doctor too; he and I worked together. But while I was serving away from the doctor I took care of the injured people. Because that area is jungle, so people cut themselves. I had to sew them up.

Shayi described villagers whose serious illnesses were beyond her capacity to treat. “One was a soldier from the KIA,” she recalled. “Because of the fighting, he was unconscious for three days, and then they brought him to me. I was giving him the medicine, and I also installed the urine pipe. After two days the man was alive.” Shayi’s story of resilience demonstrates the unity of experience between an organization’s staff and its members. This organization engaged in participatory practices that fostered “horizontal,” rather than top-​down relationships with its members. Such practices, as I have suggested, are in fact “best practices” in human trafficking prevention and rehabilitation, as they avoid replicating the static notions of difference and bystanding that so often occur among NGO employees in the formal anti-​trafficking movement. Shayi’s story illustrates the positive outcomes that can occur when an organization refrains from using the “victim” label and the associated rhetoric of “rescue” to describe its beneficiaries and practices. By the standards of the 2000 Palermo Protocol, Shayi could certainly be considered a victim of human trafficking, having endured gross labor exploitation and coercion to migrate under the promise of receiving paid work abroad. Throughout her interview, Shayi stressed that she never received a minimum wage—​what she called a “regular salary”—​in any of her jobs in Thailand. This in itself can be seen as a form of labor exploitation. But Shayi never used the term “victim” to describe herself. Nor did the organization impose this label on her. Instead, once she accessed Organization One, she was offered an opportunity to study medicine—​an opportunity that helped her turn not only her own life around, but also the lives of countless others in Burma. Rather than dwell on the exploitation she’d endured, Shayi turned her misfortune into action. [ 106 ]  The Field Research Phase

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Shayi’s fortuitous alliance with the organization also demonstrates the potential of achievement through informal education. By assisting Shayi in accessing a medical training opportunity, the organization provided her with an inroad to a vocation that would have been entirely denied to her—​both in Burma and, as a migrant, also in Thailand. As other beneficiaries receiving similar skills training explained, in Thailand, migrants from Burma “aren’t allowed to be professionals.” A wage ceiling prevents them from striving to reach professional goals. Since the organization functioned under the radar of the state, however, it was able to offer an alternative for Shayi—​one that allowed her to realize her potential and move forward in her life.

2. Organization  Two

The second case focuses on a community-​based organization (Organization Two) run entirely by and for sex workers in Thailand. The organization’s mission involved helping sex workers claim and reframe their status as legitimate laborers. The organization advocated for the perspective that sex work is a legitimate form of work, involves the use of a woman’s mind as well as her body, and should be respected by society rather than stigmatized and criminalized. In addition to providing social support to sex workers, it offered educational and skills training courses to migrant workers, and put pressure on the State-​Department-​led anti-​trafficking movement, which it saw as being a direct threat to sex workers’ human rights. Organization Two was also working to legitimize regulatory practices in sex work in Thailand (NGO employee, personal communication, 2011). Organization Two provided a space where migrant sex workers could feel supported. Roseanne, the director, described a typical day at the organization: “We open at 10 AM and it takes a half an hour to get over our hangovers,” she quipped. “Some women start to arrive at 11 AM. People chat together, check email and gossip. Some women come to study in the education program—​language and Thai school qualifications. People come to get condoms, get counseling on broken hearts, do Facebook, etcetera.” Roseanne then talked about the importance of having a place to call “home.” “Sex workers are always moving,” she explained. “When you move, you need a place and a space to do your normal community things—​housewarmings, mournings, etc. So they do that here.” The organization also facilitated an outreach program for sex workers, designed to raise awareness about the need for regulatory practices in sex work. “All of our centers are staffed by sex workers. Once a month we have a workshop. Sometimes it’s on a serious issue like trafficking, sometimes not so serious, like nails. There’s a hairdressing area where they get ready to go to work. Then they go to the bars—​Karaoke, massage, freelance—​everywhere. Our bar opens at 6:00 PM. Women can work in the bar if they want. About 30–​40 women a day drop in. In the rainy season sometimes we get more. Women go on outreach once a week, go to meet women in the workplace,” Roseanne explained. C o m m u n i t y - B a s e d Or g a n i z at i o n s  [ 107 ]

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Organization Two as Homeplace

“Public homeplaces” are spaces that allow people from diverse backgrounds to come together for a shared purpose (Shulman, personal communication, 2011). While these individuals may share no common language, history, or cultural forms, the public homeplace offers them a site on which to build new community frameworks. When collective traumas occur, the links that previously bound individuals together can begin to break down. Members of a community begin to lose their bonds with others. But self-​organization, as a principle, allows for these links to be rebuilt, and the possibility for individual and social regeneration to occur. New communities, languages, and cultural projects can develop through such organized structures. Homeplaces are most needed and most effective at “the moment when people are pushed off their land and become dispersed.” Their only hope rests in the possibility of regenerative community spaces (Shulman, personal communication, 2011). As a public homeplace, Organization Two reflected a process of regeneration. The sex workers who visited the drop-​in center formed a heterogeneous group, one that was constantly in flux, as the demands of labor migration dictated their movements and required their flexibility. The organization was comprised of local actors who came together in order to build their community “from scratch.” As such, Organization Two exemplified a working manifestation of a public homeplace.

3. Organization  Three

Located in Samut Sakhon, a seaside factory town in central Thailand, Organization Three’s mission was to promote collective bargaining strategies among migrant laborers working in Thailand’s fisheries, an industry steadily increasing in size and scope (Hervandi, 2011). The organization used grass-​roots mobilization strategies to address the problem of labor exploitation in shrimp packaging plants, which employ tens of thousands of migrant workers and children in conditions akin to slavery (Solidarity Center, 2011), making this industry a primary site for labor trafficking. The methods used to combat labor trafficking in these contexts resemble those being used in the sex industry to combat sex trafficking. NGOs, in collaboration with the Thai police regularly raid shrimp packing plants in an attempt to weed out the victims of labor exploitation and prosecute those responsible for it. As in the fight against sex trafficking, however, these measures seldom generate productive results. Once a factory is targeted as a potential trafficking site, workers “caught” there are rounded up, detained, and often forcibly deported—​returning to situations in Burma that are even more precarious than the conditions they faced in Thailand.8 Rather than attempting to reform labor conditions and impose regulations within the factories themselves, Thai authorities and NGOs attempt to curb exploitation by grooming victims to be witnesses in prosecution cases. While the goal of seeking justice for victims of factory labor exploitation is certainly laudable, it has not proven effective in combating trafficking. Furthermore, the focus on prosecution overlooks systemic problems within the factories themselves—​namely, the lack [ 108 ]  The Field Research Phase

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of safe working conditions and fair wages for laborers. Additionally, much like the Smart Raid policy in the sex industry, the carceral response to labor trafficking does little to address the structural conditions underlying migration from ethnic areas in Burma where human rights violations persist. Like sex workers, factory workers seek fair wages, safe working conditions, and other strategies for combating exploitative conditions. The problem, however, is their undocumented status. Without legitimacy, workers are at risk both within the informal labor sector of the shrimp processing factories and in the policed immigration system that criminalizes them for being “illegal” migrants. To address these problems, Organization Three worked “below the radar” of the anti-​trafficking movement, helping migrants implement collective bargaining strategies in these factories. In doing this, the organization attempted to empower migrants by helping them build collective strategies for resistance. An interview with an 18-​ year-​ old female migrant from a small town near Rangoon, whom I call “Lu Jan” highlights the positive outcomes of these strategies. Lu Jan was a labor trafficking survivor who had used a Thai “carrier” to cross the border on the promise that a job in an orange grove awaited. After crossing, she was forced into domestic slavery, working for a family that starved and tortured her for several weeks. Upon running away, she avoided the police for fear of being deported. Finally, she found her way to Organization Three, which helped her secure a new job in the shrimp factory in Samut Sakhon. Like many other women, Lu Jan’s primary concern was to earn enough money to send home to her family, while avoiding the dangers of detention and deportation. “At the factory we get a small room for the workers,” Lu Jan told me. “The factory has nearly 400 Burmese workers there. Peeling shrimp.” I asked whether the factory paid their workers. Lu Jan confirmed that she was paid, “sometimes over 100 or 200 baht per day.”9 She then noted that the job was preferable to her previous job, working in a beer factory in Burma. I mentioned that I had heard stories about the shrimp factories not paying their workers, or beating their employees. I asked Lu Jan whether she had experienced or seen any such problems. “No,” she said. “But I don’t have documents. Every day is ok at the factory,” she explained. “I have food and a place to sleep. But the problem is I cannot go out. They let me go out, but they cannot be responsible for my security.” I asked Lu Jan what she thought would happen if the Thai police discovered her. “I don’t know but I’m scared to find out,” she said. “If the police arrest me, I will have to stay in the jail [for] 45 days, and then I will be sent back to [the] Burmese border. Then [the] Burmese authorities will detain us and we [will] have to give money to be released.” I then asked what step she wanted to take next. “Now I’m thinking [I would like] to collect some money to travel back to Burma,” she said. “I worry about my family.” Lu Jan’s story illustrates the importance of having a support mechanism for negotiating and securing a job. Rather than trying to “fix” migrants’ situations by removing them from their labor environments, Organization Three instead helped C o m m u n i t y - B a s e d Or g a n i z at i o n s  [ 109 ]

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migrants empower themselves while remaining in those situations. The discrepancy between these approaches is crucial. By working to address problems in the labor environment as they arose, rather than sheltering migrants from workplaces where conditions remain unchanged, Organization Three worked to find solutions to the core problem of exploitation. By doing this, it put the onus on the factory—​rather than the worker—​to change. Through offering emergent, rather than top-​down strategies for change, Organization Three fostered agency among its beneficiaries. In addition, Organization Three, like the other CBOs described here, actively helped its members confront their experiences of trauma. As the head of Organization Three’s Migrant Justice Program explained, “We try to educate migrant laborers about the organizing issue. We form the informal group. We use the structure and concept, the same as the Thai trade union. And we work with the Thai union to learn how they fight for their rights. Because migrants have no voice in Thai society.” This respondent explained that the role of the CBO was to empower migrants to overcome past traumas through actively engaging in strategies to protect and empower themselves. By acknowledging the collective trauma of its members, the organization fostered a healing environment in which migrants could come to terms with the enormity of the violence that had been perpetrated against them, and work to repair the effects of that violence by changing the underlying structures themselves. Rather than seeing themselves as victims in need of reform, the migrants who received support from Organization Three considered themselves to be partners in a struggle for social change.

THE FREEDOM OF NON-​S TATUS

The ambiguous status of being an undocumented female migrant laborer from Burma living in Thailand gives rise to new possibilities of strength, solidarity, and resistance that state-​legitimized organizations rarely provide. Operating outside the purview of the anti-​trafficking movement, in an informal space not characterized by competition for funding or expensive marketing campaigns, activist CBOs are free to develop strategies for trafficking prevention—​a focus that prosecution-​focused NGOs rarely adopt.10 In addition, the personal, informal relationships that characterize CBOs serve them well, as they are based on community allegiances and shared experiences, rather than professional hierarchies. As such, these relationships can be powerful vehicles for building solidarity and trust. Activist migrant CBOs survive and thrive in a porous, interwoven social fabric. Imagine a hammock made of loosely woven yarn. Sometimes it feels fragile to step inside, and one can see through the cracks in the yarn to the ground below. But the material is pliable, malleable—​sturdy when stressed. Now imagine the same hammock made of thin, but taut fabric. One large jolt and it can rip apart. The trade-​ offs in these designs are evident: the yarn, if pressurized without being tied to the rest of the structure, will unravel immediately. If the holes are too porous one could fall through. But when in balance, the loose hammock is sturdy and flexible at the same time. The taut hammock, by contrast, is an “all or nothing” proposition—​being [ 110 ]  The Field Research Phase

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inside it, one feels constricted and uncertain, and if too much pressure is applied, it is sure to break. To elaborate on this metaphor, allow me a brief return to the theory of liberation psychology, which identifies “liminality” as the experience of being in the intersection of two disparate paradigmatic ways of functioning in the world. The modern world has largely lost its ability to hold liminal space due to a resistance to ambiguity and uncertainty, and a loss of participatory public spaces. Such a loss leads to rigidity, a state of being in which individuals have difficulty empathizing with the self, and therefore, also with others. Liminality offers a respite from this rigid mode of existence—​a way of coexisting with others in a more porous, balanced state. The denial of interconnectedness that is a condition of the modern world can be seen in the rigid frameworks of anti-​trafficking actors whose work is legitimized by the state. By overlooking collaborative practices that would take into account the needs, experiences, and best interests of the women they serve, and instead imposing top-​down policies that promote a Western moral agenda, anti-​trafficking NGO employees—​as we’ve seen—​enact a process of “splitting off” from their beneficiaries—​becoming passive bystanders rather than engaged witnesses. This, in turn, prevents them from responding subjectively (through acts of empathy) to the women they are trying to help. In contrast, CBOs, operating below the radar of official structures and processes, are free to imagine their own realities and create their own strategies for success. Lacking legitimacy, CBOs are situated in perpetual liminality. While seemingly disadvantageous, I would argue that this ambiguous space holds real power. It enables CBO employees to connect with their beneficiaries on a human level, and develop more creative strategies for change.

DAR AND THE NARRATIVE OF RESISTANCE

Through these interviews it became clear that the “narrative of resistance” articulated by the CBO respondents engaged aspects of Freire’s “conscientization”—​the critical reflection about lived experience that serves as a foundation for one’s liberation. This narrative also communicated aspects of horizontalism, a key tenet of participatory action research, and liminality, a cornerstone of liberation psychology. Finally, this narrative allowed CBO staff members to create a healing space in which they and their beneficiaries were able to bear ambiguity, rather than cling to the need for certainty. What the CBO respondents interviewed here lacked, however, was a vehicle for communicating their narrative of resistance, and subsequent experience of “concientization” to other actors—​particularly those who were, in part, responsible for perpetuating it. Here, I am thinking of the international development apparatus that, as we have seen, is largely responsible for silencing female migrant laborers at virtually every stage of their migration and labor processes. This apparatus includes anti-​trafficking NGOs and government actors who, by focusing on rescue and C o m m u n i t y - B a s e d Or g a n i z at i o n s  [ 111 ]

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prosecution rather than on policies to support safe migration and the regulation of sex work, fail to meet the needs of the very communities they are trying to help. It was at this point that the contours of DAR, as a liberatory, feminist communication intervention, started to crystallize. The CBO members who spoke to me were, in many ways, already well aware of the disparities between the top-​down policies supposedly intended for their benefit and the failure of those policies to actually help them. What was missing, though, was a way of articulating the ongoing problems these members faced, a recognition of their experience by the broader community of stakeholders, and an assurance that their voices were truly heard. Indeed, the importance of such recognition is paramount to the development of “concientization” and the larger paradigm of liberation, in which transformation is achieved when all community members acknowledge their role in a given social catastrophe. Liberation psychology frames the articulation and acknowledgment of lived experience as “witnessing.” The seemingly straightforward process of listening and bearing witness to trauma is, in fact, a powerful act that can advance healing among survivors. Part of the process of witnessing is to “recollect”; that is, to recall the traumatic experience and frame that experience explicitly as being one of trauma. Spaces of recollection create cohesion out of otherwise fragmented memories, helping trauma survivors “unfreeze” the wounds that have not yet been given voice (Caruth, 1996). In addition, recollection helps trauma survivors overcome “disavowal,” a condition in which we deny, or do not see, something that is directly in front of us, but which may be too disturbing for us to recognize and accept (Hoffman, 2000: 8). Bearing witness to the articulation of trauma is a cornerstone of liberation. While the CBO members were able to bear witness to their own community’s trauma experiences, they lacked the presence of an audience—​“outside” actors who could witness their experiences of suffering, and through that witnessing, help to transform them. I contend that in lacking this external witness, the CBO members I interviewed were unable to fully recollect, and thus mourn, the losses created by their experiences of trauma—​losses related to agency, safety, legitimacy, social cohesion, trust, and a vision for the future in which new possibilities could be realized. Identifying this need for an audience to bear witness to lived experience, and the suffering that is often part of that experience, became a defining moment in my conceptualization of the DAR praxis. For a DAR intervention to ring true for the migrant participants, it would not only require the uncovering, recovering, and articulation of lived experience among migrants themselves. Indeed, this was already being done in the context of the CBOs, and was also, in essence, my job as artist-​ researcher. Beyond this, though, what was needed was a vehicle through which to articulate these experiences before a witness—​a way for the migrants to experience their voices being irrevocably, unmistakably heard.

We see, then, that while top-​down approaches to combating trafficking in Thailand have proven ineffective, alternative strategies are emerging that show real promise. A  phased process of implementing practical solutions to trafficking in the form of prevention efforts is already taking place within many local community-​based [ 112 ]  The Field Research Phase

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organizations. By engaging in participatory practices, the organizations described here positioned themselves as revolutionary agents operating in juxtaposition to the NGOs and government actors who toe the line of the State-​Department-​led anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand. These self-​organizing groups have developed systems oriented toward community-​building and psychic healing that speak to the needs of female migrant laborers in powerful ways. In completing the Phase One research, it became glaringly obvious to me that rather than dismissing, or worse yet, criminalizing CBOs as outlier actors, members of the anti-​trafficking movement should instead listen to, support, and engage in dialogue with these organizations, to begin interrogating the structures that lie at the root of labor exploitation, rather than problematizing migrant laborers themselves. It is here where we complete the first phase of the DAR praxis—​the field research phase. This phase focused on uncovering the lived experiences of female migrant laborers, NGO employees, and migrant-​led CBOs—​members of the anti-​trafficking community in Thailand, who were each, in their own ways, implicated in the larger trafficking drama. It also focused on examining how the policies and practices of the movement were communicated through narratives. After setting the stage for our understanding of how the Thai and U.S. National Identity Projects underscore the problem of trafficking in Thailand, we looked at three narratives that are used by advocates to frame the trafficking problem: the victim-​versus-​criminal narrative, the rescue narrative, and the narrative of resistance. These narratives are used to manage, silence, and, ultimately liberate the female migrant laborer—​the subject of our study—​as well as other members of the anti-​trafficking community. Drawing on this foundational field research, the next step would be to undertake the recovering of these experiences—​a “retelling” of these stories through the somatic, embodied modality of musical theater. This retelling would serve as a powerful site for reflection, and spark the unfolding of the cyclical, co-​constitutive nature of DAR.

C o m m u n i t y - B a s e d Or g a n i z at i o n s  [ 113 ]

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PART TWO

The Creative Phase

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CHAPTER 6

Building the Characters And I know that in order for me to be a full human being I cannot forever dwell in darkness I cannot forever dwell in idea of identifying with those like me and understanding only me and mine —​Anna Deavere Smith (1994)

I

sat at the piano and played a stark, open chord—​the tonic, the fifth—​then moved to the flattened seventh, defining the melodic phrase. I was only guessing at that point—​reaching back through the plane rides and landscapes and interviews and voices—​back through everything I’d just experienced, somewhere to the other side where all those things were silent and there was only space, and the piano, and the feeling of a person—​a character—​like a presence that lingered somewhere nearby, in a form I couldn’t yet see. As if asking a question, I repeated the melody—​tentative, but strong. Was this her voice? Her music? How could I find her? How many notes would it take before she crystallized? Creating characters involves two different types of engagement. It involves understanding—​both the cerebral kind, the kind you organize with your analytical tools, your careful attention to interview transcripts, recollection, and field notes; and another kind, too—​the human kind of understanding, or empathy. The knowing that comes from listening deeply, from trying to feel what another person is feeling; of going to the edge of your own experience to try to be in another person’s space with her, to stand with her; or if not quite “with,” then as close to her as you can. These are the tools needed to build a character—​not just from the outside in, but from the inside out. It requires a double process of understanding and feeling: As a researcher, you need to see; as an artist, you need to let yourself be blind.

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What can we learn through creative practice that traditional research methodologies can’t teach us? What is the process by which this learning takes place? And what are the implications of this learning on those involved in giving life to the creative material itself? As we’ve seen in the previous chapters, Phase One of the DAR praxis focuses on using qualitative field research to uncover the lived experience of the subject—​in this case, the imagined migrant; the supposed trafficking “victim” whom the anti-​ trafficking movement seeks to rescue and reform—​as well as the broader community of stakeholders who are equally caught in the social catastrophe of the trafficking drama. Through this uncovering process, we have seen how Thailand’s National Identity Project, the U.S. Abolitionist Project, the Smart Raid policy, and the work of NGOs together create severe problems for female migrant laborers whose experiences are flattened and voices silenced by the movement purporting to help them. We then looked at the alternative strategies for engagement being undertaken by CBOs, and their liberatory effects. With these processes we have also looked at three primary narratives that tangle around the ever-​precarious subject—​namely, narratives of victimhood and criminality, rescue and resistance—​and considered the implications of these narratives on the broader anti-​trafficking arena. In this section of the book I depart from the site of the field research to examine the creative dramatization work that informs the DAR praxis. In explicating my process of developing the script and score of Land of Smiles (which, in its earliest incarnation, was titled Survive), I offer a framework for a type of learning based not on interviews, observation, literature, or abstract analysis, but instead on the visceral, embodied, emotive landscape of story, character, and song. The next three chapters explore the way the creative process of dramatization “recovers”—​that is, restores or returns—​the stories of community members that were uncovered in the field research. Here is where the larger vision of the DAR project begins to take shape. Illustrating the choices that went into building the characters, finding what Braun (2010) called the “natural story,” and making this story real through embodied performance, I show how the dramatization process fuels new research questions and insights, and how these questions and insights, in turn, inform dramatic choices, thus revealing DAR to be a cyclical, co-​constitutive praxis. In this phase, I address issues of researcher-​subject positionality, material thinking, and perhaps most poignantly, the role of what Krywotz (2011) referred to as “the live, radiant actor” whose physical embodiment of character helps illuminate the transformational power of musical theater.

DAR AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Characters are the dramatic symbols of a social world. Recovering the lived experience of the anti-​trafficking community—​including NGO employees, sex workers whose lived realities were much more complex than their “victim” label would suggest, and female migrant laborers who resisted these labels altogether—​required turning the dominant trafficking narratives on their heads, and interrogating them [ 118 ]  The Creative Phase

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in a visible, highly dramatic way. This would be accomplished through the musical’s characters. These characters, played by six actresses, would represent the counter-​ narrative that the musical needed to tell, and do so in a way that would be visible to the audience. Here, I discuss the process of building these characters, showing how, through their development, new questions about the research subject itself began to unfold. Characters form the foundation of all dramatic stories. In the DAR praxis, characters are built from composites of the real—​real people, whose voices are captured in interviews; real materials, as reflected in a jail cell, a jungle, a longyi, or other found objects; and real narratives, such as the dogma of the U.S. Abolitionist Project, or the proud, almost antiquated-​seeming jargon that underscores Thailand’s National Identity Project. Characters can be informed as much by cultural norms, iconic memories, and snapshots of a moment in time as from the testimonials of actual people. It was therefore not merely the interview data that informed my creation of the characters in Land of Smiles—​it was bits and pieces of all the symbolic elements that emerged as part of the anti-​trafficking world.

The “Cycle of Migrant Women”

To conceptualize this world, I started with what I call the “cycle of migrant women”—​ a symbolic journey of the female migrant laborers who, as I have explained, become objectified in the discourse on trafficking (see Figure 6.1). I  wanted to illustrate the way migrants become caught in a cycle that begins in their home/​village environments, continues with their supposed rescue and rehabilitation at an NGO, and culminates in deportation and repatriation back to their country of origin. In mapping this symbolic journey, it became clear that the characters would need to

PUSH FACTORS Statelessness BURMA Refugee camp

PUSH BACK Freedom fighters sex workers union

Village

Thai government Rehabilitation Christian NGOs

POLICY

CYCLE OF WOMEN

Rescue NGO

Brothel

NO SUPPORT/ CRIMINALIZATION

US government

Figure 6.1:  Cycle of migrant women. B u i l di n g t h e C h a r ac t e r s  [ 119 ]

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illuminate the complexities of Thailand’s National Identity Project and the Thais’ disdain for irregular migrants from Burma (as discussed in c­ hapter 2), articulate the way the criminalization of prostitution from both the U.S.  and Thai governments leads to a lack of support for sex workers (as discussed in c­ hapter 3), and creatively embody various aspects of the U.S. Abolitionist Project and the faith-​based NGOs that narrate the need for rescue (as discussed in ­chapter 4). They would also need to demonstrate the failure of the anti-​trafficking movement to productively engage grass-​roots community-​based organizations who are pushing back against the “cycle” by generating their own solutions to the problem of trafficking (as discussed in c­ hapter 5). The goal was to illuminate the complexities of the trafficking drama in Thailand through characters who would evoke empathy (and at times, disdain) in an audience who might know nothing about these issues when they first walked into the theater. Material Thinking

As an applied theory and method, DAR requires our use of tools from the material world to turn research into dramatic work, while simultaneously allowing the creative and production elements of the dramatization process to further inform the ongoing research inquiries. In short, DAR requires that dramatic stories be told through creative “doing.” Before putting pen to paper to start the work of writing a script and score, I  recognized that I  would have to take into consideration various practical elements that would both constrain and give shape to the musical. Musicals, by their nature, are dependent on physicality: actors must act, sing, and sometimes dance on a stage; sets, costumes, lights, musical instruments, time and space are necessary elements of a musical performance. “Material thinking”—​that is, the intelligence of the physical materials that form the fabric of a creative work (Barrett & Bolt, 2010: 29) was essential to the process of conceptualizing Land of Smiles and its characters. Material thinking offers “a way of considering the relations that take place within the very process or tissue of making” (Barret & Bolt, 2010: 30). In creative practice, material is not merely “brute matter”—​it is what exists between ourselves and our actions (Carter, 2010). We can therefore understand the act of practice itself to be material, not abstract, as it is this doing that informs new discoveries and gives rise to new ideas. When studied from within, the act of creative practice can help us understand the new forms of knowledge it generates. Material thinking provided me with a foundation as I  began to conceptualize the characters of Land of Smiles. My background—​working as a playwright and composer—​informed my ability to embrace this process, as I was able to draw on my experience making creative and practical decisions about the structure of building a musical; experience that, over the years, had forced me to learn the hard way about which kinds of choices might work better than others. I knew, for example, that it would be important to keep the cast small, as productions with over five or six actors become prohibitively expensive to develop. So I limited the cast to six women.

[ 120 ]  The Creative Phase

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I  identified four characters who would remain static throughout the show:  Emma Gable (mid-​twenties), the white American human rights attorney; Lewelyn Brand (late-​forties), the white American CEO of Lighthouse, a faith-​based anti-​trafficking NGO; Lipoh (16), the Kachin sex worker from conflict-​affected Burma; and Achara Montri (thirties), the Thai feminist lawyer, and Lewelyn’s partner at the NGO. The other two actors, both Southeast Asian women, would change characters throughout the piece:  Woman One would need to be a strong actress in her late thirties who could carry the roles of Soon Nu, the Kachin freedom fighter and Lipoh’s supposed trafficker; Mae, the head of the Women Power Bar-​turned-​sex workers’ union; and Mama X, the manager of the Kachin brothel where Lipoh works. Woman One would also play various smaller roles in the larger group scenes, such as the Volunteer (during the opening number in which the brothel is raided), and the Immigration Officer at passport control (as Emma enters Thailand). Woman Two would need to be a versatile actress in her twenties, able to play the multiple roles of Lipoh’s mother (in flashback scenes); Nono, a Kachin prostitute and Lipoh’s best friend; and Buya, Mae’s younger sidekick at the Women Power Bar. As such, I already knew that Woman One and Woman Two would be extremely demanding roles, requiring an enormous amount of flexibility and character work on the part of the actors. In addition, knowing that these two actresses could be used when needed to fill in additional characters allowed me a certain amount of freedom in the storytelling process: I could safely consider ways for the story to travel back and forth in time, for example, depicting flashback scenes from Lipoh’s village in Burma. I could also allow for the musical to incorporate a variety of settings in the present, such as the NGO office, the Women Power Bar, a brothel, and the streets of Chiang Mai. I also considered how the use of time—​another material element—​would need to inform the structure of the musical. I decided early on that the piece would be full-​ length, comprising about 15 songs, and would likely run between 1 hour, 45 minutes to 2 hours with intermission—​a typical running time for a full-​length musical. These practical choices, once made, provided the structure from which I could then begin telling the story. Finally, music, another material element of creative practice, informed the character development process. In any (strong) dramatic musical, musical textures inform the perspective, experience, and “voice” of each character. In turn, a character’s voice can and should inform these musical choices. Character and music work together to symbiotically create another layer of meaning—​one that goes beyond simply “seeing what cannot be seen” or uncovering voices that have not yet been heard. This other layer has to do with the emotional nature of a character—​the subjective, deeply personal, and nuanced frame through which she sees the world. In Land of Smiles, I would use music to explore the emotional palettes of the characters I was creating. I began this process by composing short musical themes that would recur throughout the piece, which were meant to evoke certain moments in the story narrative as expressed by its characters—​what is known in the world of film composing

B u i l di n g t h e C h a r ac t e r s  [ 121 ]

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as “leitmotif” (Green, 2010). Here, two examples of leitmotifs stand out as having been central to the development of the Land of Smiles characters. “Emma’s theme,” a light, floating piano motif, evoked a feeling of hope and innocence that would recur throughout the musical. Attached to this musical theme was a lyric that Emma would express throughout the show: “All I wanted was to save the world.” In addition to representing Emma as a character, this musical motif also informed Emma’s character development. Through repetitively playing (or, practicing) her theme, I was able to embody the emotional palette of Emma, and expand that palette to encompass a narrative that more richly articulated her desires, aspirations, and struggles. This process represents a kind of meditation on character through the language of music. By physically playing Emma’s theme and exploring its nuances and variations, I could make discoveries about her emotional world—​a world colored by hope, longing, and acceptance—​that would not have been available through more abstract, intellectual exploratory processes. Another example of a leitmotif was Soon Nu’s “journey theme”—​a haunting march intended to evoke Soon Nu’s trek through the jungles of Burma, and her lifelong dedication to being a freedom fighter. Soon Nu’s journey theme was “connected” to the lyric “Kachin Women are proud and strong”—​encapsulating her quest for political justice in Kachin State. As with Emma’s theme, Soon Nu’s journey theme not only represented the emotional and narrative arc of the character, it also informed its creation. By repetitively playing this theme and exploring its emotional contours of desolation, memory, and commitment, I  was able to discover the richness and complexity of Soon Nu, and further conceptualize her character arc. These leitmotifs open up a window into the Land of Smiles characters in a somatic, experiential way that a dramatic narrative is not able to accomplish on its own. Here we see how music, an evocative and important material element of creative storytelling, helped bring the characters of the musical to life.

THE CHARACTERS OF LAND OF SMILES

All discourses are bound to the cultural contexts from which they develop (Hall, 1997). In developing the Land of Smiles characters, I wanted to bring to life the culturally bound discourse on trafficking by unpacking, exposing, and ultimately troubling the primary narratives this discourse generates. I wanted to reposition the normative trope of sex-​worker-​as-​trafficking victim (and by extension the “victim-​versus-​ criminal” narrative) by showing how the complexity of lived experience informs the choices and constraints faced by female migrant laborers doing sex work. I also wanted to expose the rescue narrative utilized by Thai and Western NGO employees, the bystanding roles these employees play, the message of morality the employees promote, and the messages of national identity they adopt. Additionally, I wanted to dig into the roles of outlier actors who see the trafficking from a radically different perspective, work outside the system to empower female migrant laborers, and resist tropes of victimhood and rescue that inform the wider anti-​trafficking arena. [ 122 ]  The Creative Phase

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Each of these objectives relating to the exposure and repositioning of culturally bound narratives would inform the characters in Land of Smiles. From these narratives, I would create Emma, a would-​be “savior” of trafficking victims and a representation of the well-​meaning, but naive Western spectator gaze (Hesford, 2011); Lipoh, an underage migrant sex worker from Kachin State whose experience of sex work is inextricably bound to her primary dual objectives of providing for her mother back home, and contributing to the Kachin political cause; Lewelyn Brand, the CEO of Lighthouse, a faith-​based NGO promoting Christian morals that advocates for the U.S. government’s Abolitionist Project; Achara Montri, a Thai feminist lawyer whose unwavering belief in the rule of law and Thailand’s advancement through modernization blinds her to her own tendency to discriminate against the migrant sex worker “other”; Soon Nu, a Kachin freedom fighter posing as the dutiful, non-​threatening leader of a migrant CBO; and a host of other characters whose positionality in the story would reflect symbolic aspects of the narratives of victimhood, morality, and identity that I wanted to trouble and expose. Together, these characters formed a tapestry of the anti-​trafficking world. As I will discuss later on in the chapter, their dramatic objectives painted a vivid picture of this world and its implications.

Disrupting the Rescue Narrative: The Character Emma

One way of expressing a counter-​perspective to the dominant trafficking narrative would be to highlight the problematic viewpoints of anti-​trafficking advocates themselves. Here is where Emma comes in—​the “would-​be savior” of trafficking victims who, through the course of the musical, discovers that her attempts to advocate for trafficking survivors are actually doing more harm than good. Emma represents the limited perspective of many Western human rights advocates who enter the international development arena. Born and raised in a white, middle-​class, midwestern, largely Protestant environment, she has never ventured beyond her cultural context to gain a firsthand understanding of life in the developing world. Her understanding of human trafficking is confined to what she has learned from the rhetoric of Western NGOs taking part in rescue operations and narrating the problem to a Western audience. Stirred to act by what she sees as her moral obligation to “save the girls” in Thailand, Emma gets on the next plane with dreams of making the world a better place through using her skills and background as a human rights attorney to rescue trafficking victims. But shortly after she arrives in Thailand, this savior fantasy quickly dissolves, and a more complex reality sets in.

Emma’s Transformation

Emma’s transformation from optimistic “do-​ gooder” to questioning advocate represents a disentangling of the bystanding that grips so many NGO employees doing anti-​trafficking work. Her transformation also evokes the liminality that comes with questioning one’s certainty, which I suggest represents a “best practice” B u i l di n g t h e C h a r ac t e r s  [ 123 ]

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of advocacy work. Through hearing Lipoh’s story and experiencing uncertainty as her views began to change, Emma’s journey would provide a counter-​narrative to the normative tropes of victimhood and rescue that characterize anti-​trafficking advocacy, and demonstrate the importance of self-​awareness on the part of NGO employees. Unable to maintain a hold on the ideas that initially compelled her to join the NGO, Emma would face the reality that her actions, however well-​meaning, carried the weight of culture:  a weight that would have real consequences for the women she was trying to help. Emma would have to face her preconceived notions of what it meant to intervene in the life of someone whom she barely understood. By implicating Emma, and showing her journey from certainty to ambiguity, I wanted to take the audience on a journey of their own—​one in which they, too, would transform from passive bystanders to active witnesses.

Artist-​Researcher Positionality

The character Emma was informed, in part, by my own personal transformation during the fieldwork phase of the project. In embarking on writing Land of Smiles, I came to realize that my own experiences of moving from certainty to ambiguity were important sites of emotional transformation, and could be used to help guide the dramatization of Emma. This process can be observed in field notes that I took early on in the research process, after attending a church celebration with members of the Kachin community in Chiang Mai. Following the celebration, I conducted an interview with a female migrant laborer from the community. During the interview, I began to feel deeply emotionally invested in her struggle. I reflected: Everything was going fine until she started telling me about her neighbor getting beaten to death with a brick by the Burmese military. I think that was when I started to hit the emotional wall. I decided not to go out with [friends who work at a local NGO] for Christmas, immediately after getting home from a ten-​hour day with the Kachin, because I just wasn’t ready to leave that emotional place. As hard as it is to sit inside it, I believe that it’s necessary to go through it. You feel so utterly helpless. And in this case, I feel helpless not only against the enormity of the cultural and political realities so many women are facing but also—​and now in a much more finely tuned way—​up against policy and the backwardness of those who set it. (Kamler field notes, December 25, 2011)

This passage illuminates the connection between my personal experience as an artist-​researcher and the journey of the character Emma. In discovering the reality of Lipoh’s past, Emma undergoes a rupture—​a sudden jolt in awareness that causes her to deeply question who she is. Ruptures, as I explained earlier, are often accompanied by a feeling of isolation, as one realizes that although she has changed, the world around her has stayed the same. By drawing on my own ruptured state, which was accompanied by a deep sense of helplessness, I discovered inroads into the creative process that ultimately informed and deepened the central character. The rupture [ 124 ]  The Creative Phase

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experienced by Emma in the play reflected my own gradual transformation from bystander to witness.

Artist-​Researcher Visibility

Taking this connection a step further, in the performance context, through Emma’s experience of rupture the audience, too, would be invited into a ruptured state through their empathy with this central character. This possibility of rupture within the performance context itself reveals that simultaneous visibilities come into play in the DAR praxis: the uncovered “subjugated knowledges” described by Haraway (1988) that become visible through our looking at the subject through a new lens; the discourse on trafficking as it is revealed through a character’s transformation, and the production of that discourse; the rupture of the Western protagonist (representing a death of the notion of the enlightened, Western individual); and—​importantly—​the production process itself. That is, the goal was to shed light on the artist-​researcher’s own process of discovery, which could be made visible through the musical, inviting the audience to experience this discovery themselves. This goal of the audience’s transformation through rupture marks an important shift in how we understand and locate the subject of research. Ideally, a DAR project will unearth complexities related to the subject’s visibility, not by reinscribing binaries between audience and subject, but through interrogating the process of creative representation itself. That is, DAR asks that the audience see theater in a more active way than merely by empathizing with characters onstage. Because the DAR praxis is premised on fieldwork, and because the audience is (ideally) aware of this fieldwork and the process of musical-​writing it has generated, the audience is asked to look at the project differently than they would an ordinary entertainment product. In this way, they are made aware of the contours of the DAR method. This, I suggest, shifts the nature of visibility. It is no longer just the characters, as representations of “actual people” who become “visible” to the audience of a DAR work. Rather, the artist-​researcher now becomes the subject of inquiry, as her personal engagement with the issues raised in the piece, and the creation of the dramatic work—​her process—​is exposed. This visibility of the artist-​researcher also implicates the audience as active participants in the DAR praxis, as they are primed to experience a rupture of their own. This rupture requires two levels of engagement: first, the audience is primed to shift their consciousness about the issues raised in the musical (by identifying with Emma’s journey, for example). Second, they are asked to engage with these issues through their awareness of the theatrical event as a representation—​but only a representation—​of the real. As my process of creating the musical would be shared with the audience, they were invited to experience my own transformation as it was occurring through the creation of the piece. In addition to Emma being a vehicle for the audience’s empathy and transformation, she would also expose my own transformation as artist-​researcher. This, in turn, would prime the audience to more B u i l di n g t h e C h a r ac t e r s  [ 125 ]

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actively participate, with greater awareness, in the transformation from bystanders to witnesses.

Disrupting the Victim Narrative: The Character Lipoh

Situated knowledge calls for a “feminist empiricism,” a way of accounting for subjectivity of one’s own experience while simultaneously trying to unearth the “real” (Haraway, 1988: 394). To hold and make sense of these two seemingly contrasting frames requires that we bring together our abstract and theoretical understanding of reality with our embodied, experiential knowing—​that we connect these realms and move within them consciously, even when words for this experience fail us. In other words, situated knowledge requires that we simultaneously hold multiple positional perspectives and understandings of the world. In addition to disrupting the savior narrative through the character Emma, a central objective of Land of Smiles would involve disrupting the victim narrative through the character Lipoh. Lipoh represents an attempt to uncover the situated knowledge of female migrant laborers whose experiences are more complex than their often flattened portrayal as trafficking victims. This attempt, in turn, requires the conscious repositioning of the normative Western narrative of the female migrant sex worker as an uncomplicated, one-​dimensional victim. In constructing the character Lipoh, I wanted to correct the “oversight” (Scott, 1991) of those who advocate on behalf of female migrant laborers. By privileging Lipoh’s voice in the musical, I wanted to reposition the standpoints of female migrant laborers at the center of the discourse, allowing audience members to hear their voices in a new way. This repositioning, however, also came with a danger, on my part, of oversimplifying the complex lived experience of female migrant laborers. It would not be enough to create a character who claimed that she did not see herself as a trafficking victim. Rather, Lipoh would need to be deeply nuanced, holding the complexities of what it means to be an agent in one’s own life, particularly if that agent is considered to be a child. Trying to understand a child’s agentive choices, particularly when these choices involve doing sex work, can be very confronting for a Western audience, who is primed to view children as being innocent, asexual, dependent, and helpless—​representing what O’Connell Davidson (2005) described as a “myth of certainty” that helps us deal with our anxieties and uncertainties about our roles in the social world. As a character, Lipoh would have to hold and reflect this complex and confronting terrain, in order to help the audience better understand the messiness and contradictions of a young migrant sex worker’s lived experience. This complexity of lived experience calls into question again the issue of visibility, and asks that we consider visibility on a number of levels. As Scott (1991) explained, in unearthing situated knowledge, it is not enough to simply make the subject’s experience visible—​even when that experience challenges normative notions of identity. Rather, the goal of this unearthing, and indeed, of creating complex dramatic characters in the first place, must be to interrogate the way one’s identity forms and is informed through its own visibility. This process requires changing our [ 126 ]  The Creative Phase

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understanding of the object of research (p. 33)—​that is, the focus of what we are looking at. Rather than analyzing the subject of research—​in this case, the inscribed-​ upon “third world other,” a feminist approach would ask that we also look at the way the identity of that subject has been constructed, positioned, and consumed.

Situated Knowledge Is a Collective Process

In the context of dramatization, I suggest that this shift in focus is a collective process that requires embodied participation, rather than distanced abstraction. The live medium of theater, which requires participants to physically and emotionally engage (with both each other and with the creative material itself), can destabilize the discursive production of the subject’s identity by exposing the context in which this identity has been constructed. In the theater, all involved—​writers, performers, and audiences—​are asked to situate themselves in a given discourse and temporarily suspend their own identities vis-​à-​vis their participation in the event. By repositioning ourselves, we may more readily also “reposition” the subject, seeing the way her identity has been constructed. Character is the center point for unearthing situated knowledge. Through understanding the journey of Lipoh, audience, researcher, artists, and performers would participate in a collective process of unearthing knowledge that has previously been dismissed. This would be done by following Lipoh’s journey via the live, multilayered, socio-​emotive modality of musical theater. Additionally, in the theater, discovering the contours of character is a collective process that requires the physical act of embodiment. When thinking about Lipoh as a character, we must understand that it is not a mediated (i.e., hyper-​manipulated) representation of a real person (the “real Lipoh”) that is being scrutinized, nor is it a real person herself. Rather, Lipoh is a composite of subjects, a fictionalized character who articulates the partial experiences of many real women. In creating this character—​her voice, her language, her music—​I as author would have to embody her, as would the actress, Jennie Kwan, who later played her role in the performances. It is, therefore, not an actual subject who is discovered through the theatrical medium, but rather, the merging of researcher, artist(s), subjects, and audience that together create, or unearth, a given character. This discovery is a natural part of the ritual of musical theater. We all know we are not seeing something real, or even (as in film) something that pretends to be real. There are no illusions that the woman playing Lipoh is the “real” Lipoh. Instead, we collectively enact the coming into consciousness of the character, while remaining aware that we are seeing and participating in a performance—​something meant not to be real, but symbolic. In this same way, the research process itself is performed. The character Lipoh, then, is meant to do much more than represent a subject’s particular and positional lived experience. As situated knowledge asks that we hold multiple perspectives and understandings of the world simultaneously, the character Lipoh asks that we do the same—​that we become aware not only of the character and her journey, but also of the way the identities of real subjects have been constructed B u i l di n g t h e C h a r ac t e r s  [ 127 ]

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through the trafficking narrative. This requires that we, as participants, engage in a collective process of discovery through the shared ritual of theater.

Revealing the Moralizing Message: The Character Lewelyn

One of the most striking messages that emerged during my Phase One interviews with NGO employees was the moralizing message. Let us recall that this message, embedded in the wider narrative of rescue, focused on a belief that “they” (Thailand) do not uphold the same value systems and moral codes as “we” (the West) do. We can also recall that this narrative was demonstrated prominently by the Western female NGO employee, Mary Kate, whose work was faith-​based. In Land of Smiles I wanted to explore the moralizing message through the character Lewelyn Brand. As the CEO of Lighthouse, a faith-​based NGO dedicated to rescuing sex workers, Lewelyn represents the morality of the Christian West. She is strong in her dedication to supporting the Smart Raid policy, and holds firmly to her belief that reforming “victims” through Christian teachings will steer them away from sex work and onto a moral path. Lewelyn gives voice to the bystanding that many development practitioners working in anti-​trafficking advocacy enact. One of the key aspects of her character is her failure to see herself in the larger social catastrophe of trafficking. Instead, Lewelyn clings to her vision of herself as an uncomplicated savior dedicated to reforming those less fortunate than herself. Because Lewelyn cannot see herself, she never undergoes a change from bystander to witness. Rather, we watch this character unfold through the eyes of Emma, and are troubled by her lack of transformation in the face of Emma’s, and our own. By remaining static, Lewelyn offers something to push against, as we experience the rupture of Emma’s transformed view of anti-​trafficking advocacy, coupled with the empathy of understanding Lipoh in all her complexity. We are also haunted, at the play’s end, by the fact that Lewelyn and those like her will not and cannot see themselves as being part of social catastrophe. In this way, Lewelyn’s character evokes the power of the U.S. Abolitionist Project and its message of dominance and willful ignorance.

Revealing Thailand’s National Identity Project: The Character Achara

Achara Montri is a Thai feminist lawyer and NGO employee working in partnership with Lewelyn to help the Thai government bolster its trafficking prosecutions and advance its status in the U.S. government’s Trafficking in Persons Report. Like Lewelyn, Achara is less complexly rendered in comparison with Emma and Lipoh. In constructing this character, my goal was not to disrupt, or turn on its head, the Thai national identity project’s narrative about the othering of the migrant as non-​Thai citizen, but rather, to expose and highlight this trope. Exemplifying the idea that only when there is an “other” can we presume to know the “self” (Hall, 1989: 16), Achara’s objective is to build the rule of law in Thailand and advance the country’s [ 128 ]  The Creative Phase

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development through engaging with human rights and social justice concerns. What is missing, however, is an attention to the lived experiences—​the situated knowledge of the female migrant sex workers who these human rights projects concern. In line with the larger framework of the Thai National Identity Project, Achara holds dual contrasting objectives: she is committed to Thailand’s advancement through its partnerships with the West, yet she simultaneously clings to nationalistic pride, and a narrative of difference about migrants that renders them undeserving of human rights. As such, Achara represents Thailand’s contradictory approach to combating trafficking. Identity is a story—​a vision of ourselves intimately bound to a narrative of the reality we inhabit (Hall, 1989: 18). In telling herself (as well as the other characters and the audience) the “story” of her goals, Achara reveals the political reality of Thailand—​ a reality riddled with contradictions that are impossible to reconcile. The framing of Achara as a character is therefore not as complex as the framing of Lipoh, whose positional location requires the audience to examine their own particular perspectives, as well as the process through which they have come to those perspectives. She does not undergo a rupture, or transformation, like Emma. Instead, like Lewelyn, Achara acts as an antagonist, representing the bystanding positions of NGO employees who are unable to locate themselves in a given social catastrophe.

Revealing the Narrative of Resistance: The Character Soon Nu

Soon Nu is the primary character played by the actress in the role of Woman One who, as I have explained, would shift characters continuously throughout the show. A combatant with the Kachin Defense Forces (KDF) (the fictionalized name for the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA), Soon Nu is also the leader of a CBO in Chiang Mai that provides support to migrant women on the Thai-​Burma border. In this regard, she is positioned as an outlier—​a member of a migrant-​run organization working both on the physical margins of cross border communities and networks, and also on the margins of anti-​trafficking policy. Soon Nu thereby complicates the legitimized role of the NGO. She is both an upstanding CBO leader engaging in horizontalism and trust-​building with her beneficiaries, and she is a covert “carrier” who helps migrant women cross borders and transports their remittances home. Soon Nu’s allegiance to the KDF adds another layer of complexity to her character, as her loyalty is divided between the women she serves and the agenda of an ethnic armed organization (EAO) seen as a rebel group by the Thai, Burmese, and U.S. governments.1 The character Soon Nu complicates the straightforward narrative, set forth at Palermo, that sees “coerced” migration as being akin to slavery. Indeed, when unpacked, Lipoh’s migration from Kachin State to Northern Thailand could very well be seen as being coerced, as it occurred at the behest of not only Soon Nu, but also Lipoh’s mother, who sent her daughter on a journey to earn money in order to help the family survive. Additionally, Soon Nu implicitly encourages Lipoh to work in the brothel as a way of bolstering her earnings and supporting the KDF’s war effort. B u i l di n g t h e C h a r ac t e r s  [ 129 ]

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The Soon Nu/​Lipoh relationship thereby exemplifies the importance of positionality in understanding trafficking and the complexities of migration that underscore it. While the audience is meant to empathize with Soon Nu, we are also never meant to be entirely comfortable with her role in Lipoh’s journey. Rather, we are meant to understand the actions that underlie her choices and influence those of Lipoh. In line with the feminist empiricism described by Haraway, Soon Nu forces us, as audience members, to hold two or more layers of understanding at the same time, and work to reconcile that understanding through our engagement with the dramatic material.

Practical Characterization: Woman Two

Finally, my construction of the musical’s characters concluded with the development of Woman Two, who would play multiple roles throughout the show and, in essence, “fill in the gaps” of the characters needed to flesh out the story’s development. Woman Two’s primary characters include Lipoh’s Mother, who appears at the beginning and end of the musical and frames Lipoh’s journey from Burma to Thailand (and back); and Nono, a Kachin sex worker and Lipoh’s best friend in the brothel and later, in the International Detention Center (IDC). These characters are meant to humanize the often flattened stereotypes of parents who “traffic” their children by encouraging them to migrate, as well as the trope of the “bad harlot” that is unfairly used to characterize consensual sex workers. In addition to providing a deeper perspective on the seldom seen, often misunderstood experiences of women in these circumstances, Woman Two served a pragmatic function. The minor characters she played allowed the story to advance through time and space. As such, Woman Two was a prime example of how material thinking informs the construction of character.

In this chapter, I  have discussed both the conceptual and practical elements that informed the creation of the characters of Land of Smiles. I’ve shown how considerations of material thinking, counter-​narratives, and the repositioning of the researcher-​as-​subject contribute to the formulation of characters in a way that specifically situate them as part of the DAR praxis. I relied on both conceptual and practical considerations to inform the musical’s structure, identifying characters who would best represent the perspectives of those involved in Thailand’s anti-​ trafficking movement, and the narratives and themes that underscore this movement, as well as the female migrants from Burma whose standpoints provided a lens for understanding the dominant trafficking narrative. I  also drew on what I call the “cycle of migrant women” to help guide this creative development process, paying particular attention to the intersection between my own personal experience and the character Emma. These tools and their outcomes inform the first step of Phase Two in the DAR praxis, the “creative phase.”

[ 130 ]  The Creative Phase

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In the chapters that follow, this explication of the creative phase will unfold further. I’ll show how it served as a foundation for recovering the lived experiences that were uncovered in the initial field research, and talk about how finding the natural story and breathing life into that story through bare-​bones staged readings fueled new research questions and insights. These questions and insights inform the cyclical, co-​constitutive nature of DAR.

B u i l di n g t h e C h a r ac t e r s  [ 131 ]

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CHAPTER 7

Finding the Story I’VE GOT A STORY I’VE GOT SO MUCH TO SAY STORIES ARE EVERYTHING —​Emma Gable, Land of Smiles

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rtists—​dramatists in particular—​spend a great deal of time thinking about which stories we ought to tell. Which ones want to live, to speak through us? Which ones are most deserving, the most urgent, and which are merely fleeting thoughts—​ideas that might be interesting but in the end, don’t really need to see the light of day? As artists, we aren’t quite comfortable, and we certainly don’t feel complete unless we’re wrapped up in a story. It’s how we know the world, and ultimately, how we know ourselves. But we aren’t the only ones who live and breathe these stories and their telling. The rest of the world needs them too—​these narratives, with their strange logics and dreaded twists, with their unlikely yet strikingly familiar characters walking down painfully tragic, sometimes miraculously graceful paths. As humans, the stories we tell define us. They humble us, teaching us how to be better versions of ourselves. If we’re not careful, they can ruin us. How do we reach for these stories? Where do we find them? Perhaps most important, what do we do with them when they finally emerge? If the job of a story is to remind us who we are, how can we ensure that its telling is an act of honesty?

Cultural production—​those stories and the myriad ways we find to tell them—​makes our memories “visible” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008). In manifesting the visibility of memory—​that utterly subjective, deeply layered experience, cultural work that draws on the “real,” or “non-​fictional,” can create counter-​histories—​a kind of “alternative” telling of our memories, intended to unearth the truths these memories hold. Such counter-​ histories, once voiced, can disturb seemingly intractable

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hierarchies of power—​hierarchies that we’ve been complicit in upholding, perhaps unknowingly. For this reason, the stories we identify and create can be used as potent political tools. After building characters that would expose and trouble the dominant trafficking narrative I  had been working to disentangle, and illuminating the positional and situated knowledge of the anti-​trafficking community through those characters, it was time to work on creating the story—​or plot—​of Land of Smiles. This plot would need to convey a counter-​history—​an alternative story—​that pushed back against the dominant trafficking narrative driving the U.S. Abolitionist Project. As such, it would need to be as powerful—​as real if not more real—​as that dominant narrative. Through this plot, we the audience would experience the transformational arc, or journey of the show’s primary characters, our dual protagonists, Emma and Lipoh. In this chapter, I’ll illustrate the way I drew on the field interviews of Phase One to find the dramatic story of Land of Smiles and construct this story through scenes and songs. Essential to this process, I  discovered, was allowing the interviews to speak for themselves, leading me to identify key aspects of the story that would need to be teased out. Part analytical and part intuitive, this process exemplifies finding what Ted Braun (2010) has called the “natural” story. To unpack this process, I’ll talk about what I call “power moments”: notable incidents, occurrences, or themes in the interviews that struck me as both emotionally and analytically significant, and thus steered the musical’s dramatic narrative in pivotal directions. For example, I will discuss how discovering the disastrous consequences of Smart Raids led me to realize that “the raid” would be an essential event to dramatize in the musical, a foundation for explicating Lipoh’s character arc. I’ll also talk about discoveries made in relation to setting and location—​for example, dramatizing the International Detention Center (IDC). These discoveries were, in fact, more than just dramatic choices that served the story arc of the musical—​they were indicators of the power dynamics at play within the anti-​trafficking movement itself. In this regard, I also explore in this chapter how in the DAR praxis, the unconsciously produced dramatic narrative helps us make new discoveries about the subject of our original research. In other words, I suggest that dramatic narratives that emerge from more traditional social science research inquiries are not ends in themselves. They are, rather, one more step in a cycle of uncovering layers of meaning within the original research inquiry. Creative practice can be another step in this cyclical process.

WHAT ARE “POWER MOMENTS?”

Artistic processes, reliant upon imagination and dreams, can also have material effects (Roach, 1996). Dreams and imagination can inform real events, and in turn, real events inform the production of fictional story narratives. But how do we locate the fragments of imagination that contribute to our understanding of “the real,” as well as fragments of “the real” that influence the production of a fictional narrative?

F i n di n g t h e  S t or y  [ 133 ]

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And how do we ensure that these fictional narratives honor hidden truths that are in need of being exposed? In the context of DAR, I  suggest that we do this by turning to the narratives that are unearthed in the Phase One field research—​whether these take the form of interview transcripts, field notes, or other documents capturing the voices of the “real”—​and listen for what I call “power moments” to emerge. Power moments are key events and expressions in the research archives that illuminate significant tensions and themes. These tensions and themes, in turn, can help guide the structure of a dramatic story. In line with Foucault’s (1977) notion of discourse, which suggested that discursive fields are as dependent on silences as they are on what is spoken, in this phase of the project I explored the subtextual meanings of power moments that emerged in the interview transcripts, interrogating those meanings as a way of informing the musical’s text. In this chapter, I  focus on five examples of power moments that recurred frequently in the field interviews and could be located thematically across the research spectrum. While the power moments that managed to make their way into the dramatic narrative are too numerous to discuss in their entirety here, I focus on some key ideas that demonstrate the utility of this approach to transforming field research into a dramatic story. I explore the themes of the brothel raid, sex worker agency, constructing the IDC, Thailand’s weak rule of law, and tensions between U.S.  and Thai views of human rights as examples of power moments. I conclude with a discussion of the “natural story”; that is, the events that seem to emerge more or less organically in dramatic writing, and guide the writer through an emotionally logical process of constructing a story narrative (Braun, 2010). This process, I suggest, is in many ways parallel to the process of excavating data in any given qualitative study. Its implications show that DAR is a two-​way praxis in which research and dramatic writing continually inform one another.

Dramatizing the Brothel Raid

The first power moment I’ll talk about involved dramatizing the already highly dramatic act of a brothel raid. Recall from ­chapter  3 my interview with Paithoon, an employee of a Thai anti-​trafficking NGO receiving State Department funding. During this interview, I asked Paithoon to describe how these raids were conducted. I was specifically interested in understanding how the women working in the brothel reacted to being rounded up and sent to the Immigration Detention Center (IDC). Paithoon explained, “At first the women think we are coming after them because they are working against the law, because they are illegal and prostitutes. We explain that there are some people here against the law, like the controller (brothel owner).” “So you have to get an understanding of everyone’s situation?” I clarified. Paithoon nodded. “We had a case in Mae Sot many years ago,” she went on. “Karen women [working in the brothel]—​they couldn’t speak Thai. Sometimes it’s difficult to find an interpreter. One woman said, ‘I’m willing to die, but I don’t want to go’ [to the IDC].” [ 134 ]  The Creative Phase

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I was struck by Paithoon’s recollection of the statement made by this Karen (ethnic minority) sex worker. Being “willing to die” seemed a powerful—​indeed, harrowing—​reaction to being caught in a raid and detained. The dramatic potential of this emotional reaction to being “rescued” stayed with me as I began to develop the script. I decided that the opening number, “Women of the World” would need to incorporate an actual brothel raid, in which we meet the character Lipoh and see her being arrested by Lighthouse (the NGO) and the Thai police. Like all well-​written musical openings, “Women of the World” would need to show a complex series of events unfolding, in order to introduce the audience to the primary characters and situate them in the action of the musical. I would need to establish Lipoh’s life in the brothel, introduce Nono as a supporting character, and show the process by which the raid occurs. Drawing on my interview with Paithoon, I wrote the following: NONO REMEMBER WHAT OUR MAMA SAID STAY QUIET OR YOU’RE BETTER OFF DEAD STAY QUIET, LIPOH YOUR SISTER NONO WILL BE WAITING ON THE OTHER SIDE NOW GO—​RUN AND HIDE! (NONO and LIPOH dash away. As LIPOH reaches the door, LIGHTHOUSE VOLUNTEER [WOMAN 1] catches her. Holds her down) VOLUNTEER KHUN SABIDEE MAI KHA? ARE YOU HURT? (LIPOH shakes her head no) VOLUNTEER (CONT’D) WHAT’S YOUR NAME? WON’T YOU TELL ME? PLEASE TRUST ME EVERYONE HAS A STORY WHY NOT YOU? Khun put pasa Thai dai mai kha? Do you speak Thai? I’M SURE YOU DO COME WITH ME (LIGHTHOUSE VOLUNTEER touches LIPOH’s shoulder. LIPOH resists violently) I said come with me! (VOLUNTEER grabs LIPOH, locks her in cuffs. OTHER WOMEN are locked up one by one. We hear the clang of bars) In this part of the scene, a Lighthouse Volunteer (played by Woman One) wrestles a struggling Lipoh to the ground. She questions Lipoh, as would a real volunteer F i n di n g t h e  S t or y  [ 135 ]

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conducting a raid. Here, we also meet Nono, who instructs Lipoh to “stay quiet or you’re better off dead.” This line and the sentiment attached to it emerged directly from the power moment revealed in my interview with Paithoon. The notion that a sex worker would rather die than be taken to the IDC inspired me to think both creatively and materially. Despite my never having witnessed a raid firsthand, I imagined the fear and desperation encountered by women who endure such raids. This dramatic context provided a foundation for both the emotional tone and the narrative arc of the opening song.

Dramatizing Sex Worker Agency

As discussed in ­chapter 3, many of the sex workers I interviewed expressed having made a choice, however complexly informed, to work in Thailand’s sex industry. Many explained that their reasons for entering sex work were premised on the need to earn enough money to support their families living in economically and structurally disadvantageous, conflict-​ridden contexts. Inherent in these conversations was a clear assessment, on the part of the sex workers, as to the power of their own agency. It was particularly telling that none of the sex workers I interviewed identified as being victims of human trafficking. The consensual sex workers’ unwavering claim to agency struck me as being a sharp power moment in the field research. Those whom I interviewed, most of whom did not speak English, seemed intent on making sure that I  understood they had not been coerced into prostitution, but rather, had come to the brothel of their own free will. It was as if they were speaking directly to the volumes of abolitionist literature, cultivated by Western feminists over a century, spanning from the era of the White Slave Panic all the way through to the Bush administration’s anti-​prostitution legislation—​voices that speak the loudest in today’s anti-​trafficking discourse. By contrast, the voices of migrant sex workers are rarely—​if ever—​heard by Western advocates. Their insistence that I recognize their agency; their absolute determination that I, a Western feminist researcher, understand that their work was, in fact, their choice, virtually leapt out of the interview transcripts, presenting itself as a clear power moment. To dramatize this expression of sex worker agency, I turned to the natural build of the relationship between Emma and Lipoh. In Act I, Scene 2, Emma has already tried to persuade Lipoh to testify against the owner of the brothel, but to no avail. Suspecting that Lipoh is 16—​which would make her an underage trafficking victim according to the law—​Emma insists that she acquiesce. But Emma’s attempts to control Lipoh ultimately fall flat: EMMA Why won’t you let me help you? LIPOH I need money.

[ 136 ]  The Creative Phase

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EMMA I did some research. The Thai government will give you four thousand baht for testifying. That’s a hundred and twenty dollars. A good amount. And I also found out our organization, Lighthouse, offers life skills classes. You can make beautiful pencil cases and quilts and then sell them... LIPOH I am not doing those silly things. I need to work! EMMA You mean, work in a brothel? LIPOH Karaoke bar. I need to sing. EMMA You’re not going back there. Ever. I don’t care what that trafficker told you to say, or how she thinks she can brainwash her victims. You will testify. LIPOH No. I will not. EMMA Why not? LIPOH Because I am not a victim! In this scene, Emma grows increasingly frustrated by Lipoh’s resistance to self-​ identify as a trafficking victim. Stating, in exasperation, that she is simply trying to help, Emma tries to rationalize with Lipoh, assuring her the NGO will teach her “life skills” as an alternative to sex work. But Lipoh refuses to capitulate. She insists upon returning to the bar where she worked, and that she is not the victim Emma sees. This scene, and in particular the vehemence and clarity with which Lipoh expresses her needs, were derived from my interviews with the Akha sex workers in Chiang Rai. Such voices of clear determination are seldom heard in anti-​trafficking discourse. The power moment that later became this scene in Land of Smiles corrects that silence. In addition, I  drew on the theme of sex worker agency, and more specifically, the sex workers’ union where many of my interviews had taken place, to dramatize the theme of the U.S. government’s abolitionist anti-​trafficking policies. In one scene in Land of Smiles, Emma stumbles into the Women Power Bar, a sex worker’s union in Chiang Mai that moonlights as a brothel. At Women Power, sex workers run the show—​distributing free condoms to customers, and ensuring their work is regulated, fairly compensated, and clean. Emma, astonished that any woman could claim to be doing sex work by consent, wants to know how and why Women Power came to be. After pouring Emma a drink, Mae, the bartender and Buya, her assistant, explain:

F i n di n g t h e  S t or y  [ 137 ]

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MAE Back in the 90s, the NGOs just wanted to us to be safe. BUYA Which we are. (BUYA produces a giant bowl of condoms, sets it on the bar) These are flavored. MAE But then big mighty U.S. government made up this thing called human trafficking. BUYA And in 2004, the money rained down. Lewelyn and her Cops for Christ started raiding the bars. MAE Cause you know what happens in bars... BUYA Where there are women... EMMA (sloppy) Sex? BUYA AND MAE Sex! MAE So George Bush invented “Anti Prostitution Pledge.” Now no NGO could help a woman unless she took a blood oath not to do it for money. BUYA No sex for you! EMMA Seriously? MAE That’s when we said, enough is enough. Describing the changes that took place in the 1990s, Mae and Buya go on to explain that unlike before, sex workers in Thailand must now navigate something much more precarious than the dangers of sex work—​they must also navigate the dangers of U.S. foreign policy. Here we see how a power moment that emerged in the original interviews influenced the creative exposition of the Anti-​Prostitution Pledge and its ill effects on the women who it was ostensibly designed to help. This transformation from field research into scene work is another example of the dramatization of sex worker agency. [ 138 ]  The Creative Phase

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Dramatizing Thailand’s Immigration Detention Center (IDC)

During the Phase One fieldwork, several interviewees spoke about Thailand’s ominous Immigration Detention Center, where trafficking victims were often held as they awaited trial or deportation. The most prominent of these centers was known as Ban Gretegarn, or “Gretegarn House,” and was located in Phetchaburi, in Central Thailand. Recall in ­chapter 4 my interview with Lawan, one of the Thai female NGO employees whose messages about cultural difference supported the narrative of rescue. During this interview, Lawan revealed that detention centers such as Baan Gretegarn were notorious for detaining migrants from Burma—​both trafficking victims and non-​ victims who had been deemed “illegal”—​for up to months, or sometimes even years. These migrants, Lawan explained, were held without proper legal representation, adequate social support, or even telecommunication access. Lawan expressed frustration with the bureaucracy of processing cases in the IDC, and the effects that this bureaucracy has on the women who ended up there. In Lawan’s words: There are too many layers of communication. So some information will be dropped or bent a little bit, or changed. For example, the case of (one) victim:  Normally we will contact the social worker—​the Bureau of Anti-​trafficking in Women and Children—​and then they will contact their respective office in each province to follow-​up with the case. And after that, they are supposed to come back with the reintegration plan. But in the sense of this victim, she has already told the social worker what she needed. But the social worker needed to get back to her also, to say, “Okay this is what you need, this is the plan that you should go through—​do you agree with that? Let's build a plan together.”

Lawan noted, however, that this process rarely actually happens: The victim expects that assistance should go to her quickly. But at the same time, we are also waiting—​[Our Organization] is waiting for the reintegration plan from the Bureau. We try to follow up with them, but the information we receive . . . keeps changing. So okay, it is now about 6 months or 7 months already. So I say, “Okay may I talk to [the victim] directly?” I contact her directly, and then she says, “Hey, I have been waiting for nearly 6 months. Nothing is happening to me. Are you offering to really help me?”

Here, Lawan revealed her frustration with the slow and often stalled process of assisting female migrant laborers detained in the IDC. “Victims” are subjected to long waits and slippery communication mishaps, in which information often gets lost or blatantly skewed. Months may go by, she revealed, before cases are processed. This struck me as a clear power moment. Lawan’s depiction of the IDC illuminated that while anti-​trafficking policymakers continue to fund brothel raids, virtually no support is given to the supposed victims of trafficking once they are “rescued.”

F i n di n g t h e  S t or y  [ 139 ]

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Another interview with American male employee Brian reinforced this grim reality. Recalling a court case involving the fate of Burmese trafficking victims who had been working in a shrimp factory, Brian described the deplorable conditions faced by migrants in the same IDC: Some (of these) victims were clearly humiliated. There were twenty sitting in Baan Gretegarn shelters for weeks and months. The prosecutor didn’t trust the police investigator, so I recommended they do a deposition—​a pre-​trial hearing in front of a judge. Meanwhile, the victims are held prisoner at the shelter.

Brian explained that these detainees were treated as virtual prisoners in the shelters of Thailand’s IDC. He described the humiliation they endured, and the lengthy pretrial process that kept them locked up for months at a time. This reality, often overlooked by anti-​trafficking policymakers, demands our attention. Brian articulated that the rights of migrants held in detention were being violated in the name of combating trafficking. These examples of the problems that accompanied detention were already enough to spark my creative process of dramatizing the IDC. But it was my interview with the sex worker’s rights union employee, Roseanne, which most clearly illuminated the troubling fate of migrant sex workers in this environment. Roseanne described the case of a woman who, at the time of the interview, had been held in detention for 18 months. The government had tried to determine the woman’s age by using what Roseanne referred to as the “teeth and bone” method: a process by which the gums are scraped to verify a trafficking victim’s age. Roseanne explained that a ruling by the European Commission had, however, determined this method to be invalid. “Even U.S. immigration doesn’t use it,” she noted. Nevertheless, she went on, in Thailand the method is still in use. Roseanne then described a preferred method for determining a woman’s age: “Bring someone in from the same ethnic group,” she suggested. “Let them spend a week talking to the woman. They can tell her age. But these women are still locked up. They caught a guy who they think is the trafficker, [but] they won’t release them. One woman was pregnant and gave birth in detention,” she added, recalling the fate of a migrant caught in a similar circumstance. Having now heard from multiple sources about the fate of migrant women in Thailand’s IDC, I attempted to visit Baan Gretegarn myself. I received a referral to a social worker at the Department of Social Development and Welfare (DSDW), Thailand’s government-​run social services sector. After contacting her by phone, I was instructed to send my request via email and fax. After doing so, I waited for a response—​but none came. In attempting to follow up on the conversation with a phone call, I was left on hold for a lengthy period of time before being told that my contact was no longer available to speak with me. Accessing Baan Gretegarn became a dead end. In continuing to probe the question of what conditions were like in the shelter, I  attended an anti-​trafficking NGO training in Bangkok wherein a group of Thai, Laotian, and Khmer NGO practitioners was invited to a lecture given by Thailand’s [ 140 ]  The Creative Phase

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immigration police. The Powerpoint presentation accompanying this lecture showed (to my personal horror) photos from a detention center in Bangkok in which proud Thai immigration officers lorded over groveling Burmese migrants. The photos depicted migrants sitting and lying on cell floors, crowded together uncomfortably. Many of the men were shirtless and many of the women held babies in their arms. During the presentation, the immigration officers explained that Thailand’s anti-​trafficking policy was created in order to rid Thailand of “illegal migrants”: to essentially “clean up” the country. No apologies were made for this policy, which was blatantly touted as a strategy to curb immigration, rather than to help those suffering from abuse. Frustrated by my inability to access the IDC, I later asked a Thai NGO employee at a different organization—​I call her “Wattana”—​why my obtaining access was becoming such a challenge. “You are farang. A foreigner,” she said bluntly. “You will never be allowed into Baan Gretregarn. It is forbidden.” This explanation by Wattana, pointing to my problematic status as a foreigner, further cemented the dramatic potential of the IDC. Following these interviews, I knew I would need to dramatize this secret location, which stood as a symbol of Thailand’s national pride, while paradoxically being kept hidden from the prying eyes of “outsiders.” Given the limitations, I  realized that I  would have to use my imagination to dramatize this setting. Based on the harrowing responses of these interviewees, I decided to make the IDC the site where the action between Lipoh and Emma would take place.

Dramatizing Thailand’s Weak Anti-​t rafficking Policies

Another prominent theme that emerged in the original interviews had to do with the complexity of Thailand’s anti-​trafficking policy and the way in which government, police, and NGOs collaborate—​or fail to collaborate—​around its implementation. My interview with Brian, who we recall (from ­chapter 4) had been hired to train Thai police in anti-​trafficking protocol, brought this point to the fore. Brian had explained: In Thailand, there’s a lack of rigorous application of facts to elements. Prosecutors claim they’re too busy to focus on trafficking cases. They don't see it as their role to maintain contact with victims, (get their) needs taken care of, prepare them to testify. And the reason they don't do it is because they don't see it as their responsibility to do it. They say they’re “overburdened.” There’s a disconnect between police and prosecutors—​they don’t cooperate, or talk to each other.

Elaborating, Brian explained, “The police don’t do things in a timely way. They’re ‘overworked,’ ” he said, gesturing with air quotes. “There’s a hasty decision, no discussion about how to deal with the victim. There’s none of that. It’s disconnected work.” “What about convictions?” I asked. F i n di n g t h e  S t or y  [ 141 ]

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“Thailand is the key country” in the broader regional anti-​trafficking movement, he explained. “This is where the crimes occur, where the big operations are taking place. You’d expect [Thailand] to be a leader, but they’re not. They’re not at all. They haven’t developed special prosecutor’s units—​though they say they’re receptive to it at a high level.” I then asked Brian why he thought there had been so much resistance to change. “Turf,” he said plainly. “People have jobs and systems in place—​who’s gonna have power if there’s a change? There’s also institutional friction between prosecutors and judges,” he went on. “Distrust between prosecutors and police. Resource issues. Genuine concerns about putting money into trafficking, when there are so many other pressing issues to be dealt with. I keep saying this to [The Organization]: ‘Trafficking is not the only crime in the world. Get real.’ The Thai government’s resources are very short.” In my analytic memos that accompanied this interview, I  noted that this respondent seemed to be saying that the Thai government feels as if it’s being compelled by the West to adhere to and implement new anti-​trafficking policies, but that Thai officials themselves are not convinced that these measures warranted their attention. As I discussed in ­chapter 2, a primary reason for why anti-​trafficking policy has been met with resistance from Thai officials (as well as the Thai public), has to do with the nation-​building project that relies on neoliberal economic structures in which labor exploitation (as well as the sex industry) is needed for its maintenance. Human rights paradigms, as Western constructs, are not embraced by the Thai government in ways congruent with their conceptualization in the United States. The common sense, practical analysis offered by Brian as to the discrepancies between Western organizations’ expectations around anti-​trafficking and the Thai government’s slow responses illuminated the inherent fallacy in making assumptions about the universal acceptance of human rights. Brian suggested that it was personal gain, not ideology that drove actions in Thailand’s legal system. Any Western organization or government that failed to see this would be wasting their efforts. I drew on this conversation about the complex relationship between Thailand and the United States around anti-​trafficking policy, and the resistance of Thai law enforcement to tackling the problem, to dramatize the relationship between Emma and Lewelyn. This relationship would provide exposition about these dynamics, so that the audience could better understand them. Specifically, I created conversations between these characters focusing on Thailand’s status in the TIP Report and the pressure the country was under to bolster that status. Additionally, I noted that presenting a fuller picture of the complex anti-​trafficking landscape in Thailand would require illustrating the cultural underpinnings of the disparity between the Western policy mandate and Thailand’s lackadaisical response. Doing so would require showing that Thailand, in essence, resists much of the Western human rights rhetoric used to support anti-​trafficking efforts. I considered several ways of dramatizing the complicated relationship between Thailand and the United States, but ultimately decided to explicate it through the critical stance of the Thai character, Achara. In a scene that takes place late in the play in the office of Lighthouse, Emma challenges Achara, suggesting (for the first [ 142 ]  The Creative Phase

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time) that the NGO’s anti-​trafficking efforts are misguided. Emma, having just discovered the Women Power Bar, has learned that while sex trafficking is “real,” much of the horrors of the trade (in children) take place in Bangkok’s Pat Pong district—​a place, according to members of the Bar, that is “run by powerful Thai family. No one can raid bar Karaoke down there.” As Mae, the bartender explained to Emma, “No matter how many bars you raid, or how many people you lock up, you will never save the ones who are truly suffering” (Land of Smiles, Act Two, Scene Five). Realizing that corruption complicates Thailand’s anti-​ trafficking landscape, Emma challenges Achara’s insistence that the NGO is equipped to tackle the root of the problem: EMMA (to Achara) Have you heard of a place in Bangkok called Pat Pong? ACHARA Many tourists go there. EMMA Do you ever raid the bars there? I heard it’s really bad for trafficking. Little girls. ACHARA Some groups have tried, but it is difficult. The police are corrupt. EMMA In America that kind of thing would be all over the front pages. ACHARA We are solving the problem one victim at a time. EMMA By arresting Lipoh? ACHARA By finding the criminals responsible. Emma continues to press Achara, provoking her into a conversation about the misguided attempts of the NGO. Finally, Achara snaps back: ACHARA This job is not easy. We have seen many caseworkers come and go. EMMA I didn’t expect it to be easy. I’m ok with not easy. I  just can’t make sense of anything here! ACHARA You Americans. You think everything is black or white, good, bad, moral, immoral. You come here to Thailand and you think that if you help us build roads, F i n di n g t h e  S t or y  [ 143 ]

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and businesses and policies, we will suddenly become just like you. You do not think we see how hopeful it makes you? Believing that each of us has a little American hidden inside them, just waiting to pop out? But as hard as you try, you can never find that little American. And it makes you crazy. Don’t try to understand us. Just help us follow the law.

Emma begins this scene believing she holds the power in the conversation with Achara, and that her rationale for pressing Achara on the policies adopted by the NGO is sound. When Emma probes too deeply, however, Achara retaliates, delivering a monologue about the discrepancies between U.S. and Thai visions of human rights. In this monologue, Achara articulates in no uncertain terms that the differences between Thai and U.S.  conceptions of human rights are rooted in culture. Emma realizes that her own ideology—​her assumptions about the universal value of human rights—​is not shared by all anti-​trafficking advocates. As in other scenes throughout the musical, here Emma undergoes a rupture—​a change in consciousness that forces her to let go of old ideas, and embrace the liminal space of the unknown. Drawing on my interview data, I used this scene to dramatize the complex relationship between Thailand and the United States, showing how the ideological assumptions of Western human rights advocates are not always necessarily shared by their Thai counterparts, as well as the fallout that can occur when a Western advocate comes to understand this complexity.

WHERE RESEARCH MEETS ART Engaging Boundaries

Where do the boundaries between theater and research meet? Where is the discerning line between the fictitious and the real? And is it theater’s job to expose this line, or to blur it? Numerous scholars studying research-​ based theater have contributed their thoughts to this conversation. Some claim that the purpose of all theater is to “reflect our lives back to us in order that we may see ourselves more clearly” (Beck, Belliveau, Lea, & Wager, 2011: 688). Others suggest that we do this by “objectively” presenting research in aesthetically viable ways (Pollack, 2006). And still others believe that research and creative practice should be teased out and done by separate practitioners, so as not to problematically blend the contours of scholarship and art (Saldana, 2003). I challenge these notions, and the premise of the artist-​researcher binary. Rather than thinking in terms of this binary, I suggest that the question at hand is this: What frame should we put around a research process that is designed to intersect with creative practice? How should we view data and its intelligent counterpart, the imagination? The process of dramatizing power moments reveals that qualitative research, much like dramatic writing, contains within it a natural story. It is the task of the artist to find this story within data; to sift through the information that is most [ 144 ]  The Creative Phase

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meaningful, relevant, and dramatically vivid. These two worlds are not, in fact, opposed in some binary. On the contrary, they are intimately fused. The task of dramatic writers and artists who are also researchers is to learn how to go more deeply into field data, to be patient enough to do this in a rigorous way, and to conduct a meaningful and powerful analysis, which they must then transform into creative work. Artists and researchers, then, do not have to be separate entities. In fact, they can be one and the same, performing the task of unearthing the “real” and transforming it into the “imaginary,” from which they then, in turn, unearth more “real” discoveries. Fundamentally, this praxis involves reframing the goals and philosophical tenets of research, and eliminating the positivist frame that has characterized it throughout the history of the social sciences.

Engaging Dramatic License

Another question that lingers in this conversation about the transformation of the “real” into the “imaginary” and then back again involves the issue of dramatic license. An excerpt from my field notes taken after completing the fourth draft of the musical illuminates my own process of grappling with this issue. I noted: What I have found is that new information was discovered through my dramatic process. In other words, I  took creative license and “made stuff up,” and in doing so, unearthed new findings. This is the most compelling space, the place worth interrogating. Not so much the question of “how true do we have to be to our data,” as Beck and others are asking—​though of course this is an important question in the beginning of the dramatic process—​but rather, how, when a writer finds what Braun calls “the natural story,” the questions become much more murky, and the limits of the traditional research process start to reveal themselves. I draw on two examples: 1) First, the issue that there really are Kachin sex workers. What it took to unearth this “finding” was immense, because of the fact that the Kachin women (who are my community partners) don’t want to admit that any of them are sex workers. And yet here I went and created a show about a Kachin sex worker, mostly in order to serve the convenience of the dramatic narrative. But what happened was very unexpected. . . . . “Moon Jan” and I had all this discussion, all this back and forth; they [the women at the CBO] read the script, and finally, we had the conversation that I’d/​they’d been skirting around, and when the rubber really hit the road she admitted that yes, this story line is completely plausible because there are Kachin women working as prostitutes in Thailand. 2) In tandem with this conversation, a new article came out in the Bangkok Post just a few months ago that documented abuses taking place at the IDC and how two underage girls, called “trafficking victims,” attempted to escape. The article described, in eerie detail, the death of these two teenage girls from Burma who had fled and tried to cross the river. Now the river meant death, silence, the oppression of the nation—​the polarity of what it stood for in the show, and, in this very F i n di n g t h e  S t or y  [ 145 ]

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tragically real story, provided an answer to the question posed at the very end of my fictional story: “What will happen to Lipoh when she tries to cross the river?” And there it was, already in the narrative of the show. Front and center—​as if it had been waiting to come to light. This example demonstrates that there is something in the unconsciously produced dramatic narrative worth investigating. Perhaps the “natural story” of the dramatic narrative can actually guide our questions, help us trace our interrogations, provide a compass for us, as grounded theory researchers, to follow. These stories have their own logic. It is a logic worth listening to as we seek to make new discoveries about the world. (Kamler field notes, May, 2013)

As my notes reflect, in developing the script for Land of Smiles, life and art merged in a deeply interconnected way in the interplay between the dramatic, natural story and real events that unfolded after the dramatic story was created. Identifying power moments—​that is, palpably important, meaningful tensions that emerged from the research findings to aid the dramatic content—​became a key part of the script development process. Subsequently, the natural stories that unfolded in the dramatic writing process itself led, quite amazingly at times, to further revelations about the original research inquiry. This reflexive process is what characterizes DAR as a unique praxis sitting at the intersections of different ways of “knowing.”

Stories have lives. Creative work does not exist in order to project meaning onto the world but, rather, is unearthed, emerging out of a need for the unspoken to reveal itself. Just as research data exists, and is waiting to be discovered, the dramatic story is already there, waiting to be told. This process of discovery underscores DAR’s goal of “recovery”—​a restoration of the experiences of community members whose voices have been uncovered through fieldwork and are waiting to be more fully articulated. Phase Two, the creative phase, asks that we take these voices into a new realm and transform them into an expressive narrative arc. Building on this arc, and the characters that frame it, we now turn to the final piece of the creative phase of the DAR praxis:  the embodiment of characters and story through an actor’s engagement with the creative material itself—​that electric moment when a musical finally begins to live and breathe.

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CHAPTER 8

Embodiment Throughout the world, transfusions of poetic language can and do quite literally keep bodies and souls together—​and more. —​Adrienne Rich (2006)

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he door opened and Melody Butiu walked in, poised and professional, with an air of grace that changed the feeling in the room. The studio, all high ceilings and industrial beams, was lit by the afternoon sun—​that glaring Los Angeles light showering brightly over the bricks, making us squint. I sat at the piano and Melody stood at the music stand. We barely exchanged conversation. I leaned in and played the first low, steady base notes, followed by a delicate treble motif. Melody stood tall, and reached with her gaze through the room to a place I couldn’t see but found myself instantly able to picture. In seconds, she became a rebel fighter, haunted by a past that she could not ignore. Taking a deep breath, Soon Nu began to sing: KACHIN WOMEN ARE PROUD AND STRONG AND LONGING TO BE FREE KACHIN WOMEN ARE ALL LIKE ME MADE FROM THE CLOTH OF DUST AND BONES AND SOIL AND STONES WE LONG TO BE FREE WE LONG TO BE FREE Amanda Kruger fluttered in and made a beeline for the music stand, as if taking her time to cross through the studio might somehow damage her concentration and impede her chances of doing her best. She stood at the stand, took a quick sip of water, and smiled nervously. Then she asked to use the bathroom. We waited. She hurried back in, stood at the stand again and breathed. Ready. I sat at the piano and began to play. With hope and determination lighting up her eyes, Emma Gable sang:

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EMMA EMMA GABLE ALL I WANTED WAS TO SAVE THE WORLD EMMA STRONG AND ABLE I AM SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST A GIRL Jennie Kwan is a careful actress who learns her part through intense, thorough study, discovering a character’s world from the outside in. We watched as she stood at the music stand in measured concentration, her body gradually transforming from worldly TV star into a frail, 16-​year-​old Kachin girl. Trapped in the cold, dark IDC, clinging to the memory of jungles, mountains, and the great mother river that she would have to somehow cross in order to find her way home, the brave, reverent Lipoh began to sing: I KNOW YOU’RE WAITING I KNOW YOU’RE PRAYING HOME IS THE LOVE YOU GAVE ME AND ONE THING’S TRUE I’LL COME BACK HOME TO YOU HOME TO YOU HOME TO YOU HOME, HOME TO YOU

There is something profound that happens when an actor breathes life into a character, and when the character, in turn, begins to inhabit the actor. Performance is perhaps one of the most literal expressions of liminality we may ever find. This space of embodiment, when done well, evokes more than empathy; it demonstrates the almost impossible feat of knowing another person’s lived experience enough to communicate it effectively, in a way that changes not only the audience, but also the artist herself. Of course, the actor’s job is to act—​not to truly embody or to even to know the character she is playing. But in the “act of acting,” the actor finds a character’s experience—​she recovers it, and brings it from a place of stasis to a place of life. Like the researcher, the goal of the artist is to unearth and communicate knowledge. In the case of theater, which requires the body as a means for that communication, that knowledge is situated, positional, not in any way abstract. In this way, acting becomes a vehicle for a feminist epistemological understanding of the world. In this chapter, I  depart from talking about the construction of the script and score to look at embodiment—​the part of the dramatic process in which actors breathe life into characters, and how, through this breathing and this living, a new layer of reflexivity between research and creative practice is uncovered. I suggest that the liminal act of embodying a character can evoke new questions and lead to the

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discovery of new epistemological frameworks in research. Discussing the auditions, rehearsals, and first staged readings, or presentations of the musical, I  will show how the liveness of these collaborative processes served as a way of recovering experience—​that is, reclaiming it, and taking its meaning to a new level. I do this by focusing on a new group of participants—​the actors—​who brought their own experiences and engagement to the process. Here is where we see the DAR praxis begin to develop multiple dimensions. It was not only what became known that this process of embodiment unearthed, but in addition, how new information can be known. In the previous chapters I showed how character building, script development, and research form co-​constitutive processes. Embodiment, though, is where the rubber hits the road.

THE PURPOSE OF STAGED READINGS

First, let me set the stage. In most professional theatrical development processes, a new work is first performed in what’s known as a “staged reading”—​a bare-​bones presentation of the piece, minus costumes, sets, lights, and other production elements that “polish” the performance. Going without these elements is done deliberately, as the goal of staged readings is to hear the way the piece is written without the distraction of these external elements. This is how we can know, as playwrights, composers, dramaturges, directors and producers, whether a musical holds together dramatically, whether and how it moves an audience, and whether it “has legs.” Embodiment is the framework for this knowing. The first reading of Land of Smiles took place September 2012, in a 99-​seat theater space in Santa Monica, California. Six female actors (four Asian American and two Caucasian) played the roles of the American, Thai, and Kachin characters.1 The reading was directed by writer-​director Ted Braun, and produced by Rick Culbertson and Gregory Franklin. I  directed the music and accompanied the singers on the piano. The reading was attended by approximately a hundred audience members, most of whom worked in the entertainment industry and in higher education. The second reading took place in February 2013, at a University of Sothern California conference, From Prosecution to Empowerment: Fighting Trafficking and Promoting the Rights of Migrants, which was sponsored by the USC Center for Feminist Research, the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, and the USC Department of Sociology. This reading was attended by two hundred members of the USC community and the general public. In this chapter I will discuss three key elements that make up any staged reading process: the auditions, the rehearsals, and the performances themselves. Looking at the context of Land of Smiles, I’ll show how each of these processes, relying upon the actors’ own live, embodied engagement, inform new ways of knowing. I’ll consider the restoration of experience through the body, learning through liminality, and collaborative discovery. Finally, I’ll talk about some of the concrete research questions that unfolded through the staged reading process. E m b o di m e n t  [ 149 ]

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RESTORING EXPERIENCE THROUGH EMBODIMENT: THE AUDITION PROCESS

The auditions for the first reading marked an important launching point for Land of Smiles. Actors were asked to come prepared to sing a song and read from one or two scenes from the musical. As the author, I would hear my words and music performed for the first time.2 Dialogue and music, as live artistic mediums, come to life when they are performed. They are not the random products of a sole individual artist, but the combination of the “materials, methods and theoretical ideas and paradigms” that contribute to the creation of creative work (Barrett & Bolt, 2010: 138). Here is where the actor emerges as a central figure in the DAR praxis. Unlike reading a script on a page or listening to a recording, in live performance the full thrust of a character—​who she is, what she wants—​comes springing into being through the body of the actor. Lyrics that may have taken on one meaning while on the page are suddenly colored by new layers of meaning when expressed by an actor who brings her own history, emotions, and understanding to the process. As Conquergood (1991) explained: The performance paradigm privileges particular, participatory, dynamic, intimate, precarious, embodied experience grounded in historical process, contingency, and ideology. . . . Performance centered research takes as both its subject matter and method the experiencing body situated in time, place, and history (p. 187).

The power of this “experiencing body” was most elegantly exemplified by actor Melody Butiu in her audition for the role of Soon Nu. As I described earlier, Butiu sang the song “Kachin Women Are Proud and Strong” (or, “Kachin Women”) while I  accompanied her on the piano. This song is sung by Soon Nu, Lipoh’s “auntie” who guides Lipoh on her journey across the river into Thailand, finds her a job as a domestic worker, and ultimately encourages her to work in the Kachin brothel in Chiang Rai, where she will be able to send money home to her mother. As this backstory is revealed, the audience learns that Soon Nu is also a combatant, running money and arms across the Thai-​Burma border—​money earned by other Kachin sex workers and sent back to fund the army. As a stand-​alone song, “Kachin Women” depicts Soon Nu’s life before she became an activist and combatant. Once a happy young woman growing up in the remote hills of Kachin State, her life abruptly transformed when her village was invaded by the Burmese army on the day she turned 16. The song depicts the army slaughtering her family, destroying homes, and burning her village to the ground. Soon Nu fled to the jungle and ultimately made her way to a refugee camp on the Thai side of the border. There, she learned that she was no longer a citizen, a person with rights and a name. Instead, she was treated like a “ghost.” The song chronicles Soon Nu’s response to this devastation. In the camp, she met other activist women who were planning to secretly return to Burma and fight the junta on their own terms. Soon Nu decided to go with them—​a decision that changed her forever. [ 150 ]  The Creative Phase

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I wrote “Kachin Women” as a “journey” song, as a way of encouraging the audience to experience Soon Nu’s transformation from innocent village girl to military combatant—​a “woman with no name.” But I had not yet heard the song performed until Butiu’s audition. In the room, Butiu quite literally captured the song, embodying every aspect of Soon Nu’s character as she lived through these transformative events. While accompanying her at the piano, I was moved to tears. The feeling I had was a mixture of catharsis and relief—​catharsis that Soon Nu’s emotional journey had come through in the creative material (i.e., the music and lyrics), and relief that I had been able to transfer the enormity of the emotional content of that journey onto the shoulders of someone else. The job of the actor, after all, is to hold such emotional content, embodying the writer’s message and in so doing, transforming it fundamentally from an ethereal nature into a physical manifestation (Krywotz, 2011). Butiu accomplished this in her audition as she gave life to the song. Artists know that our role is not merely one of deconstruction. Rather, we are tasked with—​if not consumed by—​the need to “put reality back together” (Carter, 2010: 16). This is how the artist transforms the world around her. Butiu’s audition sparked this generative process, allowing something new and alive to form from something that had been full of possibility, but had, up to that moment, still been static. What can be learned from Butiu’s “putting the world back together” through embodying Soon Nu? I suggest that the DAR paradigm helps us interrogate not only the necessary physical manifestations of invention, but also the ethereal, cognitive, and energetic elements that contribute to the creative process. Through embodying the character Soon Nu, and allowing Soon Nu to embody her, Butiu took this character and her complex dimensions to a new level. It was through this process that the lived experiences of the characters that informed the creation of Soon Nu were restored. Lived experience was once again evoked—​not only as a historical “map” informing the construction of the fictional Soon Nu, but in actual real time as Butiu “re-​lived” Soon Nu’s experience. Layers of time, place, memory, and empathy intersected in the audition process, evoking new frameworks about “how we can know” the experience of another. Through the embodied nature of the audition process, restoration of experience through character became a new epistemological framework for engaging with the subject of the research itself.

LEARNING THROUGH LIMINALITY: THE REHEARSAL PROCESS

Rehearsals for each staged reading of Land of Smiles took place at producer Rick Culbertson and my studio in downtown Los Angeles. As our production team followed the Actor’s Equity union performance guidelines, the rehearsal process was limited to 25 hours in total. Music rehearsals and acting rehearsals were scheduled according to actor availability, with each song given approximately an hour of rehearsal time while longer amounts of time were given to scenes. While I  led the music rehearsals, Ted Braun was tasked with directing the actors. This process was extremely valuable for me as a dramatist, as it allowed me to observe, from a distance, E m b o di m e n t  [ 151 ]

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the way the actors related to their characters and the intentions of the scenes. When a line seemed out of place, or needed clarification, Braun and I would pause the rehearsal process and discuss the beat, or moment, in the scene. This allowed me to make dramaturgical fixes and clarifications on the spot. At times, the music, too, needed modification, in order to evoke a more appropriate dramatic tone or feeling. As an embodied process, the rehearsals evoked aspects of liminality. The actors engaged liminal processes in several ways. One such notable way was in their relationship with the music itself. Following one of the rehearsals, I reflected on the way director Ted Braun asked the actors to engage this relationship: There was a moment when Braun was working acting beats in the songs when he explicitly told the actors to "go against the pull of the music," dramatically. As in, “don't play into the raw emotion of the music.” At first that raised a red flag for me. Why go against the music? But then I realized that when I sing the demos, I do just that—​try to “hold” the strength of the character in the face of the music—​as if the music is the bed, but the character is laying in that bed—​a different entity, experiencing a different journey. There's something there—​about the journeys of the characters having a layer of depth that is not just in the text of the words or in the "text" of the music. These texts are perhaps the languages the characters speak, but there's more going on underneath the medium of that language (Kamler field notes, September 16, 2012).

Here, I  described Braun’s instruction to the actors to move between various levels of character embodiment as they worked on the music of the show. While the parameters of any script and score require actors to communicate the text of music and lyrics, Braun asked them to go beyond this. His instruction engaged another layer of meaning through working with the subtext—​what was hidden beneath the text of both the words and music I had written. This process of engaging subtext, of discovering other layers of meaning inside a creative work, evokes the liminal process of pushing back against inscriptions of power—​a process that happens in the physical body, rather than through abstract thought (Anzaldua, 1987). Engaging liminality through subtext also provides an inroad to research, in that it allows for actors to unearth knowledge that may not have been expressed or seen—​even by the playwright or composer themselves. In other words, through the live, embodied process of rehearsal, the actor is responsible for generating new knowledge about the characters, plot, and themes that the musical conveys. Such knowledge frames evoked through subtext can then lead to new questions about the research subject itself. Liminality can also be used as a way of responding to the problematic epistemological positivist research tradition. In contrast to positivist epistemologies, which see knowledge generation as a linear process whose contours are rigidly defined, the liminal space is characterized by “surprising insights that erupt spontaneously” (Shulman, personal communication, 2011). By inhabiting multiple worlds at the same time and allowing knowledge of these worlds to be expressed freely, the actors engaged in deeper ways of knowing their characters-​as-​subjects. Through the [ 152 ]  The Creative Phase

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embodied rehearsal process, liminality became a new epistemological framework for engaging with the research itself.

COLLABORATIVE DISCOVERY: THE PERFORMANCE PROCESS

Staged readings are messy, fragile aspects of the theatrical development process. They represent the first major step in the concretization—​or materialization—​of a new work. What was before only an abstraction—​words and songs written on paper, often only performed in the mind of the composer and playwright, now become more realized through the actor’s engagement with that material in front of a live audience. Without this human connection, musicals are not alive. We may even say that they are less alive than other art forms such as the novel, the poem, or the recorded song, simply because they cannot exist until they are performed by actors and witnessed by an audience. Yet staged readings are not the same as fully realized productions. They are, rather, designed to evoke future possibilities without relying on a complete manifestation of production elements. As such, they are meant to be inherently incomplete. The purpose of staged readings is to keep an audience, to the greatest extent possible, focused on the script and score itself while engaging imaginatively in the vision of the full production. Staged readings, then, are deliberately liminal modalities of communicating an artistic work. During the two staged readings of Land of Smiles (see Image 8.1) six actors stood at music stands and followed their scripts and scores throughout the piece. In place of character-​specific costumes they wore all black, with Woman One and Woman Two incorporating minimal costume pieces (such as a scarf for Mama X and a hat for the IDC Guard) that reflected their numerous changes in character. This was done so that the audience, who did not have the benefit of being able to follow visual cues such as lighting and set design, would be able to stay oriented around the action of the story. To further assist this process, a “reader” sat to one side of the actors. Her job was to read the stage directions that described the action of the piece, so that the audience could imagine the physical show as it might unfold in a fully realized production. The staged readings of Land of Smiles relied on the three-​way dynamic interplay among actors, audience, and creative team—​the latter including myself as artist-​ researcher—​to communicate the creative material in an embodied way that would generate an equally embodied act of reception on the part of the audience. As such, they reflected the temporally bound and collaborative nature of the performance process. While an assumption exists in the contemporary West that artistic work is rooted in the achievements of “individual genius,” this romantic image of the artist as a lone outsider, an individual constantly innovating, is in fact flawed (Gross, 2011). Rather, as I’ve pointed out before, collective experience is what constitutes the making of art, both in the process of its creation and its reception. Musical theater is not individually constructed but comes into being through collaboration. The consciousness of actors, the awareness of the playwright in response to E m b o di m e n t  [ 153 ]

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Image 8.1:  Original cast and creative team of Land of Smiles (formerly Survive), Santa Monica, CA, September 2012. From left:  Jennie Kwan, Gregory Franklin, Kerri-​Anne Lavin, Erin Kamler, Melody Butiu, Ted Braun, Katy Tang, Joan Almadilla, Lowe Taylor. (Photo credit: Rick Culbertson).

the actors’ discoveries, and the audiences’ reactions to the creative material and the performance of that material all constitute the collaborative nature of this practice. A dynamic process of shifting consciousness is at play within the creative process. Harnessing this process is a practice, because it requires participants to let go and embrace the collaborative efforts of the group, rather than the isolated efforts of an individual. My field notes following the first staged reading of the musical demonstrate this process of letting go: I feel like we're in a new moment now, after the piece was first read. . . . It's the creative moment that's shifted. There's something interesting about this interplay between the creative path and the unearthing of material, and how the consciousness of the artist/​researcher intersects (or is ahead of?) the audience, and how the audience in some ways is a step ahead of the artist/​researcher, because they do work too. They piece things together in ways that are palatable. They want more humor [in a future revision of the work], for instance. Well, that entails getting a lot darker with the material, less earnest. That means going further into the cynicism about the world [of the anti-​trafficking movement], which in turn means presenting the discovery of the cynicism in a more immediate and more complex way, making that discovery smarter. And that was a demand from the audience. So you really have to

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think about the interplay between everyone in this work. The moment shifts, the consciousness of the artist shifts, the audiences' consciousness shifts, and together these inform the new draft. No one is alone. There are no creative islands in this practice. (Kamler field notes, November 6, 2012)

In these notes, I reflected on how the collaborative production process mirrors and reveals the production of the researcher-​as-​subject. Through not only writing and rehearsing the musical, but also rehearsing with actors and experiencing the performance in the room with and in front of the audience, I became aware that all of these participants are, in fact, also participants in the research process. Our collective experience of the artistic work informs new knowledge. It is not merely the performers’ emotional experiences, or those of the audience that inform knowledge about the research; rather, knowledge is unearthed in the shared process of the performance. Through the embodied performance process, then, collaborative discovery became a new epistemological framework for engaging with the research.

POST-​P ERFORMANCE REFLECTIONS AND THE “LOGIC OF KNOWING”

From the standpoint of DAR, how does the process of reading a musical inform new ways of viewing and understanding the subjects of research? Unlike other methodologies, the DAR approach, as an applied praxis that blends the embodied language of creative practice with the analytical language of social science, allows for unpredictability of outcomes, and locates questions of knowing in the dramatic process. Theater and performance serve as tools to “open up” true events, experiences and processes (i.e., research subjects) to a particular kind of scrutiny by placing such events in the “flexible time” of the liminal performance space (Turner, 1974). This space is “utopian,” for it allows us to “experiment with the possibilities of the future in ways that shine back usefully on a present that’s always, itself, in process” (Dolan, 2005: 13). Theater also has the potential to help us revisit research questions, allowing the logic of dramatic narrative to inform “streams of thought” that influence further research questions and projects.3 This process relies on the ability of dramatization to transform “fixed” concepts into multiplicities of meaning. Through participating in the storytelling process we may begin to view meanings from multiple sides and through multiple lenses, reframe our perspective on issues, and discover new insights where none had existed before. This is because stories have their own logic. We are programmed to find meaning within them. Stories evoke, in a visceral rather than analytical way, the unconscious coming to light, as the “hero” searches for renewal (Campbell, 1949: 11). In the DAR praxis, events, ideas, and datapoints that may otherwise seem arbitrary or ambiguous suddenly begin to take on cohesion, and a logic emerges where none previously existed.

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In addition to opening up new epistemological frameworks, the staged readings also helped shed light on new insights related to the subject matter of the initial field research. One example of this can be seen in the way the dramatic logic of the musical’s story informed new questions about the role of Kachin sex workers in the KIA resistance. The story explores the connection between Kachin migrants who use their remittances from precarious labor in Thailand as a means of funding the (fictional) KDF. Through the story of Land of Smiles, and particularly through Lipoh and Soon Nu’s stories, we learn about the KDF’s decades-​long struggle against the Burmese military, and the atrocities that have been committed against Kachin civilians as a result. In the dramatic narrative, I chose to merge the stories of several Kachin female migrant laborers, who were not working in the sex industry, with the experiences of Akha female migrant laborers who were working in the sex industry. While one group was funding an army, the other was sending their remittances home to their families. For the purposes of the dramatic narrative, though, I collapsed these experiences—​creating Kachin sex worker characters who used their earnings to fund the ethnic armed resistance. This dramatic choice allowed me to tell a more complex story dealing with the structural conditions that underlie multiple circumstances of migration from Burma into Thailand. Following the first staged reading of the piece, this narrative choice yielded a surprising discovery: Yesterday, Braun and I  were talking about bringing the show to Thailand and performing it for the people whom it's about:  The real Lewelyn, Achara, and the Kachin women. And, Braun added, the Akha sex workers who I had interviewed. In mentioning the Akha, Braun reminded me that I had made a dramatic connection between the Akha sex workers and the Kachin combatants—​in essence, fusing their experiences to serve and simplify the story narrative. I commented that yes, that connection was part of my dramatic license. But then, I thought, what an interesting thing to look at when I go back to Thailand in December. Maybe there are Kachin prostitutes fueling the KIA? Are there? If so, where are they? How do they function? This might be the subject of another research project. (Kamler field notes, September 29, 2012)

These notes illuminate the way the staged readings led to further questions about women’s roles in the Kachin Independence Army—​a subject of a potential future project. While such questions were not originally conceived as being part of my study, the narrative logic of the dramatic piece shed light on new possible directions of inquiry. There was a new project at hand, one that could influence our understanding of the Kachin community in Thailand and could inform the Kachin women’s understanding of the KIA military efforts. This information could be useful in supporting the advocacy efforts of Kachin migrants.

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If we want to reshape the contours of a discourse, then uncovering the lived experiences that trouble this discourse is not an endpoint in itself. Rather, it is the first step in a process that calls for another layer of understanding—​a second level of engagement with experience, in order for the meaning of that experience to become clear. I call this the creative phase of the DAR praxis. In the last three chapters, I have shown how the tools of character, theme, plot, and materiality; the process of finding the natural story; and the act of breathing life into a script and score through the actors’ embodied performance serve as a way of recovering the situated knowledge that came to the fore in the initial fieldwork phase. Recovering this knowledge is an inherently healing act, as it allows the “wound” of a trauma to “speak” through the body (Caruth, 1996) as that body tells a story in time and space. Through creative intelligence and the collective process of artistic collaboration, the fragile and seemingly amorphous “lived experience” I have been discussing throughout this book is restored to a state of health. The newly conceived dramatic work, and its embodiment, represents that restoration. There are, however, limitations to the creative phase of DAR. This, again, is why I  am choosing to explicate this praxis chronologically:  to show that these three phases make up a whole, with each building upon the foundation of the one that came before. During the creative phase, the artists were brought into the DAR process, participating in the embodiment of the creative material—​that recovering of knowledge through the use of their bodies in time and space. This, in turn, led to the development of new epistemological frameworks and new ideas about the research subject. But the artists themselves did not undergo a transformation—​a rupture—​in their own experiences. To accomplish this, they would have to travel to Thailand, to not only embody the characters by doing another performance of Land of Smiles, but to also experience that embodiment multidimensionally through engaging with the world of the anti-​trafficking movement itself. Here is where we turn to look at the liberatory essence of DAR. In the chapters that follow, we will explore the third and final phase of this praxis—​what I  call the “articulation” phase—​and its implications on artists, migrants, and anti-​ trafficking advocates in Thailand. Building on the fieldwork and creative phases of the project, the production phase will illuminate the liberatory nature of the DAR praxis, setting it apart from other types of interventions and rights-​witnessing techniques. But before we go on, I invite the reader to pause. Put down the book, go online, and visit www.landofsmilesmusical.net. Enter the password RewritingVictim to access the script and select musical recordings, and engage directly with the piece itself. This will conclude our discussion of Phase Two, in which Land of Smiles was brought to life.

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PART THREE

The Production Phase

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CHAPTER 9

Articulating NGO Narratives I think this is something that is really complicated, and we’re never going to solve it, but it’s great that we can have a discussion about it. What we see in the media, like “Law and Order: SVU’ ”—​the way they show how victims of trafficking are treated in the U.S. compared to what actually happens on the ground. . . . It’s completely ridiculous. So I think it is great to have stories that are a more accurate portrayal of what’s really happening. It’s something I came away with today, that I was really pleased to see. —​NGO Employee, Chiang Mai, Thailand (December 2013)

T

he black-​box style theater in Chiang Mai sat at the back of an old mall called Kad Suan Kaew. It was a vast, cavernous mall of brick and concrete, hollowed-​ out hallways and fluorescent lights; packed, in quintessential Thai-​style, with food stalls and clothing stalls and print shops and one lone elevator that kept breaking down, forcing us to trudge up seven flights of stairs each day carting props, snacks, water, costume pieces, and music books. We forgave Thailand for these things, the cast, crew, and I. We forgave it for being a place where a play has to happen in a mall; where the elevator stops running because of petty politics (the elevator operator, we eventually learned, was in a feud with the mall owner, the latter being a “yellow shirt”—​the Thai royalist faction that had, for years, been embroiled in a bitter battle with the northern “red shirts,” the political group to which the former belonged); we forgave its inconveniences and idiosyncratic quirks. We forgave Thailand for these things because of what it gave us in return: space. A potent space that opened up after each performance, a space in which audience members—​some of them incredibly unlikely bedfellows—​could come together and discuss what they saw. A space for a new community to form.

It is one thing to perform a fictional musical whose story, characters, and themes are far removed from the experiences of anyone in the audience. It is quite another thing to perform a work whose subject matter, characters, and storyline directly

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mirror the experiences of those watching the performance. The third phase of the DAR praxis, the production phase, involves the meeting of these disparate worlds—​ this deliberate merging of the fictitious and the real. I  call this the “articulation” phase, because it is here that the lived experience of all participants is expressed and received through a range of modalities including performance, community engagement, and focus groups. Phase Three is concerned with these articulations, and their implications on the various stakeholders in a given project. This exhilarating (and, at times, terrifying) process marks the final stage of the DAR praxis, and the point at which we can step back and ask: Did it work? This phase involved bringing together a talented and dedicated group of artists from vastly different walks of life. Three Los Angeles-​based actors—​Melody Butiu, Amanda Kruger, and Jennie Kwan—​along with myself, director Rick Culbertson, and Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) practitioner and assistant director Kimiko Warner-​Turner, traveled to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where we joined three Chiang-​ Mai-​based actors—​Ann Fink, Marisa Mour (both Americans), and Yardpirun Poolun (who was Thai). The Chiang-​Mai-​based actors had auditioned for the musical under the guidance of Stephan Turner, artistic director of The Gate Theater Group1 and my co-​producer. Stephan also assembled an enthusiastic crew of European, American, and Thai production staff. Two weeks of focused rehearsals in Los Angeles were followed by two weeks of intense preparations in Chiang Mai. The flurry that marks this period of any theatrical production is always something of a blur—​but in this case the intensity was augmented by the social, cultural, and artistic explorations, challenges, and discoveries that would have to take place quickly in order for the show to be a success. Days were spent not only rehearsing music, scene work, staging, and choreography, but also preparing the Powerpoint presentation that would be mounted against the black backdrop of the stage, showcasing subtitles of the script in three languages (English, Thai, and Burmese); gathering costume pieces from the local Kachin community; and teaching the actors how to speak in Kachin, Thai, and (in the case of Yardpirun, who had only ever performed in Thai) English dialects. The company was also tasked with gathering props, set pieces, and other material elements that would help bring the production to life. Members of a local Kachin CBO, many of whom had participated in my Phase One field interviews, assisted with all this, while also acting as dramaturges, helping me refine various details in the script. To add to this agenda, the cast took part in a Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) workshop alongside members of the CBO, where they learned to engage Boal’s Forum Theater techniques. As we moved through these invigorating and challenging weeks in Chiang Mai, bonds began to form between artists and migrants, and between the world of the show and the “real” world of Thailand that surrounded us on every side. The final section of this book explores these bonds, and the transformations that took place among three groups of participants—​NGO employees, migrants, and artists. The chapters are presented by category:  First, I  look at the narratives of the NGO employees who attended the performances, and show how their participation opened up a space in which the articulation of experience could be both [ 162 ]  The Production Phase

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heard and voiced. I then turn to the narratives of the migrants, exploring how their engagement as audience members fostered the articulation of experience in new and healing ways. Finally, I turn to the narratives of the artists, discussing the profound effects of their participation in the production process. Here we return to the concept of liberation—​that transformed state in which members of a community can at last recognize, take ownership of, and begin to heal the wounds brought on by social catastrophe and collective trauma. In engaging a liberatory process, we also see important movements taking place:  movements from passive bystander to active witness; from recollection to mourning, when the “voice” of trauma is finally allowed to “speak”; and from a state of rupture to one of hospitality—​when one’s jarringly newfound consciousness is met with recognition and acceptance. I explore these processes, passages, and transformations in this chapter. Taking each group in turn, I’ll present the narratives that emerged in the focus group discussions that followed each performance of Land of Smiles, and discuss the ways these narratives demonstrated the five liberatory criteria that we may use to evaluate the impact of a given DAR project.

THE NGO NARRATIVES

After the first performance, when the lights came on and the stage was struck, the NGO employees gathered in a circle in the back of the theater and talked. They were a bit of an unlikely group—​some Western, some Thai, some casually dressed (looking, it could be said, a bit scraggly) and others conspicuously professional, buttoned-​up and pressed. They came from diverse organizations and held an assortment of positions. But the thing that bound them, the thing they knew they shared, was a core belief in social justice—​in righting the wrongs that happen to women throughout the developing world. Some of these employees, though not all, came from organizations I  had visited during Phase One of the project. Let us recall those interviews, and the narrative of “rescue” that they generated. Relying on ideas about cultural difference and “othering” the original employees communicated messages about morality, civility, Thailand’s illegibility, victimization, and rescue. Earlier, I discussed the way the use of these narratives cast the NGO employees as bystanders, unable to critically interrogate their roles in the anti-​trafficking movement. The narratives that emerged in the NGO focus group complicated these earlier messages. Here, I’ll discuss four of these key narratives, their thematic relevance, and their implications on the participants in the NGO focus group. They included: 1. “Sex workers aren’t always victims” (Agency narrative) 2. “Morality is relative” (Moral debate narrative) 3. “Acknowledging my impulse to rescue” (Self-​awareness narrative) 4. “ ‘Othering’ occurs in numerous ways” (Complexity narrative)

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1. “Sex Workers Aren’t Always Victims” (Agency Narrative)

Recall from the Phase One interviews how both Western and Thai NGO employee participants had difficulty reconciling the difference between forced prostitution and consensual sex work. While employees from the sex workers’ union acknowledged the complexity of anti-​trafficking work being situated within the prostitution debate, the other NGO employees I spoke with overwhelmingly reinforced the abolitionist view that sex work is inherently a violation of women’s human rights—​what I’ve called the “victim” narrative. The NGO focus group included participants from organizations supported by USAID and the State Department and thus, aligned with their abolitionist policies, as well as organizations supporting sex workers’ rights. Unlike the original employees, this group presented a very different picture of the victim narrative. Rather than regurgitating the abolitionist trope, several participants instead acknowledged the problematic use of the “victim” label. They engaged what I call the “agency narrative,” suggesting that sex workers’ views of their ability to consent were not necessarily misguided. One example can be seen in the response of a male employee whom I’ll call “Ray.” Here, Ray expressed the need for a more nuanced look at the categories of victim and agent: The voice of the main character, the Kachin woman, was very well drawn and you saw the degree to which, well sure, she was making a choice that she probably wouldn’t have made in other circumstances—​there were lots of difficult things that she had to do, lots of people who were kind of pushing her to do things for them rather than for herself—​but you saw all that, and I think that was very true to life. A lot of times people . . . it’s difficult to use the word “victim” with them but it’s also difficult to use the word “autonomous” and “empowered” or any other things either. They are somewhere in between.

Ray acknowledged the problematic trope of victimhood that typically characterizes anti-​trafficking discourse. In so doing, he questioned the use of this trope—​of regarding female migrant sex workers as non-​agentive—​and asked that we see the experiences of migrants for their complexity and ambiguity. Other employees also expressed this more nuanced perspective. “Anna” recognized that structural processes that informed Lipoh’s migration into Thailand, and the way these processes complicated the question of force verses consent. In locating the “pull factors” that influence migration, Anna questioned the normative assumptions about victimhood that are often made by anti-​trafficking NGOs: I think a lot of people who don’t work in trafficking, or myself before I read anything about trafficking, just . . . You always have this idea like [it’s] this poor victim who’s been kidnapped and ends up in this ring . . . But quite often, I mean, people can sometimes get into something by choice. And they stay in that system because of the choice they made. And I think that the play tries to bring in the “pull factors” that are involved in the situation.

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Responding to Lipoh, the reimagined subject at the heart of Land of Smiles, Anna expressed sympathy for the experiences of migrant women who are often mislabeled as victims, and acknowledged that often, migrants’ actions are more agentive than advocates make them out to be. She engaged self-​reflectively with the dramatic material, noting that the portrayals of sex workers’ victimhood typically espoused by those outside her field are not always congruent with reality. The dramatic piece had exposed a core problem—​that anti-​trafficking advocates (and others) often reinforce flattened portrayals of real women’s experiences. By stepping away from the social world and temporarily visiting the liminal space of the theatrical world, however, these employees were able to critically evaluate the narratives that are commonly adopted by those doing this work. The post-​ performance discussion allowed them to openly express thoughts that might, in another context, be stifled or dismissed due to their need to reinforce their organizations’ priorities. Here, the employees were freed from the burden of upholding these normative tropes. This move from the automatic expression of a normative trope, to a critical evaluation of that trope, has symbolic significance. It marks, for the employees, the passage from being a passive bystander to an active witness. It also illustrates a disruption of spectacularization—​that act of objectifying those caught in a social crisis by viewing them superficially, and in doing so, glossing over Western assumptions, experiences, and prejudices in an attempt to draw conclusions about problems in the developing world. By acknowledging the complexity of the victimhood trope, as well as their own previous uncritical views about trafficking, these employees began to interrogate their own privileged perspectives and locations of power—​a process that, as we’ve seen, is central to the tenets of feminist research.

The Nonparticipation of Sex Workers Union NGO Employees

Despite these achievements, one group remained notably absent from the focus group discussions—​the sex workers union employees. I had extended an invitation to them, hoping they would want to participate in a project that so clearly supported their organizations’ stated aims. Field notes from April 2013 documenting my correspondence with one employee from the Chiang Mai organization (whom I  had interviewed extensively during Phase One), however, revealed that some employees were concerned that their perspectives might not be represented in the musical. Thus, they declined to attend the performance or participate in the NGO focus group. Interestingly, despite their concerns about potentially not being represented, other members of the focus group noted that the musical strongly advocated for this organization’s work. When discussing the issue of inter-​organizational collaboration, for example, one female NGO employee, “Nina,” called attention to the strengths of the sex workers’ union, and noted that these strengths were reflected in the show. Nina stated: A r t i c u l at i n g NGO N a r r at i v e s  [ 165 ]

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In the play, the scene they have in the bar that was modeled on the [sex worker’s union NGO]—​they have one here in Chiang Mai. I think one of the great things about [the sex worker’s union] is working with the women there and helping them increase their capacity but not saying, “You have to leave [sex work],” but instead working with them, and accepting what they’re doing, and helping them stay safe .

Nina then suggested that it would be beneficial if more organizations would help female migrant laborers: . . . to increase their own capacity, so when you have victims, or—​what is the definition of victim? But people who have been in these [situations] . . . I think that’s something the play really exposed. People can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything really easily with a lot of money and experts.

Nina was reflecting on the scene in Land of Smiles set in the Women Power Bar (see Image 9.1), which offered the audience a window into the world of the sex workers’ rights movement. As I discussed in ­chapter 4, sex workers’ rights organizations acknowledge that sex trafficking is a real danger, while challenging the abolitionist narrative that conflates all sex work with sex trafficking. The Women Power Bar reflected organizations in Thailand and elsewhere that advocate for sex workers to be treated as subjects, rather than objects, in anti-​trafficking discourse.

Image 9.1:  “Women Power Bar.” Chiang Mai, December 2013. From left:  Amanda Kruger as Emma, Yardpirun Poolun as Buya, and Melody Buitu as Mae. (Photo credit:  Chalermpon Poungpeth).

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Recognizing the relevance of the fictional Women Power Bar (as well as the real organization on which it was based) Nina acknowledged the need to complicate the sex worker-​as-​victim narrative. She recognized the work of NGOs that focus on partnering with female migrant laborers, rather than treating them as objects of rescue, and she questioned the victim label so frequently used to depict sex workers in Thailand. In doing so, this employee pushed back against the dominant trafficking narrative. While members of the sex workers union NGO did not participate in the focus group, then, their work and its importance was embraced by other members of the anti-​trafficking NGO community. This recognition stands in sharp contrast to my initial field interviews, wherein a number of Western employees dismissed the relevance and value of such an organization.

2. “Morality Is Relative” (Moral Debate Narrative)

During the fieldwork phase, one of the primary messages communicated by NGO employees was the moralizing message—​a message based on the idea that “they” (Thailand) don’t embrace the same values and morals as “we” (the West) do. Let’s recall that this message was articulated by Mary Kate, the faith-​based NGO employee, who described what she felt were inherent differences between Western values and the values of the ethnic minority women whom her organization sought to rescue. In Mary Kate’s view, a Western moral system promoted the value of romantic love (as opposed to sex work), protecting children from exposure to sexuality before age 18 (as opposed to sexualizing teenagers), and striving to attain individual betterment through hard work (rather than depending on the incomes of family members—​ particularly young women—​for support). When I asked Mary Kate if she believed there were inherent differences between these minority communities and the West, she responded by stating that she thought some ethnic minority women had an inherent “death wish.” In her eyes, minority communities actually valued life less than those in the West.

Responses to the Character Lewelyn

In the musical, the moralizing message was given voice through the character Lewelyn Brand. Lewelyn is dedicated to her organization’s implementation of the Smart Raid policy and holds staunchly to her belief that reforming sex workers through Christian teachings will steer them onto a moral path. In the musical, Lewelyn articulates this most clearly when she sings, “No Woman Fights to Be a Prostitute” (see Image 9.2). In the NGO focus group, a new narrative emerged that challenged the moralizing message. This narrative evoked debate about the act of imposing Western morality on those in the developing world. I call it the “moral debate narrative.” The moral debate narrative was engaged, for example, by one male participant, “Edward,” who expressed his belief in the moral authority of the West in regard to the issue of sex work. “It’s about the demand,” he asserted. “You’ve got to tell Thai A r t i c u l at i n g NGO N a r r at i v e s  [ 167 ]

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Image 9.2:  “No Woman Fights to be a Prostitute.” Chiang Mai, December 2013. Ann Fink (left) as Lewelyn Brand and Marisa Mour (right) as Achara Montri. (Photo credit: Chalermpon Poungpeth).

people that [sex work isn’t] right. I mean, if there was no demand we wouldn’t need sex workers!” he exclaimed. A female employee, “Isabel,” then countered this idea, suggesting that in her view, morality is more of a relative concept. She remarked: But when in history has it ever been like that? I mean, prostitution is the oldest form of like . . . In the entire world. It’s not a Thai issue. It’s a worldwide issue. But you saying this is wrong is, again, taking away empowerment of people who may choose to be in that profession. It’s still looking at it from a one-​sided [perspective of] black or white, right or wrong.

Another female employee, “Fran,” then asserted, “This is an endless debate really because, you know . . . there’s multiple feminist viewpoints on this.” Edward then reiterated his ideas about demand, noting, “The demand, from what I can gather—​the foreign demand for sex is about twenty percent, and then eighty percent is Thai people.” When Fran questioned Edward’s use of statistics to inform his argument, Edward replied, “Well this is just my way of looking at it.” Another male respondent then countered Edward’s argument, stating, “I don’t know how we can have percentages about anything. I mean, we don’t even know the population of Chiang Mai.” In this heated exchange about morality, sex work, and cultural difference, Edward reiterated a common abolitionist trope. If demand were reduced, he reasoned, [ 168 ]  The Production Phase

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prostitution could be eradicated. Embedded in his statement was a moral critique of Thai people and an idea that the West (i.e., “we”) must teach them appropriate moral values and behaviors. This trope cements Orientalist ideas about differences between West and East, evoking Said’s critique of the Western imagination of the East as being childlike and needing education and reform. What was interesting about this exchange, however, was the degree to which Edward’s narrative was instantly challenged—​not just by one, but by three other members of the group. These group members represented a similar demographic as those who had participated in the original Phase One interviews—​and had made no attempts to challenge the moralizing narrative. We can reasonably infer from this that prior to viewing Land of Smiles, these three focus group members may have similarly displayed the same non-​sensitivity to the issue. However, now—​post-​ performance—​they had become sensitized to the moralizing narrative and the unfair damage it does to the integrity of Thai sensibilities. The performance created a space for this more nuanced discourse to take place, priming participants to engage in a discussion of the moralizing narrative that they might not otherwise have felt authorized to undertake outside of this space.

The Nonparticipation of Missionaries

Another participant group was notably absent from the NGO focus group—​the faith-​based anti-​trafficking NGO employees, or missionaries. Shortly after the cast and I arrived in Chiang Mai to begin rehearsals, I invited three missionary women from faith-​based anti-​trafficking organizations to attend the performance and participate in the focus group discussion. Each came to a performance and spoke with me briefly after its conclusion, during which time I invited them, again, to participate in the focus group. In talking with these employees, however, I sensed a feeling of discomfort and veiled confrontation in the tone of our conversation. As I later reflected in my field notes, the missionaries seemed to have been made uncomfortable by the production. While none expressed this directly, their frozen smiles, whispers, and awkward body language was telling. While I had hoped they would participate in the discussion—​ intended to be an opportunity for them to openly express their experiences and views—​they politely declined. Interestingly, while the moralizing narrative was, for the most part, absent from the NGO focus group discussion, further research revealed that this narrative continued to circulate among the missionaries who attended the performance well after the production was over. It was later revealed by Ann Fink (who played the role of Lewelyn) that one had sought her out to express concern about her decision to portray this character in the show. A follow-​up interview with Fink (conducted on October 20, 2014) revealed more. When I asked Fink to talk about her experience of being part of the tightly knit social community in Chiang Mai, which included several missionaries, and the reasons

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some of these missionaries may have chosen not to participate in the focus group, Fink responded: Following one of the shows, an older woman in her late 70’s—​her husband is head of a church here and has done mission work for many years and they raised their children in Chiang Mai—​she came up to me. She’s always been very complimentary about my musical talents and was excited that she’d been able to hear me sing. That said, she told me that she totally disagreed with the subject matter. And that the work she and her husband do may have been misunderstood. And in the realm of what they do, she felt that the show was incorrect. The way the head of the Christian NGO was portrayed. And she said she understood that I had to follow the script, but that she did not agree with it at all. And then I  had a conversation with her daughter later, who said the same things. And I said it was based on research, but you know . . .

Fink then noted that the missionary did not tell her why she declined to participate in the post-​production focus group. She suggested, however, that the three missionaries who attended the performance likely felt that their views would be resisted or challenged in the focus group. Their nonparticipation is thus a notable datapoint in itself:  while the focus groups were designed to be an opportunity for all participants to express their perspectives and engage in open dialogue about the themes of the musical, some audience members seemed to feel that their perspectives—​or, indeed, their very ethics—​had been challenged too directly by the musical for them to engage in constructive dialogue. The nonparticipation of the missionaries illustrates the limitations of the theater, of focus groups as a comprehensive means of collecting data, and, potentially, of the DAR praxis itself. Ultimately, it was impossible to know whether attending the performance had a liberatory effect on the missionaries or if, instead, it simply cemented their previously held views. As with the absence of the sex workers’ union organization employees, the NGO focus group discussion was characterized by notable silence on the part of these employees. Interestingly, these silences came from the standpoints of those who are typically most vocal in the discourse on trafficking. In this way, we may also see the nonparticipation of the missionaries as a reflection of the musical’s power to confront the normative abolitionist trope, and advocate for the rights of sex workers.

3. “Acknowledging My Impulse to ‘Rescue’ ” (Self-​A wareness Narrative)

Another prominent narrative that emerged in the Phase One interviews involved the Western NGO employees’ view of themselves as saviors of trafficking victims. This “rescue narrative” had been expressed by Mary Kate, who recalled an incident in which her sense of duty had been undermined by a seemingly ungrateful beneficiary—​a young woman who chose to leave the organization and return to her [ 170 ]  The Production Phase

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home village. Like Lipoh’s escape from the IDC at the end of the musical, this actual beneficiary chose not to accept the “help,” well meaning though it may have been, of a Western anti-​trafficking NGO. The act of her leaving challenged Mary Kate’s view of herself as a savior. Moreover, Mary Kate did not accept her beneficiary’s choice as being truly agentive—​she couldn’t understand why a supposed trafficking victim would choose to return to an environment that she (Mary Kate) considered morally inferior to the Western NGO. This event exemplifies the vulnerability that NGO employees can face when their impulse to rescue is challenged. It also shows the importance of self-​awareness among employees whose image of themselves is so deeply tied to their professional roles.

Responses to the Character Emma

As discussed earlier, in creating the character Emma I wanted to unearth and challenge the narrative of rescue. Like many Westerners who enter into development work with the intention of addressing human rights concerns, Emma initially comes to Thailand with dreams of saving victims—​the “women of the world” whom she has never met (see Image 9.3). As the story deepens and Emma discovers the reality of Lipoh’s life back in Burma, however, she ultimately comes to appreciate the circumstances that fueled Lipoh’s decision to work in the sex industry. She then begins to question her own role as an advocate, and undergoes a transformation from unconscious bystander to active witness. Emma’s journey into consciousness

Image 9.3:  “Women of the World.” Chiang Mai, December 2013. Amanda Kruger as Emma Gable. (Photo credit: Chalermpon Poungpeth). A r t i c u l at i n g NGO N a r r at i v e s  [ 171 ]

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shows us the important and ultimately productive outcomes that can occur when an advocate questions her previously held beliefs. In the NGO focus group discussion, a number of employees expressed views that stood in contrast to the savior narrative. For example, one male employee, “Chris,” took issue with what he felt was an over-​simplistic portrayal of NGO employees such as Emma. Chris stated: The range of perspectives [examined in the show] was really great, and it did raise a lot of tough questions I think people who work in this industry sort of need to confront. So I thought that part was very well done and it was obviously very well researched and very well thought out in terms of the ideas that it conveyed. But, I felt like it almost felt—​sort of the way NGOs deal with the issue was quite simplistic. In a way just sort of black or white. I feel that most of the NGOs that work in the area, with maybe a few isolated exceptions, are aware of these subtle grey areas [and] are constantly confronting them on an everyday basis—​where to draw the line, how to deal with these borderline cases, and so the degree to which these people were just so turned off and making no effort whatsoever to consider the complexities other than the new fresh faced lawyer, I felt like there could have been more layers to those characters. They could have been more complexly drawn than they were.

Chris explained that he felt the NGO employees were portrayed as being “turned off,” seeing the issues they were tasked with managing too simplistically. In his criticism, however, he nodded to the fact that Emma, who began her journey as a young, fresh-​faced lawyer, ultimately became more nuanced and aware of the complexities of Lipoh’s situation as the musical went on. Chris’s reaction can be seen as a defense against the musical’s critique of the savior narrative. Simultaneously, it indicates an acknowledgment of the impulse to rescue that is so prominent in NGO life. Engaging an even deeper sense of self-​awareness, another male employee, “Bill,” was appreciative of the play’s articulation of the rescue narrative. He reflected: I volunteered at NGOs on the border and I wasn’t directly involved with trafficking, but I did meet victims of trafficking and also big NGO people and that kind of thing. And I would say I think that this play took a good shine of light onto the motivations of these NGOs. And I think that is something that is rarely talked about when you see how these kinds of things are represented in the media and in film. It’s usually the victims beings saved—​the “white savior” complex—​that sort of thing . . . The play raised a lot of questions. I think the viewers walk away really being, I think, informed. For example, I bumped into the widow of the founder of the KIO. She saw the play and she told me she cried as she was leaving today.

Bill recognized the play’s attempt to trouble the rescue narrative, and acknowledged the impulse to save that often marks an NGO employee’s experience. He also reflected on having observed the emotional reaction of a migrant woman who attended the performance. Bill suggested that this audience member likely felt that [ 172 ]  The Production Phase

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the musical had accurately represented the voices of migrants, like her. The savior narrative was thus troubled not only by Bill’s own recognition, but by his observation of its recognition by another audience member. Two female employees, “Dayna” and “Charlotte,” also resonated with the way the musical problematized the rescue narrative. Dayna observed: I think it’s an important reminder for Americans or foreigners from other countries who are coming to Thailand to realize that they are guests in this country. They are not people that should just come in [saying], “this is our way of doing things and we’re going to try and change you and make sure you’re on the right track,” and stuff. We have to come and learn from their culture and learn what their needs are . . .and maybe even have our minds changed.

Charlotte then added: When I attempt to speak with young lawyers coming in to start doing this kind of work . . . the message is always “do no harm,” but NGOs by their very nature are set up in a way that they inevitably do harm. The NGO has a mission, they have to sell the mission to the funder, [but] in order to do that they often end up hurting people—​not intentionally, but because they make mistakes. And in certain contexts people’s lives can be put at risk by those mistakes.

Dayna and Charlotte each drew conclusions from their experiences as foreigners working for development organizations in Thailand. These organizations, as Charlotte admitted, based their work on the premise of intervention, and thus by their nature often fail to adhere to the “do no harm” principle2 that is a cornerstone of advocacy ethics. Observing the structures that underlie NGO operations, these employees acknowledged the dangers that can accompany the rescue narrative, and demonstrated self-​awareness about their own impulses to rescue. Interestingly, though it was not made explicit, both of these participants seemed to viscerally connect to Emma as a character. Dayna recalled coming to Thailand and realizing that she, like Emma, had to accept the humility of being a guest in the country, rather than an “expert” telling people how to behave. This observation parallels the dramatic change that Emma undergoes during the course of the show. Having arrived with the intention of saving the world, Emma ultimately leaves humbled, realizing that the only way to save one girl is to listen to her needs, rather than impose solutions upon her. Charlotte also identified with Emma’s dramatic arc. She remembered speaking with young lawyers (presumably like Emma), whom she instructed to “do no harm.” However, she said, the work of NGOs, as interventionist actors, is inherently harmful. Charlotte’s thinking speaks to Emma’s character arc—​through engaging with Emma’s journey from passive bystander to active witness, this employee was able to recognize, and thus reconcile, her own transformed view.

A r t i c u l at i n g NGO N a r r at i v e s  [ 173 ]

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4. “ ‘Othering’ Occurs in Numerous Ways” (Complexity Narrative)

One narrative that emerged in both the field interviews as well as the focus groups was the “othering” narrative. This narrative evoked a self-​versus-​other binary between Southeast Asia and the West. As discussed in c­ hapter 4, in the field interviews this narrative was expressed by both Western and Thai NGO employees, who spoke in polarizing terms about the value systems of “West” versus the “East.” Several Thai NGO employees discussed the cultural underpinnings of women’s migration, explaining how the social expectation for young women to care for their elders often fuels a young women’s decision to enter the sex industry. These employees also suggested that Thai women who enter the trade are concerned with karma—​ as caring for one’s family is considered to be a positive way of accruing karma in the Buddhist faith. Similarly, as noted, faith-​based secular NGO employees spoke of inherent differences between Thai and Western value systems and ways of life. As I suggested in ­chapter 4, the responses revealed that employees often have difficulty navigating what they perceive to be deeply engrained cultural issues that they face in their daily work activities. The othering narrative emerged in the NGO focus group in several ways, showing us that this issue in fact holds deeper complexities than initially revealed. Uses of it included: othering as a way of abdicating responsibility for policy change, as a tool for strengthening organizations, as a vehicle for resistance, and as a way of negotiating dual roles and identities within the organization.

Othering as a Way of Abdicating Responsibility

During the focus group, employees were asked to comment on anti-​trafficking policy in Thailand, and whether or not they saw possibilities for policy change. One male employee, “Shaun,” responded to this question by engaging with the othering narrative. Shaun stated: A lot of people, they could have the words, “This is Thailand.” Now, Thailand is a place that is completely different from Western thinking. To come in here with Western thinking, without learning as much about Thais and Thai people—​Thai people, they have ways that are just completely different from us [Westerners]. They just want to please and do whatever they can to serve the “white saviors” as you said before. And that sometimes gets in the way of actually being able to effectively work together . . . People just don’t get it. They have to . . . close their Western thinking because everything is just so different.

Here, Shaun used the othering narrative to answer the question about whether he thought concrete policy change could be effectively implemented in Thailand. He explained that since Thais and Westerners are so essentially different, and therefore, so fundamentally incompatible, achieving a productive working relationship is virtually impossible. The essentialized view expressed by Shaun served as a way of [ 174 ]  The Production Phase

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not only reinforcing the othering narrative, but also of relinquishing his own commitment to policy change. It was as if the employee were saying, “Since Thailand is illegible to the West, anti-​trafficking policy will always be unproductive, and there is nothing that I, as a Westerner, can do to change that.”

Othering as a Tool for Strengthening Organizations

In stark contrast to this use of the othering narrative, one female employee, “Sarah,” responded to the same question by using the concept of othering as a call to strengthen the policies of anti-​trafficking organizations. Sarah explained: In China, the organization that I worked for was a very big organization that was all around the world. And it’s premised on this issue about criminal defense . . . In Beijing there was a serious issue about who should be running the office, and whether or not the NGO staff—​the Western staff—​really needed to get out of there and turn the running of the offices and the programs over to the Chinese, Chinese nationals who were better equipped to understand the subtleties of building relationships, the requirements of those relationships, what Westerners always perceive as “the Asian issues” about saving face, and therefore appearing compliant and whatever stereotypes we bring to the table. But an actual solution is to empower the people, and make them in charge. That was the only way that the program could continue working.

Here, we see how Sarah drew on the othering narrative as a site of possibility for improved intercultural engagement, rather than abdication. This use of the othering narrative did not appear in the field interviews, in which employees focused overwhelmingly on discussing the essential differences between West and East and a kind of fatalism around the challenges embedded in those differences. As such, this use of the othering narrative highlights a new level of complexity in the experiences of anti-​trafficking NGO employees.

Othering as a Vehicle for Resistance

Perhaps the most interesting use of the othering narrative was communicated by a Thai NGO employee, “Rin,” who reinforced, yet simultaneously troubled this narrative. When the group was asked to discuss their experiences working for an expat-​ run organization, Rin expressed difficulty navigating what she perceived as being inherent cultural differences between Western and Thai employees. Rin explained: Sometimes, I  don’t know how to say it—​ there are, like, different “experts.” Sometimes I feel that some expats, they don’t really know about the country and maybe they might have an understanding about that, but they are like . . . complex. Like the show. They are like, some are so bad. They cannot see. A r t i c u l at i n g NGO N a r r at i v e s  [ 175 ]

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Here, Rin used the othering narrative to support what she felt was the musical’s accurate portrayal of the problematic, misguided attempts by Western NGO employees to assert their expertise in the Thai context. Rather than using the othering narrative to abdicate or claim responsibility for change, Rin drew on the notion of cultural difference as a way to resist the Orientalist tropes that are so often used by Western NGOs.

Othering as a Way of Negotiating Dual Roles and Identities

Finally, the othering narrative was used as a way of discussing the difficulty NGO employees often have navigating the multiple roles they are required to play within their organization. As discussed in earlier chapters, NGO employees are tasked with managing multiple roles in their everyday work activities. Through ritual descriptions of their organization’s activities, promotional literature, and campaigns describing their organization’s missions, members of the anti-​trafficking movement must demonstrate the values of their organizations, and “perform” for donors, publics, and other constituents whom their organizations seek to impress. Such NGO performances privilege Western cultural norms and, in so doing, re-​center the role of the West in the international arena. They also strengthen imagined ideas about human trafficking that are not always congruent with the actual experiences of female migrant sex workers. NGO employees must navigate between their authentic experiences and the performances that their organizations require them to enact, thus setting up a framework of a “dual identity” between the “real” and the “performed.”

The Lewelyn-​Achara Relationship

In Land of Smiles, the dual identities and “performances” enacted by NGO employees were troubled through the complex interplay between Lewelyn Brand and Achara Montri. Throughout the play we learn that Achara, who has been trained as a lawyer and is from a well-​to-​do family in Bangkok, is dedicated to upholding international law above all else—​including the rights of migrants. Lewelyn, who is from the United States, must find a way to manage aspects of her work environment that are quintessentially Thai. Together, these characters embody the conflicts of duality that are commonly faced by NGO employees. Both must adhere to the mission of the organization while, simultaneously, navigating their own cultural compass—​that is, the value systems the two have absorbed from their respective cultures, and which they struggle to uphold, even in the face of challenges that surround their daily work in the organization. Lewelyn and Achara embody the concept of “dual identities,” simultaneously navigating multiple cultural landscapes. In the focus group, employees were asked if they identified with the characters Lewelyn and Achara. They responded by reflecting on their own roles in their organizations, and the challenges of managing dual identities within these roles. Like [ 176 ]  The Production Phase

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Lewelyn and Achara, these employees—​who came from both Western and Thai backgrounds—​had to manage their own values while struggling to make sense of what they perceived to be very differing values of the “other.” For example, one female employee, “Megan,” remarked: It was almost like a cautionary tale. I felt like (these are) the worst kind of NGO workers  .  .  .  especially Achara and Lewelyn  .  .  .  I  didn’t feel like I  identified with either of them. I mean I do identify with the struggle, with the need to report to donors and that certainly is true. I mean I think that everyone has been in the situation with the pressure to report impact within a certain amount of time, in order to have funding renewed, in order to achieve your targets or whatever . . . It requires you to go for low hanging fruit, to tackle easy things rather than doing the things that are maybe more important, because they are more difficult to measure. . . . That part certainly is a real challenge of NGO work.

Megan began by stating that she did not recognize herself in the musical’s employee characters. As she went on, however, it became clear that she did, in fact, identify with various aspects of their struggles. Megan’s response illustrates a gradual breaking down of defensiveness about her role as an NGO employee, caught in the pressure of having to tackle “easy” issues rather than “important” ones. She revealed anxiety about her own “dual role” as an employee who must perform for the benefit of her organization, while simultaneously recognizing that such performances do not reflect what she deems to be the most important aspect of her work. The theatrical event allowed Megan to communicate authentically about her dual roles working in the NGO. Allowing herself to inhabit the liminal space of the performance context helped this employee entertain possibilities for her own experience that, prior to seeing the performance, she may have been reluctant to articulate.

Claiming Ownership of One’s Struggles

As we’ve seen thus far, the othering narrative was often used as a way to push away or abdicate responsibility for claiming one’s struggle with institutional life. As the focus group went on, however, this use of the othering narrative began to erode. NGO employees began to directly engage with the difficulties they experience on a daily basis. For example, like Megan, one female employee, “Tamar,” expressed dissatisfaction with having to please donors in the NGO’s ongoing search for institutional funding. Tamar noted: . . . But we’re also talking about grants and funding and most of them are coming from major donors whether it’s in the West or here. This is one of the major flaws and problems in the NGO sphere. Everything we do depends on pleasing someone else to get money from them. So we’re restricted just as much as everyone else is. It’s one of the major flaws within the NGO world. A r t i c u l at i n g NGO N a r r at i v e s  [ 177 ]

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In expressing the “need to please” that accompanied her work, Tamar expressed anxiety about the pressures of self-​presentation required of NGO employees. Here we see how the theatrical medium created a space for the othering narrative to be challenged, and for dialogue about complicated issues to emerge—​issues that often go unexpressed or unexplored in the context of employees’ daily activities. The focus group discussions challenged the othering narrative as participants began to recognize that they, too, had struggles. They began to question their mandate to uphold a certain value system within the organization. This turn to self-​reflection, I  suggest, inherently diminishes the power of the othering narrative, in that the struggle of the NGO employee is now highlighted in place of that of the trafficking “victim.” Rather than normalizing their experiences and values, these employees began to question them, and in doing so, to differentiate between their values and those of the organization in which they worked. As the discussion continued to turn away from “othering” to highlight the real difficulties that employees faced, further issues of employee identity were brought to the fore. For example, one Thai female employee, “Suda,” grappled with her role in the organization as well as her cultural and national identity. She did this by expressing thoughts about agentive sex work and Thailand’s reputation: I think it is a good way that [the sex worker’s union] exists, to teach the sex worker to protect themselves when the customer or foreigner or whoever got them, and you know, force them to provide the sex service. But for me . . . a lot of foreigners come to Thailand because we have high demand. And we supply, like you know Burmese, we allow to . . . and everybody supply. And the topic today is called the “Land of Smiles” and a lot of foreigners believe that Thailand is the land of sex . . . legal luckily or illegal luckily is something I’m still questioning.

Making reference to the Women Power Bar scene, Suda struggled with the issue of ascribing agency to sex work in Thailand, in light of its reputation among foreigners as being a prostitution hub. She expressed anxiety about her role as an NGO employee seeking to help sex trafficking victims, and well as her role as a Thai citizen concerned about her nation’s reputation. Her response reiterates the complexity of NGO employees who must “perform” the values of their organization, while simultaneously managing their own personal—​and in some cases, also national and cultural—​identities.

In addition to the uncovering and recovering of lived experience, DAR opens up a space for that experience to be articulated, both through the performance itself and the structured focus group dialogues that follow. By participating in the project as audience members, as well as discussants, NGO employees were able to both respond to the articulation of lived experience—​the “buried voice” of the migrant-​ as-​subject—​and express their own challenges, insights, and experiences. Again we see the importance of voice—​of consciously and authentically speaking from a

[ 178 ]  The Production Phase

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place of one’s own positional location. By acknowledging the articulation of others’ experiences, and in response, giving voice to their own experiences, the employees moved from passive bystanders in the anti-​trafficking drama to active witnesses. In this chapter, I discussed the narratives of the NGO employees that emerged in the post-​performance focus group discussion, and contrasted them with the themes of my original interviews. Four dominant narratives emerged, including:  (1) “Sex workers are not always victims” (Agency narrative); (2) “Morality is relative” (Moral debate narrative); (3) “I acknowledge my impulse to rescue” (Self-​awareness narrative); and, (4) “ ‘Othering’ occurs in numerous ways” (Complexity narrative). Notably absent from the NGO focus group were employees from the sex workers’ union NGO and faith-​based missionaries—​often two of the most polarizing voices in anti-​ trafficking discourse. In the next chapter, I’ll continue to explore the revelations that occurred among NGO employees, showing how the theatrical medium triggered new important transformations in their way of thinking. By becoming aware of their roles within the anti-​ trafficking movement, NGO employees engaged with the rupturing, consciousness-​raising, dialogical, proactive, and performative tenets of liberation.

A r t i c u l at i n g NGO N a r r at i v e s  [ 179 ]

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CHAPTER 10

Restorative Justice and Reconciliation NGO Subjectivities

If you come only to help me, you can go back home. But if you consider my struggle as part of your struggle for survival, then maybe we can work together. —​Aboriginal woman from the People’s Global Action Manifesto (Solnit, 2004)

I

nternational NGO work is one of the lonelier professions. You get on a plane. You leave your home, your country, your language, your culture—​everything familiar and comfortable—​behind. You find yourself in a new, utterly unrecognizable place that you try desperately to read and reread, in order to make sense of, empathize with, and understand. More often than not, your reading is wrong. You stumble, quite blindly at times, to navigate a social landscape that affords you little room for error. You meet others like you. Sometimes they feel like your “tribe”—​others who wanted this international life as badly as you did; who left a comfortable enough existence back in the West in order to learn, and grow, and do something meaningful in the world. Sometimes, though, the others you meet have simply been doing this for too long. They’re jaded, or detached, or are on the run from something—​very often, themselves. Which is why the NGO world can be so isolating. It’s a world of walls and barriers, and the struggles to scale and break them down. A  world of obstacles and constant reminders of how little change one person can really make. At the same time, there are moments of genuine connection. Of understanding, and clarity. Moments when the people you’re trying so earnestly to help—​with names and histories and strengths and flaws—​teach you something profound. Some surprising thing about yourself, and the reason you came here. In this discovery, you forgive yourself for all the stumbling, and the blindness, and the walls that you cannot seem to scale.

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Maybe they’re not all yours to conquer after all. And in that forgiveness, you find a moment of grace.

The term “liberation” evokes an image of breaking free—​of becoming unburdened by the constraints that have held one back. As a social state of being, we may say that liberation comes when community members no longer experience themselves as being “on the margins,” standing on the sidelines, existing in isolation, powerless as they watch events unfold around them. Paradoxically, it is not only the groups who live on the actual margins of society who feel this sense of isolation. Often, it is also the supposedly privileged, the seemingly non-​oppressed members of society who exist in frozen spaces of paralysis. They too are bound in social catastrophe. Liberation, then, is about freeing everyone, in all social locations and from all walks of life, from the constraints that lock us into spaces of polarization. All of us, no matter who we are, long to be connected with others. We long for this liberated state. The NGO employees who attended the performance of Land of Smiles were no different. In the previous chapter, I presented the four narrative themes that emerged in the NGO focus group. Here, I interrogate these narratives further to understand their liberatory effects. But before I do this, let us recall the criteria that we may use to evaluate the impact of a given DAR project. In order for a project to have a liberatory effect it must be: 1) Proactive (i.e., engaging ways of building shared understanding of history and social context in a community environment that will witness past events in order to prevent future violence and exclusion); 2) Rupturing (i.e., disrupting dominant, hegemonic narratives); 3) Dialogical (i.e., inspiring communication between individuals or groups); 4) Consciousness-​raising (i.e., generating new insights about one’s personal and social role in society); and 5) Performative (i.e., communicating through a performance medium such a theater, dance, music, film, etc.). How did the NGO employees’ engagement with the musical and articulation of experience evoke these tenets of liberation? To start, we may clearly say that the nature of the musical as a performative modality automatically ensures that participants engaged with the performative aspect of liberation. Moving to look at how the NGO employees’ engagement with the musical evoked the other four tenets of liberation, we would be well served first to recall two liberation psychology-​related constructs that I  talked about earlier in the book; namely, restorative justice and reconciliation. These two areas are prolific aspects of liberation inasmuch as they are proactive, rupturing, dialogical, and consciousness-​raising. Shortly, I will suggest how restorative justice and reconciliation in fact helped employees engage with these other four tenets.

R e s t or at i v e J u s t i c e a n d R e c o n c i l i at i o n  [ 181 ]

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Recall first that restorative justice is a mode of engagement between community members who have committed atrocities, enabled trauma to occur, or in some way perpetrated social injustice; and the members of the community whom they have wronged, with the goal of healing that trauma through acknowledgment, dialogue, and mutual understanding. Restorative justice fits well with the liberatory tenet of rupture. Let me explain. Where the culturally dominant paradigm of retributive justice involves punishment of the perpetrator of atrocities by an unforgiving traumatized victim—​effectively leaving both actors involved in the trauma event oppressively frozen in place, thoroughly defined by their respective roles, and thus unable to move on in their lives—​the paradigm of restorative justice completely disrupts this retributive narrative. With restorative justice, responsibility is taken by the perpetrator and forgiveness is offered by the traumatized actor, the result being that both become unfrozen from their oppressive roles of victim and perpetrator. Through this process, a kind of psychic healing occurs. Their sense of themselves in the world has suddenly changed, even as the rest of the world around them continues to move along as it always has. In understanding this, we can now say that the context of restorative justice has a liberatory rupturing quality. Simply put, its disruption of the dominant retributive paradigm is liberatory. Clearly, too, the restorative justice paradigm is proactive, in that it seeks to build shared understanding between victims and perpetrators in a way that will prevent future traumas from occurring. It is also dialogic, as it evokes dialogue between formerly polarized individuals or groups. And finally, it is consciousness-​raising, as it asks that all participants bring their awareness of both self and other to a new level of responsibility, forgiveness, and healing. Restorative justice’s counterpart, reconciliation, is the act of acknowledging the roles played by other community members, and accepting that these community members have taken responsibility for their actions. By doing this, community members from both sides are able to come to an understanding that allows them to put down the legacy of trauma. Reconciliation, which in fact can be understood as a part of the restorative justice paradigm, engages all four tenets of liberation that we have been discussing. Below, I evaluate the ways NGO employees became more conscious of their roles in the anti-​trafficking movement, and engaged in processes of restorative justice and reconciliation. In contrast to the Phase One field interviews, here the NGO narratives demonstrated an acknowledgment, or restoration of employees’ roles in the social catastrophe of trafficking, and met the articulated experiences of female migrant laborers from a place of increased horizontalism. Through this process, the subjective experiences of the NGO employees were articulated, understood, and reconciled.

UNDERSTANDING RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

In the original interviews, NGO employees presented a rigid picture of their work, often reinforcing binary differences between themselves and the female [ 182 ]  The Production Phase

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migrant laborers whom their organizations sought to help. In doing this, they coded the migrants as passive victims, while positioning themselves as experts. After viewing the performance, however, the NGO employees in attendance were able to more fluidly discuss migrant women’s experiences, as well as their own. They began to view the migrant women as agents in their own life stories, rather than as objects in need of rescue. In addition, the employees began to critically evaluate their roles in the anti-​trafficking movement, and were more willing to openly discuss the challenges they faced on both personal and professional levels. These changes in NGO engagement following their viewing of Land of Smiles evoke the paradigm of restorative justice. Restorative justice, somewhat in contrast with Freire’s notion of “conscientiziation” (1993) and Boal’s “poetics” (1979), does not situate an antagonist squarely against a protagonist in the analysis of a trauma event. Rather, it implicates all members of a community in the trauma event, suggesting that everyone has had a role to play in enabling, causing, reinforcing, or even simply witnessing the trauma as it occurred. This suggests that despite the common tendency to view themselves as agents of rescue, NGO employees are, themselves, capable of reinforcing or perpetuating trauma. Land of Smiles explicitly depicted this process. It was the NGO employee characters who, despite having the best of intentions, kept Lipoh locked in the IDC against her will, ostensibly trying to heal one traumatic situation by perpetuating another. Despite seeing themselves as agents of rescue, the employee characters overlooked the needs of the protagonist while simultaneously objectifying her. This shows us that even “saviors” can be implicated in a trauma event. Looking at a social context through the lens of restorative justice exposes the roles that we all play, and offers a framework for making amends to those who have been harmed. In order for restorative justice to take place, community members must go through a process of self-​reflection and recognition as to how their actions have perpetuated trauma. This first requires an attention to the unearthing and communication of that trauma. As Caruth (1996) explained, “the voice” of a given trauma event can only be released through the “wound” of the survivor (p. 3). It is the buried, unformed aspects of one’s experience—​one’s lived reality—​that make it a trauma event. As a way of giving voice to one’s own complicity in perpetuating trauma, restorative justice “stresses the importance of critically understanding the local history shared by all members of the conflict” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008:  317). In this way, restorative justice serves as a profound tool for social unification. It radically suggests that all members of a given community share experience, that no one is immune to the legacies of trauma, and that everyone has a role to play in restoring the health of the community as a whole. Restorative justice asks that “oppressors” actively take part in witnessing past trauma events in order for this restoration to occur. Here, we note again that it is not only the health of the “oppressed” that constitutes a collective trauma situation, but also the health of the “oppressor”—​that they, too, have experienced isolation and paralysis. Until trauma is healed, they too remain frozen in social R e s t or at i v e J u s t i c e a n d R e c o n c i l i at i o n  [ 183 ]

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catastrophe—​impaired, and unable to claim the voice of truth as their own (Watkins & Shulman, 2008: 317). Restorative justice is a tool for unification of the most profound type, suggesting that all members of a given community share a common experience, and that all can and should participate in collective healing. The restorative justice paradigm is antithetical to a punitive response to perpetrators or—​to put it in the language of liberation psychology—​bystanders. In other words, it is, as we’ve seen, antithetical to retributive justice. The retributive justice model seeks to punish these individuals, through the establishment of guilt, for not conforming to the values upheld by the privileged class (Lanek, 1999, as cited in Watkins & Shulman, 2008: 321). Retributive justice is predicated on a false separation of experience between community members. This divide, in turn, negates the subjectivities of all involved in a trauma event. It objectifies the act of perpetuating the survivor’s trauma while also denying that survivor any agency. In contrast, restorative justice, as I’ve said, allows all community members the space for self-​reflection and healing. It also challenges Western normative conceptions of justice that value the “upstanding citizen”—​traditionally, a privileged white male—​while devaluing and subsequently criminalizing the colonized, enslaved, female, immigrant, homeless “other”—​in short, those who do not uphold the white male standard of privilege (Watkins & Shulman, 2008: 321). In the NGO focus group that followed the performance, employees began to develop an awareness of shared responsibility for the spectacularization of the trafficking victim-​as–​object. Employees began to claim, or “own” their roles in the spectacularization process, challenging or even breaking several of the narrative tropes that emerged in Phase One. Additionally, the employees’ anxieties, losses, concerns, regrets, and uncertainties began to come to the fore. This process is paramount to the workings of restorative justice. By opening up and sharing their own life’s challenges, the employees began to move from being bystanders, located on the periphery of events, to becoming witnesses engaged in their own stories. Consequently, their own subjective, lived realities were reaffirmed. Through the DAR project, the process of grappling with trauma—​whether it was trauma they had witnessed, experienced firsthand, or heard about through migrant women’s experiences—​helped the NGO employees to more readily perceive migrant women as subjects rather than objects. This occurred in stark contrast to the way these employees handled trauma in a non-​DAR context—​such as in their daily work experiences. There, employees could more readily objectify migrant women, due to their relative inability to reconcile their own struggles with trauma that were often provoked by the experiences of their beneficiaries. In contrast to those in the focus group, the NGO employees I  had interviewed in the field were prone to objectifying their beneficiaries, because they had fewer tools for differentiating between the migrant women’s traumas and their own. Those who viewed the musical and engaged in dialogue about these issues, however, were able to see migrant women as subjects. Through this process, the employees’ own

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subjectivity was restored. Here we see how the DAR praxis can foster a pathway toward restorative justice, enabling those previously caught in bystanding to move toward becoming witnesses.

DRAMATIZATION AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

The restorative justice paradigm requires the participation of those who previously may not have been able to recognize or acknowledge their complicity in a given social catastrophe, or in the social structures that perpetuate fragmentation and devastation. It suggests that perpetrators of abuse also experience rupture, isolation, and depression. The challenge of restorative justice is to meet bystanding individuals on a human level, in order to forge a space of reconciliation—​to hold a space of trust so that these individuals can feel empathy—​not only for others, but also for themselves. Land of Smiles, as a performative dramatic event, fostered this dialogical space. By pausing to reflect on their own challenges, the NGO employees began to enact principles of restorative justice. Through witnessing the relationship between Emma and Lipoh, and Emma’s subsequent rupture as she discovered the truth about Lipoh’s story, the employees began to see themselves as part of a community affected by trauma, rather than outsiders looking in. In doing this, they developed “conscientization” about their roles in the anti-​trafficking movement. This, in turn, enabled them to embrace their own experiences more holistically, while paradoxically remaining detached from these experiences vis-​à-​vis their roles as audience members. The dual nature of the performance medium, as both an intimate space and a distancing one that allows us to “see the way we see” (Dolan, 2005), fostered a space of “conscientization” as the employees moved from bystanders to witnesses.

RECONCILIATION AND TRAUMA

How can trauma—​an experience that cannot be fully assimilated while it occurs, be made visible, and in that visibility, evoke reconciliation? Such questions, I suggest, have greater potency when asked through the language of theater—​a language that defies, even as it claims, our understanding. Reconciliation, another liberatory paradigm that was evoked in the NGO focus group, calls for an examination of a given social catastrophe on every level—​not only from an abstract, policy-​oriented vantage point, but also on the level of those experiencing life on the ground. Where do NGO employees stand in relation to the conditions that underlie the abusive scenarios they are trying to correct? Reconciliation forces all community members to confront their own participation in these processes. Reconciliation necessitates coming to terms with, or owning the memory of traumatic events. Often though, this process is overridden by disavowal—​the strategy

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“whereby we deny, or sometimes literally do not see, something that may be right in front of us, but that is too disturbing to acknowledge” Hoffman (2000: 8). In seeking to recognize trauma, we often try to remember, and at times even defend a reality that is too disturbing for us to have ever fully experienced. Paradoxically, we seek to claim a history we simultaneously cannot bear to know. Such denial speaks, quite acutely, to what I  have suggested often occurs in anti-​trafficking advocacy work. NGO employees often uphold a narrative of authority—​a claim to know and understand migrant women’s experiences, regardless of how removed they may actually be from the women themselves. This apparent knowledge justifies their expertise and roles in the organizations. Yet, as evidenced by the responses that emerged in the focus group, employees do not possess such knowledge firsthand. They know histories, but not memories of their beneficiaries’ traumas. This limitation presents a barrier to their ability to reconcile traumatic events. Let me elaborate on this paradox of disavowal and ownership, and situate it more deeply in the context of NGO employees’ experiences. Recall that the Phase One field interviews showed how anti-​trafficking NGO employees in Thailand construct narratives about human trafficking that rely on static “othering” and difference, resulting in what I  have identified as bystanding on the part of these employees. I suggested that part of what underpinned this bystanding was a need, on the part of employees, to retreat from challenging work experiences—​ experiences that confront them on a daily basis, often involving the traumas of others. This need, I observed, is often strong enough that NGO employees continue to engage in day-​ to-​day work practices that are disadvantageous, even when it may not be in their interest to do so. Expanding on this idea to include a discussion of reconciliation, I  suggest that in my original field interviews it was the NGO employees’ fear of their own complicity in the objectification, exploitation, and social catastrophe that caused them to dismiss, neglect, and deny the agency of female migrant laborers—​the very women they were seeking to help. Again, Freire’s “conscientization” comes into play here:  Oppressors, Friere explained, even on the Left, often talk about the needs of the people but do not trust the people themselves. “Almost never do they realize that they, too, ‘know things’ they have learned in their relations with the world and with other women and men” (1993: 63). Being in the position of wanting to help the “oppressed,” therefore, requires constant self-​interrogation and re-​examination of one’s own motivations and actions. By witnessing, through theater, an illustration of their own experiences and challenges, the employees who participated in the focus group were more readily able to accept their own complicity in the anti-​trafficking “drama,” and the implications of this complicity. As such, their perception of themselves was able to shift. This shift in perception can be seen metaphorically as a “loosening in entanglements” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008:  323), a repairing of the “othering” process that often marks NGO employee’s strategies for disavowal. Reconciliation,

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then, asks that we all reconcile feelings of helplessness, fear, and complicity in the social catastrophes in which we find ourselves a part of. As a tool for reconciliation, Land of Smiles opened up a space for the employees to be reintegrated into their own community.

Reconciliation and Mimetic Distance

Theater has the potential to communicate cultural practices through embodied experience, thereby making research accessible to audiences who might otherwise never have engaged in critical thought about the particular subject matter at hand (Rossiter & Goddaris, 2011:  653). Research-​based theater, which provides a space for us to reflect upon conflicting and confronting issues, allows audiences to step outside our cultural embeddedness, and engage in new forms of dialogue. As a result, audiences experience “mimetic distance,” or, space between themselves and the artistic event/​research findings. This experience of space allows us to reflect on these findings in new ways. Mimetic distance is an essential aspect of the DAR praxis. Since DAR is not premised on positivist abstraction but rather, subjective, situated knowledge and feminist empiricism, the performances created as part of the DAR praxis do not involve simply relaying issues in a classically pedagogical way. Rather, DAR performances are designed to disrupt hegemonic discourses that often get reinforced in the “monolithic, disembodied texts” of traditional scholarship (Rossiter & Goddaris, 2011:  656). Mimetic distance—​the space between a researcher and her findings, and between an audience and the theatrical event, provides a necessary distance—​a type of relief—​that allows participants to see the material in a new way. The dialogue that was generated in the NGO focus group exemplified the way mimetic distance can be used to foster reconciliation and, in turn, “conscientization.” Audiences of Land of Smiles were able to grapple with ethical tensions that may have been less apparent to them prior to the performance, due to their embeddedness in the cultural context explored by the musical. Stepping out of their own frameworks, if only for a few hours, fostered a liminal space in which the employees could suspend their attachments to their roles. With mimetic distance comes an opportunity to critically reflect and process information in a new way. By witnessing a story that was not their own, but simultaneously very much their own, and taking part in a dialogical process, the employees could articulate and thus reconcile their own subjective, lived experiences. The path to the liberation of the subject is a radical one, and radicalism is inherently creative (Freire, 1993: 37). In this chapter, I’ve shown how the articulation of lived experience—​articulation that required an attention to positionality, location, and feminist empiricism, allowed NGO employees to move from passive bystanders to

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active witnesses and engage with core tenets of liberation. These included restorative justice and reconciliation—​two interconnected paradigms designed to foster understanding between polarized members of a community. The dialogue that emerged in the NGO employee focus group, and the paradigms of restorative justice and reconciliation that were subsequently engaged, illustrates the way liberatory criteria was achieved through proactive, rupturing, dialogical, consciousness-​ raising, and performative means. In the next two chapters, I  will lay out similar frameworks of analysis, looking at the narratives emerging from a very different but intimately connected participant group:  the migrant laborers who attended Land of Smiles.

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CHAPTER 11

Articulating Migrant Narratives You show about what we cannot show. We work hard, we work so much. Thank you for showing everybody. When we go back into our home, we will share, saying, “Oh our foreigners! They are working for Kachin people! We love that they care.” We will tell our people about you. —​Female Migrant Laborer, Chiang Mai, Thailand (December 2013)

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n the final day of the run the house was packed with migrants. One, a young Kachin woman, arrived at the theater carrying a baby on her back. Eleonore, the stage manager, rushed backstage in a flurry where the cast and I stood, waiting to go on. “What if the baby cries?” she said, wide-​eyed. “I guess we’ll handle it,” I replied. And the house lights dimmed. Later, but not much later, laughter rippled through the darkened house. Lipoh’s mother had appeared on stage wearing a Kachin longyi and headscarf. Why are they laughing? I wondered, slightly panicked, as I sat at the piano with my back to the audience. But of course I knew why. It was the nervous laughter of recognition—​of catching the reflection of yourself, as if in a mirror; of feeling jarred by that sudden representation, and yet, at the same time, feeling a kind of delight. It was the feeling of witness, of being seen. Later, some of the women wiped tears from their eyes as Soon Nu sang of her village being burned, of running through the jungle, of becoming “a woman with no name.” When the lights came up, it was as if all of us—​artists, audience members, and stage crew—​had been through something together. Something that made us see each other in a new way.

One of the difficulties in understanding and uncovering trauma is that trauma is not something tangibly memorable, easily accessible, and readily available to the human

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psyche. Rather, it is quite the opposite—​something opaque, buried, and unclear, something “experienced too soon to be known” (Caruth, 1996: 4). The unknowing and irrational nature of trauma is precisely what makes it so powerful. Trauma, however, has its ways of being expressed. One of these ways is through story—​a story that longs to be told in order for us to make sense of events or experiences we have no other way of processing (Perry, 2010). Trauma can thus be seen as an active site of articulation—​a part of ourselves that can and must be expressed in order for us to heal. The migrant focus groups that followed the performances of Land of Smiles became vehicles for this expression of trauma on a number of different levels and in a variety of ways. The narratives that emerged from these groups showed how the liberatory nature of articulating trauma is not a one, or even two-​way process. Rather, a liberatory articulation requires a third level of engagement—​a witness who observes this articulation, thereby helping the wound to heal. In this chapter, I’ll present five narratives emerging from the migrant focus groups that engaged this three-​ way process of articulation. I’ll follow this with a discussion, in the next chapter, of how these narratives fostered processes of recollection, mourning, and witness. I’ll show how these narratives were expressed, and the implications of their expression on migrants grappling with the articulation of their “trauma voices.” Taking as my premise the idea that one cannot fully experience or recall one’s trauma until it is voiced, I’ll show how these narratives had a liberatory effect on migrant participants, engaging processes that were rupturing, consciousness raising, dialogical, proactive, and performative.

THE MIGRANT NARRATIVES

Five key narratives emerged in the migrant focus groups that tell us about the nature of trauma and the healing effects of its articulation. These included: 1. Complicating the “victim” narrative 2. The role of NGOs 3. Theater as advocacy 4. Narrative of recognition 5. The power of liveness

1. Complicating the “Victim” Narrative

One of the narratives that emerged in the migrant focus groups complicated the one-​dimensional victimization narrative that is often touted by NGOs and that continues to circulate widely in the broader anti-​trafficking discourse. During the focus groups, migrant participants engaged in a nuanced discussion of the victim narrative. Interestingly, however, their responses to the “victim” label did not focus

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on the binary categorizations of agency and oppression that are commonly associated with the sex work debate.1 When asked about whether they felt victimhood was an important topic of exploration, rather than grapple with abstractions, the migrants instead drew from their personal experiences of what it means to be a victim or an agent. “[The show] is very good,” remarked female migrant, “Nu Mai,” “because in it, we are not a victim.” Here, Nu Mai seemed to conflate the dramatic material with her own experience of non-​victimhood, implying that by making agentive choices, the Kachin characters in the production reflected her own feelings. “I really like Lipoh’s decision,” added another, “Hkawn Nan.” “Emma and Achara, they said to Lipoh, ‘You’re fine here [in the International Detention Center]. Even though back in your home is the war, the situation is that you’re fine. You can be happy here.’ But Lipoh said, ‘No, I need to go back, I need to work.’ At the end Lipoh is released, and she can go back.” Here, Hkawn Nan supported Lipoh’s choice to stand up to the NGO employees, who had been telling her she is “fine” living in the International Detention Center. She approved of Lipoh’s decision to insist that she be released—​a decision that Lipoh, Emma, and the audience knew would result in her returning to sex work, and later to her conflict-​affected home village. Nu Mai and Hkawn Nan agreed with Lipoh’s refusal to perform victimhood when asked to do so by the NGO. They appreciated that Lipoh did not accept the NGO’s label, and they identified with Lipoh’s experience. Such a perspective on victimhood challenges the normative discourse, which paints sex workers as “wounded” or, if consenting to prostitution, as “criminal” (Doezema, 2001, 2010). The migrants who attended the production accepted neither trope. Instead, they appreciated that Lipoh refused the definition placed on her by an outsider. Another male migrant, “Ah Gam,” explained that through watching the musical, his impressions of sex workers’ victimization had changed. Ah Gam reflected: I began to understand the feelings of women from seeing this musical. In the past I used to treat others, like sex workers, as like—​I didn’t want to talk with them because other people will view me as, you know, as something. But from seeing this musical, I’m aware that we need to educate each other. I understand the situation of [Lipoh], from seeing this musical. Because the family situation is difficult. We need a lot of money, and the family needs money.

Because of this, Ah Gam explained, he now understands why women would choose to enter sex work. Another female migrant, “Ja Seng,” noted that the musical reflected the experience of a sex worker she knew, and described the feeling of empathy it generated in her. In Ja Seng’s words: It really raises a lot of awareness about what's happening in the migrant community. I  have a friend whose story is similar to this show. This girl from northern

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Shan state was trafficked by her family, and had to work, and was sold to the brothel house in Bangkok. Later she wanted to go back to her home but she couldn't find an opportunity to leave the brothel. But her family member was looking for her because they were going to move to another place as a whole family. After 5 years, one of the men visited the brothel and found her, and because he felt pity for her and he took care of her—​took her to her family. But she got HIV/​AIDS.

Other migrants responded to the issue of victimization quite differently. One, “Hkaw,” revealed the importance of understanding the reality of victimhood by showcasing the vulnerability of a teenage girl in a precarious migration circumstance: “In [my] village—​[my] village is also the border area with China [and] Kachin State—​there are no teenage girls,” explained Hkaw. “It is hard to find teenage girls because as soon as they become teenagers, they drop out of school . . . They go to China for work and what they do, we don’t know.” The moderator then said, “So you’ve all agreed [victimhood is] an important issue. Why do you think it is an important issue? How important is it, is it right up there at the top?” Another participant, “Nu Ra,” responded: The victimhood is very important to spotlight, because for example in this show, we talk about the underage of prostitution. So there will be many people underage but maybe they don’t (recognize that about) themselves . . . Back in our village . . .13 or 14-​year-​old girls, they think they are big girls and that they can do whatever they want. But by showing this, they will understand.

Here, Nu Ra identified the vulnerability of young woman living in precarious and insecure situations (see Image 11.1). She described the dangers of living on the Burma-​China border, and the importance of cautioning young women not to turn to prostitution to help their families survive. Nu Ra appreciated the show’s exploration of the dangers of underage sex work, in what she saw as a message that might help dissuade women who have “too much” agency at a young age, and thus, are vulnerable to exploitation. While it could be argued that this perspective reinforces the normative trope construing all underage sex workers as victims, I  suggest that this perspective, in fact, challenges this trope precisely because it was expressed by a migrant, rather than a Western advocate. Here, we see the powerful discrepancy between articulating one’s own experience and trying to speak for another’s: in describing what was important to her, Nu Ra engaged the proactive aspect of the DAR praxis, in which participants are invited to express contrasting viewpoints in order to build a shared understanding that moves them away from replicating patterns of continued violence. The narrative that emerged here thus helped to disrupt the silences and interrogate the rhetorical construction of the trafficking “victim” that is often reinforced by Western NGOs.

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Image 11.1: “Auntie Soon.” Chiang Mai, December 2013. From left:  Yardpirun Poolun as Mother, Jenny Kwan as Lipoh, and Melody Butiu as Soon Nu. (Photo credit: Chalermpon Poungpeth).

Victimization and Situated Knowledge

In their discussion of victimization, the migrants acknowledged the complexities of the victim-​versus-​agent dilemma explored in the musical. However, their discussion also went beyond this conversation, casting a wider lens on the concept of victimization. Several migrants took the opportunity to discuss victimization more broadly, citing examples of their own feelings of being victims as migrants in Thailand, or living under the oppressive regime of the Burmese military. Far from being peripheral to our discussion of trauma and articulation, I suggest that this wider lens exposes the unrealized trauma of the migrants’ experiences. Through linking to one narrative frame—​the frame of victimhood—​the migrants began to explore a host of other narrative frames dealing with related issues of victimization. In doing this, they engaged with an even more complex and nuanced deconstruction of victimhood than the musical had presented. The personal and multilayered nature of the migrants’ discussion of victimization exemplifies the feminist tenet of situated knowledge—​that particular, idiosyncratic, and embodied basis upon which we premise our claims to knowing, as well as the inherent difficulty in being able to communicate that knowing in ways that are authentic and unblocked by inherently culturally bound communication processes (Haraway, 1988). The migrant narratives about victimization were not simple, straightforward, or rational expressions. They were, instead, engaged in lived experience, bound to memory, evoking contradiction as well as consensus. As such,

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these narratives trouble both sides of the abolitionist-​versus-​pro-​rights debate that characterizes anti-​trafficking discourse. In putting their own complex experiences at the center of the conversation, the migrants took the subject of victimization to a new level—​one that went beyond simplistic abstract polarizations of victim and agent. Instead, their conversation wholeheartedly embraced the contradictory and “situated” nature of what it means to be a migrant navigating decidedly precarious circumstances. This nuanced discussion evoked the dialogical and consciousness-​ raising aspects of DAR.

2. The Role of NGOs

A second narrative that emerged in the migrant focus group discussions involved the role of NGOs working to curb trafficking in Burma. Since the migrant population who participated in the focus groups was primarily Kachin, the question of whether non-​Kachin NGOs were doing enough to support those living in ethnic areas quickly took focus in the conversation. Indeed, the musical highlighted the problem of anti-​ trafficking NGOs in Thailand who overlook the war in Kachin State (as well as other push factors that influence women’s migration) while privileging a narrative of rescue. When asked whether they thought that NGOs focused enough on the conflict in Burma (as opposed to other issues), one female migrant, “Ja Ra,” responded: Because of the conflicts, more NGOs and CBOs are focusing on peace rather than the trafficking and women’s issues. The funders and donors focus more on the political issues now inside Myanmar. They focus less on the border, and the NGOs in Burma are not working well, and there is no transparency. But donors want to provide only funding through the government. This kind of situation makes it difficult for the organization working in Chiang Mai. Aung San Suu Kyi, she doesn’t speak much on the gender issue. She more focuses on politics.

The moderator then asked whether the group felt there is an adequate international response amongst NGOs and governments to the conflict in Kachin State. “Back home, I work with IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons],” remarked one male participant, “Sut Hkawng.” “In my view,” he said, “we receive forty per cent of our needed support from the international community, but sixty per cent of our needed support is lacking still. The humanitarian support is not enough.” Another male respondent, “Brang Seng” added, “I come from the conflict area. People are in difficulty, and the only international support comes through our government. And there is corruption in the government.” Here, Ja Ra explained that in Burma, NGOs have turned their focus away from issues of migration and toward “internal” political issues, such as the peace process between ethnic armed groups and the central Burmese government. “Women’s issues” such as trafficking, she explained, now go underfunded. Ja Ra expressed frustration with the limitations of these NGOs—​limitations that were reflected in the musical. [ 194 ]  The Production Phase

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The change in NGOs’ funding priorities began shortly following Burma’s nascent reform process in 2010, in which the nominally civilian government “opened up” the country to a host of donor organizations, governments, and other international actors. Critics of this process suggest that while political reform was identified as a top priority under, first, Thein Sein’s government and later, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NDL),2 a number of other problems have, in fact, become exacerbated under the reform process—​not the least of which being the ongoing armed conflict between the KIA and the Tatmadaw (see Human Rights Watch, 2014; Global Witness, 2005; Kamler, 2015b; Woods, 2012). Ja Ra’s comment about the lack of funding for border NGOs connected the problems associated with the reform process with the aspirations of NGOs in Burma. Ja Ra explained that NGOs in Burma are required to operate through engagement with the corrupt Burmese government—​a situation that creates obstacles for these organizations to effectively meet the needs of people on the ground. Sut Hkawng added anecdotal evidence from his own experience, suggesting that NGO—​or, what he characterized as “international,” “humanitarian”—​support remained well below adequate levels, and that these organizations seldom succeeded in meeting the needs of people in ethnic areas. Brang Seng then added that he came from a conflict area, where internally displaced persons (IDPs) struggle to survive. Concurring with Ja Ra’s assessment, he concluded that government corruption inhibits NGOs from appropriately responding to the needs of the people. These issues were addressed through the play’s critique of anti-​trafficking NGOs’ reluctance to focus on “push factors” in Burma. Presenting these issues in the musical opened the door for the migrant participants to engage in a detailed conversation about the role of NGOs in Burma, and what they felt this NGO presence lacked. In talking about these issues, the participants connected a broader social critique with their own lives. In essence, they took the narrative of the musical a step further, explaining that NGOs (like the fictional Lighthouse) that obfuscate push factors weaken the overall productivity of Burma-​based NGOs.

3. Advocacy Narrative

The third narrative that emerged in the migrant focus groups focused on whether and how the musical could serve as an advocacy tool. This topic generated an enormous amount of discussion among participants. In analyzing the advocacy theme broadly, three sub-​themes emerged. First, migrants overwhelmingly expressed that the musical could—​and should—​be used as an advocacy tool to communicate the realities of the political situation in Burma, as well as the realities of the anti-​trafficking movement, to the global community. Interestingly, the concept of the musical as advocacy tool did not stop there. The second emerging sub-​theme involved migrants’ view of the musical as a potential advocacy tool within migrant communities themselves, both in and outside of Burma. They discussed the way the musical could help them clarify, for themselves, the issues most important to them. Out of this, a third sub-​theme emerged: migrants’ awareness of their own traumas, and the musical’s A r t i c u l at i n g Mi g r a n t N a r r at i v e s  [ 195 ]

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ability to help them articulate these traumas through narrative. Following are various expressions of these three types of advocacy claims.

Advocacy to the Public

When asked, “What was this musical about?” migrant respondents pointed to the conflicts faced by Kachin civilians. In this way, the migrants seemed to see the musical as an advocacy tool for the Kachin, in that the show communicated the conflict in a way that resonated with their experiences. “Our people, Kachin people, we have hardship inside Burma and our life is very hard, difficult. So that is the theme,” concluded one male respondent, “Naw Naw.” Another, “Zarni,” added, “The situation, the political situation in Burma—​like Burmese government and Kachin people, and also like Burmanization3 and like the hardship inside Kachin State, and of course especially about Kachin women.” Another respondent, “Htu Sam,” stated, “For me, it looked like a documentary film consisting of three main things: anti-​trafficking, the real political situation inside Burma, and the difficulties of Kachin women in Burma and in Thailand. There are no men, so it is women empowering.” While Htu Sam identified anti-​trafficking as being a main theme of the musical, most of the other migrants’ responses reflected those of Naw Naw and Zarni, who identified the political situation in Burma and its effect on the Kachin, especially Kachin women, as the musical’s main theme. This set the tone of the discussion that followed regarding whether and how the musical could serve as an advocacy tool to raise awareness about these issues. Interestingly, Thailand’s anti-​trafficking policy was not identified as being a main theme by the migrant respondents. Additionally, advocacy for the rights of sex workers was not identified as a theme. Instead, the migrants primarily focused on the musical’s potential to raise awareness within and about Burma’s migrant communities, and as a vehicle to express the migrants’ own experiences of political repression. Advocacy within Migrant Communities

Several migrants felt that the musical reflected important truths that the broader migrant community would benefit from discussing. When asked what types of audiences they felt would benefit from seeing the musical, one male participant, “Brang Zet,” responded, “It should be performed for the domestic housewives or domestic house workers.” “And also the men,” added another, “La Hkawng,” “For the men are the carpenters.” Here, Brang Zet and La Hkawng suggested that the musical be performed for members of ethnic minority migrant communities other than sex workers. These respondents identified “domestic housewives/​house workers” and “men/​carpenter” as potential audiences for whom the play could be beneficial. As anti-​trafficking

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NGOs and CBOs in Thailand have documented, these populations are at high risk of labor exploitation (see Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women [GAATW], 2010; U.S. Department of State, 2010). In identifying these potential audiences, the migrants reinforced claims made by various rights groups that labor trafficking in Thailand is as much, if not a larger problem as sex trafficking, particularly in the domestic labor and construction sectors (GAATW, 2010). In addition, a number of participants stated that they felt the musical should be staged in Burma, for members of the Kachin community and others. “I think it would be very good if we show it in Burma,” stated La Hkawng. When asked what he thought the reaction in Burma would be, he elaborated. “In Rangoon, there are a lot of Kachin people so in the Kachin community it would be good. But because there are a lot of Burmese people, and the Burma Army, it would [also] be a little uncomfortable,” he added. Another respondent, “Ja Ja,” commented, “This show reflects for me that we all must realize—​especially Kachin people—​we all must realize about our situation, our real situation, and how our women are facing this trafficking [problem], working in other countries. So we need to try harder.” These respondents felt that the musical could serve as an advocacy tool within Burma, particularly among Kachin and non-​Kachin populations in Rangoon. Such a response highlights the migrants’ understanding of the discrepancies in awareness between citizens in Rangoon and those living in the ethnic areas, such as Kachin State. Interestingly, however, as Ja Ja reflected, the musical had the potential to be an advocacy tool not only within migrant and Burman-​centered communities, but also in Kachin communities. The musical could, Ja Ja suggested, serve as a reminder to Kachin people about the realities Kachin migrants face in Thailand and elsewhere. Such awareness, Ja Ja seemed to suggest, is paramount to the social health of the Kachin community. Self-​Advocacy: Expressing Unconscious Trauma Narratives

Another theme emerged that related to the show’s utility as an advocacy tool: the need, on the part of the migrants, to reflect in their own experiences of trauma. Again we see how the notion of voice is evoked in the migrant’s responses. As a witnessing mechanism, the voice lives both within and, paradoxically, outside of the human subject, the self. Traumatic experience is not confined to a human’s actions in the world, but also lives in “the enigma of the otherness of a human voice that cries out from the wound” (Caruth, 1996: 3). This voice, Caruth suggested, communicates a truth that the human cannot fully know. For the migrant respondents, the musical served as a way of reuniting with this trauma “voice”—​something experienced as being external to the self. In their discussions, the participants engaged not only with the conscious trauma narratives that the musical explored—​that is, the stories of Lipoh, Soon Nu, Lipoh’s mother, Nono, and the other migrant characters (see Image 11.2)—​but also with what I call “unconscious trauma narratives”—​that is, narratives of traumatic experience that

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Image 11.2:  “Nono and Lipoh in the Brothel.” Chiang Mai, December 2013. Yardpirun Poolun (left) as Nono, and Jennie Kwan (right) as Lipoh. (Photo credit: Chalermpon Poungpeth).

were not explicitly articulated in the musical, but which the act of witnessing the musical allowed to emerge. Examples of these unconscious trauma narratives can be seen in the responses of participants who reflected on personal experiences that the musical propelled them to recall. “I felt like crying when I  saw the show,” noted a male participant, “Ah Sut.” “I wished I could. I hope this musical can be shown to other groups in the future.” “What made you feel like crying?” the moderator asked. “I felt that it reflects the reality, the real situation that we have,” elaborated Ah Sut. “That’s why I felt like crying. And the actors were also very good,” he added. A female migrant, “Seng Moon,” then reflected: At first I didn’t understand [the musical] that well. In the beginning, I didn’t know what was going on. But in the middle I began to understand, and I felt like crying—​ because it reflects our situation and the political background which affect the lives of women. Also staying inside Burma, or whether you come to take a job in Chiang Mai . . . but we cannot stay [here in Chiang Mai] without being fined, and we still have a hard life in Chiang Mai. This makes me cry.

Here, Ah Sut discussed the musical’s representation of actual events in Burma, while Seng Moon discussed her own traumatic experience as a migrant in Chiang Mai. Seng Moon explained that migrants are often fined, and face challenging day-​ to-​day experiences. While the musical did not explicitly dramatize such experiences, [ 198 ]  The Production Phase

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Seng Moon related her own experience to the themes of the musical. In this way, the migrants were able to give voice to their own traumas. While watching the musical, Seng Moon began to recognize her own life, and “felt like crying.” It was as though she had been offered a starting point from which her own narrative could emerge. Another unconscious trauma narrative emerged in the response of “Nang Shayi:” When I was younger, the Burma military—​when they were at the church, they collected the young people to be recruited as porters, and then some were taken by the military leaders as—​you know, they wanted a “post-​wife.” You know, this kind of situation. I experienced it when I was young. And we also had to become porters, and those [people] that are very heavy, we have to carry them. And they make us run. They put a piece [a bag or bundle of goods], very heavy, over our heads. If there is any prospect of losing work, they will kill the porters. We also have to carry things—​the ration and food for ourselves and we also have to carry weapons and other things for the soldiers.

“Is this the Burmese army?” clarified the moderator. “Yes, the Burmese army,” replied Nang Shayi. “They also hit us if we cannot work well, or [if we] work slowly.” Here, Nang Shayi, unprompted, began to discuss her experience of being forced, as a child, to work as a porter for the Tatmadaw.4 While the musical addressed the issue of portering only briefly,5 this respondent was moved to share similar details from her past. Doing so enabled her to give voice to a traumatic event that required witnessing in order for it to be processed, and understood. These and other seemingly “unrelated” narrative ties point to the power of DAR as a technique for fostering recollection, mourning, and the transformation from bystander to witness. Other participants recalled similar related trauma events. Some were moved to discuss the reality of life as a migrant in Chiang Mai, and the daily struggles associated with different types of work—​domestic labor, construction work, and other vocations. For example, Seng Moon explained: “Police, when they check our ID cards, they always take more money from the Burmese workers. They separate the many groups, and if you are Burman, then you get this certain kind of identity card. You are already discriminated against.” Nang Shayi added, “At first they will make the ID cards for you, but if we cannot work well, or if we are sick, they won’t give back the ID cards. This makes it very difficult to work.” Here, Seng Moon and Nang Shayi discussed the challenges of life as a migrant in Chiang Mai. They explained that migrants are required to carry ID cards, which are frequently checked by Thai authorities. If their work is for any reason deemed inadequate, the authorities will often arbitrarily confiscate their ID cards, rendering them powerless. Again, we see how the musical served as a vehicle for fostering dialogue about traumatic events that, while seemingly tangential to the storyline of the show itself, are nevertheless important sites of recollection. To clarify, I am not suggesting that these memories, or narratives, were unknown or went unspoken before the migrants watched the musical. That information goes A r t i c u l at i n g Mi g r a n t N a r r at i v e s  [ 199 ]

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beyond the scope of this study. What I  am suggesting, rather, is that witnessing the narrative explored in the musical—​the story of migrant women’s traumatic experiences in Burma and in Thailand—​allowed the migrants to then elaborate on other traumas that were important and meaningful to them. The act of participating in the theatrical event created new pathways for dialogue about the broader subject of trauma. As such, these traumas were given voice in a new way. Since the nature of trauma is to remain in the unconscious, and since trauma survivors are frequently unable to actually experience that trauma until it is voiced, I  contend that in the case of the migrant respondents, it was not that their memories of experience were repressed or buried, but that they had not previously been given expression—​given voice—​as wounds. The trauma events remained unrecognized and thus, not seen for what they really were. The musical and focus group discussions prompted their newfound expression.

4. Narrative of Recognition

In seeing aspects of Kachin culture—​such as Kachin dress, language, and song—​ being portrayed on stage, a number of migrant respondents expressed surprise and delight. This narrative of recognition, though seemingly simple, nevertheless generated a great deal of positive emotional response among the participants. When asked to describe their “first impressions” of the musical, one woman, “Lu Ja,” replied, “I am very impressed about all the Kachin traditional clothing and materials are used, and also with the real information from inside Burma, our current situation.” Another added, “When they sing the Kachin hymn, Christmas hymn, they sing it in Kachin and the language is very clear and understandable.” Lu Ja then added, “I thank a lot to the show, because it is advocating to the other communities because Kachin  .  .  .  actually Kachin is a very small tribe that we couldn’t . . . even though we wanted to tell about our situation to others we couldn’t . . . we don’t know how to do. It is very difficult for us. But it is very impressive,” she said. In the DAR model, it is not through the act of “realization”—​an epiphanic moment of discovering a truth and then expressing that truth dramatically—​that change occurs. Rather, the dramatic expression itself begets realization, and in turn, expression. In the above statements, participants realized that their worlds were being represented. Through this act of representation—​this new visibility—​they felt recognized by a community of artists—​people from the other side of the world whom they had never met before. The act of being sympathetically known by the world of the “other” allowed the respondents to be freed from an assumed isolation, and to realize that support was available to them in ways they had not previously imagined possible.

5. The Power of Liveness

The final narrative that emerged in the migrant focus groups involved the importance of live theater as a vehicle for communicating experience. Many of the migrants [ 200 ]  The Production Phase

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noted that the acts of speaking and singing had made them feel stronger and literally more alive. “The actors seemed to feel the story and they also acted really well. This is very good for public awareness,” suggested one respondent. “I also felt that I need to make awareness to other people,” he added. Another remarked, “All the actresses, they sing very good. I really like the voices. The good voices make the show more alive. I like that.” Finally, a female participant added, “What I  like is that Emma finally released Lipoh, and finally increased her position by singing what her feelings are. That really impressed me.” Here, we see how the power of live musical theater—​the embodiment that so viscerally connected the initial field research to the creative process of the show’s construction, deeply affected the migrant audience members. Musical theater thus transcends barriers not only between time and space, but also between subjects. Through the performance medium, the migrants embraced a sensation of being more alive—​what I would unequivocally call a state of liberation.

We think we are alone until, in certain rare moments, the world seems to look up and see us as we are. The truth becomes less heavy in those moments, as we’re reminded that our journey is a story, both witnessed and shared. DAR provides a space for this witnessing. It is through this process that the voices of our wounds can speak, and, through this speaking, be understood by others, as well as ourselves. The narratives of the migrants who attended the performance clearly reflected this process. Their discussions of the musical’s themes as well as their newfound articulations of the unconscious trauma events that marked their own lives, illustrate the power of narratives in the healing process. As I will discuss in the following chapter, by allowing the “voice” to cry out through the “wound,” the migrant participants began to break free from the unknown parts of the psyche that dwell in trauma. The musical served as an anchor—​a symbolic starting point from which the voices of trauma could be articulated, witnessed, and, it can only be hoped, also healed.

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CHAPTER 12

Recollection, Mourning, and Witness Migrant Subjectivities

I want the world to recognize with me, the open door of every consciousness. —​Franz Fanon (1967:123)

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hey ride in trucks in the morning—​dozens of migrant women and men, packed in the back, their faces covered in rags, their heads covered in rags, their bodies covered in rags to protect them from the dust and the stench and the heat. They pass the Thai apartment blocks and storefronts on their way to the condo development down the road, ready to start another oppressively long, drastically underpaid day. They climb the scaffolding made of bamboo and fashioned together with nothing more than wire and rope. No harness, no net. Two hundred baht—​six dollars a day—​ if they’re lucky. This is why they come. The women on the ground outside the construction site cooking over hot fires, the coal and the smoke and the black, searing bits of chicken, boiling what little rice they can find, feeding it to their men. Those women with husbands up on that scaffolding, barefoot and climbing, husbands who might plummet to their deaths at any moment, leaving them and their children alone. They come because their brothers told them to. Because their sisters could not. Because a brothel owner had a job, or a road was being built. Because an auntie helped them run. Because of the dust and the hunger and the chaos and the war. They come because no one sees what has happened to them. They come for the same reasons, each and every one. To find a way to survive.

Survivors of collective trauma often experience “disavowal”—​that is, our inability to see what is directly in front of us (Hoffman, 2000). In contrast to the accepted Freudian psychoanalytic framework of post-​traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which

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suggests that trauma survivors are plagued by repetitively reliving their traumas in ways both horrific and unavoidable, trauma is, in fact, a “missed experience” (Caruth, 1996: 60), more dreamlike than conscious, the response to the shock of a threat to one’s survival that creates a rupture in the mind’s acceptance of events. Rather than being repressed in order to counter the ego ideal, trauma, in fact, is “actually never experienced at all” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008: 121). Survivors, therefore, need a space for recalling the experiences that may be “right in front of them,” but which are still too painful for them to see. Because of the buried nature of trauma, and the disavowal that often accompanies it, the voice becomes an essential agent in the process whereby trauma survivors recall their experiences—​an active site of articulation through which traumatic experiences can be known. Part of the DAR praxis, then, involves creating ways for the voice to express what a subject does not yet consciously know. As such, DAR helps participants recover their trauma voices and enables them to recall and mourn their experiences. In this chapter I  discuss the way the migrant narratives evoked processes of recollection and mourning, and locate the liberatory aspects of DAR within these processes. The first “two layers” of the migrants’ articulation process, recollection and mourning, are inherently dialogical, as they create a space for open communication; consciousness-​raising, as they ask that participants reflect on their experiences and consider new perspectives; and rupturing, as they encourage new self-​narratives to emerge. In the focus groups, recollection and mourning became central to the migrants’ articulation of their own lived experience. In addition, witness, the counterpart to these processes, enables a “third layer” of articulation to occur. Witness is concerned with the hearing, or recognition of trauma by an outside observer. In the DAR praxis, witnessing takes place when an audience acknowledges the articulation of the “voice” of the “wound” as it “speaks” through the trauma survivor, thus creating a proactive space for the community to recognize the trauma and its origins, and actively work to prevent those conditions from recurring. In this chapter I also look at how the migrants responded to having their traumas witnessed, and I discuss the process by which new pathways for visibility and subjectivity were achieved.

DAR AS A SPACE FOR RECOLLECTION Collective Trauma in Burma

In a country such as Burma, in which citizens have been oppressed by a ruthless military regime for the better part of the past 60 years, virtually no public expression of resistance has been possible. Such expressions, when they surfaced, were repeatedly punished by imprisonment, torture, or disappearance (Fink, 2009; Skidmore, 2004; White, 2004). Prior to the country’s recent opening, citizens under Burma’s military regime had not had the opportunity to express—​and thereby fully experience—​the traumas they endured. Their ability to hear their own “trauma voices,” or reconstruct

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their experiences through engaging cultural symbolism was deeply constrained. Thus, migrants who leave Burma often experience a disconnection between the self and the community, which in turn creates a sense of hopelessness and causes a retreat into isolation. Fragmentation of experience, and the inability to communicate that experience, commonly marks the migrant survivor from Burma (Skidmore, 2004). In discussing the social dimension of trauma, Erikson (1995) explained that “the tissues of community can be damaged in much the same way as tissues of mind and body” (p. 185). In such circumstances, spaces of communal recollection are needed to “unfreeze” the wounds of trauma, allowing them to speak. Linking the buried trauma events to a narrative that encourages communal rebuilding among trauma survivors is one of the goals of DAR. Spaces of recollection provide a public platform for symbolic expression—​a way of voicing experiences that have not yet been acknowledged at either the psychic or the social levels. Musical theater, as an embodied storytelling medium, is not merely a way to communicate experience; in the DAR model, it can also be used to help survivors overcome trauma.

Fostering Unrelated Narrative Ties

As researchers and dramatic artists, how do we encourage the knowledge of trauma to come to the fore, when that trauma has not yet been expressed, and therefore remains unrecognized by the survivor? The feminist research ethic asks that we allow for seemingly unrelated processes and epistemological frameworks to inform our understanding of a given research subject (Ackerly & True, 2010). For example, through paying attention to women’s self-​narratives, we may discover issues or processes that were wholly unfamiliar to us when we embarked on the original process of conducting research. The feminist voice-​centered method reinforces this idea, as this method encourages researchers to listen for the internalization of dominant social discourses through the positional location of the speaker. In other words, feminist methods ask that we listen to what is being said on a deeper level, attending to the subjective experiences of the speaker and the social positions from which she or he is speaking. Engaging these feminist epistemologies, DAR seeks to foster recollection and mourning among participants by creating a new kind of space—​one in which seemingly unrelated narrative ties are encouraged and facilitated. These unrelated narrative ties allow participants to articulate their experience, which in turn allows them to recall and mourn their own traumatic histories. During the focus groups, migrant participants made connections between the musical’s story and various events from their own lives. They described these experiences through telling their own stories. These experiential stories were often seemingly unrelated to the narrative of the musical, yet they evoked a strong emotional pull within the migrant participants. Participants spoke about their traumatic experiences working in Chiang Mai as domestic laborers, construction workers, and other precarious vocations. While the story of Land of Smiles did not specifically illuminate the conditions of these types of jobs, the participants imaginatively “tied” [ 204 ]  The Production Phase

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Lipoh’s experiences to their own, linking her experience in the brothel and the IDC with their own experiences of being exploited, living in fear, running from police, and being objectified and criminalized by those in power. The migrant participants also recalled the traumas of being beaten and forced into labor at the hands of Burma’s military junta. The formation of these unrelated narrative ties demonstrates the utility of DAR as a space for recollection, and evokes the dialogical aspect of the DAR praxis. Participants were able to begin seeing their experiences in a new light—​a rupturing process that repositioned them as owners of their own histories. Engaging in discussion enabled participants to better understand their histories and interrogate them from multiple angles. Finally, the connection of seemingly unrelated events through narrative sparked consciousness-​raising among participants, as they began to critically evaluate the circumstances of their past (and, in some cases, their present) conditions.

DAR AS A VEHICLE FOR MOURNING

Such narrative ties also provide a vehicle for “mourning,” the process by which survivors of collective trauma identify and reclaim aspects of culture that have been repressed. Mourning occurs in processes in which groups of people speak out in “startling ways” against the oppression they have endured (Caruth, 1996: 116). Songs, poetry, and other cultural expressions often form the foundation for these processes of collective resistance (Watkins & Shulman, 2008). Again, however, in circumstances in which these expressions are made impossible, the ability to mourn is also repressed. The act of recollection that was prompted by watching Land of Smiles created an opportunity for the migrant participants to actively mourn their buried trauma experiences. A distinction must be made here between the process of recalling and the process by which a subject understands and frames his or her own experiences as being one of trauma. I am not suggesting that the migrant participants did not remember their personal experiences prior to witnessing the performance. Rather, in recalling these experiences and linking them to the dramatic narrative of the musical, the migrants were able to consciously situate these experiences in the framework of trauma. The musical thereby became a vehicle for the voice of the trauma wound to express itself—​a way for migrants to “cry out.”

DAR AS A VEHICLE FOR WITNESS

In both the previous and current chapter, I’ve talked about the importance of witness in understanding trauma. I’ll now expand on this idea. I  consider witness to be the “third layer” of the articulation of trauma that DAR helps foster. Witnessing involves the presence of an outside actor, someone external to the trauma survivor, to take part in the process of overcoming trauma. However, as we’ve seen, the R e c ol l e c t i o n , M o u r n i n g , a n d W i t n e s s  [ 205 ]

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process of witnessing is not entirely the same as the process of seeing. Indeed, there is an ongoing tension that exists around the issue of visibility in feminist attempts to reclaim experience (see, for example, Hedge, 2011; Phelan, 1993). Part of what marks the human condition is a longing for an outsider to witness our experience, our being. We hope that this visibility might give value to—​offer proof, in a sense—​ of what we have endured. But is the act of sight enough to engage the processes of recognition and healing? What about the experiences and aspects of ourselves that can never be seen, or have not yet been claimed? Some feminists have troubled the idea of visibility, suggesting that for women, visibility is often a trap in which fetishization, surveillance, and objectification are reinstated in place of the subjectivity that is assumed to accompany the “seen” (Phelan, 1993). Performativity, which “achieves its effects through its naturalization in the context of a body” (Butler, 2007: xv), can serve to merely frame the real, while rendering illusive the subjectivity of those who are being represented. DAR provides an alternative to the trappings of visibility and the limitations of representation that often accompany both performance and research. It does this, I suggest, through fostering a space for witness, rather than mere visibility, to take place. Witnessing is a proactive, dialogical process of acknowledging more than the surface of one’s visibility. It is an act of engagement with another’s process of articulating trauma. In this sense, theater is an excellent vehicle for witness. As a live medium, theater requires the participation of the audience—​a group of people who, in witnessing a performance, also inevitably witness each other’s presence in the room. As such, the collective processes by which the audience grapples with the artistic material becomes exposed. The liveness of the medium—​the fact that “we’re all in this together”—​means that we are implicated in each other’s processes of recollection and mourning. Because of the intimate connections between the “fictional” and the “real,” in the DAR praxis, the audience engages in a more complex relationship to the material presented on stage than they otherwise would in a non-​DAR theatrical event. In DAR, those who attend a performance become more than audiences—​they become witnesses. During the Land of Smiles production, this turn of the audience into witnesses had particular salience for the migrant participants, whose political and social history of marginalization had eclipsed their ability to be recognized by the outside world. Having been repeatedly dismissed by the Burmese government, the Thai government, the West, and, as trauma survivors, even by themselves, the migrants who attended the performance not only engaged in uncovering their own trauma voices, but were also witnessed by the artists, the NGO employees and the other audience members in the room. This witnessing act represents the third layer of a trauma’s articulation:  through engaging with the story of the musical, and in realizing that others were bearing witness to this process, the migrant participants began to recall traumatic aspects of their own histories. Moreover, this realization of being witnessed allowed their mourning of trauma to deepen even further. Finally, through the other audience members’ witnessing of their experiences, migrants were able to reclaim their subjectivity. This was exemplified by several of the migrant participants who expressed feeling a sense of triumph that “foreigners” were [ 206 ]  The Production Phase

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watching the show—​groups of people unlike themselves, who would now know and understand what they have endured. This sense of triumph, I  suggest, related directly to the fact that other people were watching them watch the show, bearing witness to their processes of recollection and mourning. In dealing with the conflict between the representation and the real, Phelan pointed out, “A believable image is the product of a negotiation with an unverifiable real” (1993: 1). With this, she asked, if seeing is not all we believe it to be, how then do we locate subjects who cannot be seen? In response to this question, I suggest that it is the process of witnessing the act of seeing that fosters the location of the subject, and, in the case of the migrant participants, the transformation of those subjects from passive objects to active subjects able to articulate their experiences and speak their truths. The DAR praxis engages an alternative way to visualize, or witness experience. Following the performance of Land of Smiles, the migrant participants began to see themselves through a new lens. It bears repeating here that I am not suggesting that the migrants did not remember their traumas or had not previously thought about their own experiences. Rather, through seeing the musical and participating in the focus groups, they began to see these experiences through the double lens of both the performance narrative and the audience’s recognition. They began to see the way they are seen. This, in turn, created a new pathway for visibility—​one that does not fall into the trap of fetishization described by Phelan, or linger in the myth of objectivism problematized by Haraway. Land of Smiles, as a feminist modality, fostered a new way for migrant participants to articulate and thus direct the visualization of themselves. In so doing, their subjectivity was restored.

CREATING SPACE THROUGH DAR Informing New Contextual Discoveries

As a communication intervention, DAR relies on the open field of creativity and dialogue to foster recollection, mourning, and witness. As such, DAR interventions must also foster spaces of liminality—​a key for bridging narrative ties and bringing expressions of trauma to the fore. These expressions are contextually bound. Because of this, the DAR artist-​researcher cannot expect that her interventions will be reproduced in other contexts with the achievement of the same results. Just as no two theatrical productions can ever occur in the same way due to the medium’s dependence on temporality, so too must we abandon the notion that a DAR project can be identically reproduced. Instead, DAR is predicated on the idea of creating space for unknown, previously unvoiced experiences and expressions to emerge. As such, this method refutes positivism’s central premise of decontextualized objectivity and instead embraces the concept of contextualized, situated knowledge, or a “feminist objectivity” (Haraway, 1988). As Sandra Harding explained, “postcolonialism and feminism can usefully be thought of as thinking spaces that have been opened up by changes in ‘discourses’ ” R e c ol l e c t i o n , M o u r n i n g , a n d W i t n e s s  [ 207 ]

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(1998: 17). Similarly, DAR evokes its own thinking space. It is the creative process itself that informs and allows new contextual discoveries to be made.

Engaging Iconic Memory

In constructing spaces for recollection, mourning, and witness, DAR also engages the differential between narrative and iconic memory. Whereas narrative memory focuses on a linear movement through time (“this happened, and then this happened, and then that happened”), iconic memory deals with the symbolic aspects of memory, in which “an object, a smell, a sound, or an image may trigger a set of associations for which no narrative structure yet exists” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008: 126). Artistic forms such as poetry and music often engage iconic memory. This discussion of the varying forms of narratives in art asks us to consider the contextually bound nature of how experience is communicated. The job of the artist is to resist imposing rationality on experiences that would be better expressed in symbolic ways. Similarly, in the DAR method, researchers must also resist imposing linearity onto their research processes. The recognition of the utility of iconic memory supports the argument that artists, not scientists or policymakers, should be doing the work of arts interventions. Thus DAR is predicated on the union between the analytical social scientist and the emotionally, materially bound artist—​two modes of understanding that, when working together, uncover, recover, and articulate experience in powerful ways. Participation then, rather than positivism, is the essence of the DAR praxis. In contrast to Entertainment-​Education initiatives, which seek to apply standardized solutions to contextually bound problems, or Theatre of the Oppressed, which reinforces binaries between community subgroups, DAR is predicated on the idea that all who experience social catastrophe can and should participate in the creative process of self-​discovery. As such, DAR also utilizes cultural modalities that have a symbolic meaning within the society and a social meaning in their enactment. Musical theater, a cultural expression, fosters communication and empathy in a wholly different way than other forms of communication. Thus, the goal of DAR is not to create art for the sake of consumption, but rather, art that engages both narrative and iconic memory to spur recollection, mourning, and witness among participants.

The act of articulating trauma, and the healing that occurs through this articulation can infuse hope into social spaces where hope had previously been lost. Through recollection, mourning, and witness, new sites of community restoration may form—​places where people are more easily able to reclaim their experiences and heal themselves. Reclaiming the traumas and triumphs that communities share is paramount to this process, for the individual is not an autonomous space, but a “site of identities and voices” (Conquergood, 1991: 185). Recovering the collective is, therefore, part of the process of recovering the self. [ 208 ]  The Production Phase

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The embodied, live, collaborative, and participatory modality of musical theater fosters such recoveries. Following the performance of Land of Smiles, the migrant participants engaged with processes of recollection, mourning, and witness. They utilized unrelated narrative ties to articulate and make sense of their traumatic past experiences, and they reclaimed (and transformed) their own visibility through the process of witness. The performance of the musical prompted a space of recognition whereby trauma could finally be known, and a future beyond that trauma could be made possible. Through this process, not only did the migrant participants restore a sense of their own community, they also fostered a broader enactment of community restoration in the community that formed around the musical as a whole. By bearing witness to each other’s experiences through engaging the tenets of liberation, migrants and audience members came together to restore the subjectivities of all members of the group. Reimagining and thus re-​understanding ourselves through creative means is the enterprise of DAR. In the next, and final chapters of the book, I  will turn to the narratives of one last group of participants—​the artists—​to show how they too, were affected by these processes. Engaging and articulating their experiences of rupture and its complementary process of hospitality, the artist narratives reveal the power of musical theater as a means of breaking down preconceptions and opening new pathways to empathy and trust. It is here that we see the tenets of liberation unfold most dramatically, illuminating DAR’s transformative essence.

R e c ol l e c t i o n , M o u r n i n g , a n d W i t n e s s  [ 209 ]

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CHAPTER 13

Articulating Artist Narratives We’re going home on Monday and I’m having these feelings of . . . I don’t know who I am once I go back. Because I knew this was going to happen. If I really allow myself to take it in. I ran into Erin this morning and I was like, “You already know this but you’ve opened up this world that I could have never dreamed possible.” That means something. That’s not just some superficial. . . . You know, if I never do a job again, maybe I will become a humanitarian. I don’t know. I just don’t know, but I’ve been changed. —​Jenny Kwan, Chiang Mai, Thailand (December 2013)

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hey arrived as foreigners wearing backpacks and Tevas and mosquito repellant. Foreigners who would, no doubt, see the obvious things—​temples and markets and food stalls, and soak in the obvious experiences—​elephant rides and jungle hikes and monsoon downpours. But this group of foreigners was different. As artists, they were primed to existing in a perpetual state of “in-​between.” In-​between jobs, in-​between roles, in-​between identities—​constantly navigating the dynamics of an interaction, the interpretation of a text, the silences that sit between notes on a page of sheet music, mediating spaces most of us don’t even think about. When artists become travelers, these spaces take on wholly new dimensions. An artist will find herself standing in the rain, transformed. Listening to the story of a fellow traveler, transformed. Riding in the back of a tuk-​tuk, transformed. It is the job of the artist to be receptive to the smallest, seemingly mundane details of everyday life—​a gesture, a sensation, a soundscape. Fleeting moments of connection that the rest of us might otherwise miss. This happens for a reason. To be an artist—​to be one fully—​requires a deep dive into the unknown. Thus, when artists travel, it is often discomfort that greets them, illuminating a less certain but ultimately more meaningful world.

Liminality, that “in-​between” psychological space, is often experienced as a “dangerous passage” from certainty into the unknown, a state of being infused with

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symbolic loss (Shulman, personal communication, 2011). In a liminal psychological state, we know what our old ideals and values were, but because of the rupture that’s taken place in our consciousness, we are no longer able to believe in those ideals and values. Consequently, we feel as though we no longer really know ourselves. This type of loss is often painful, as the certainty with which we have grown accustomed to approaching life is now gone. Liminal space is precarious, fragile—​ and also extremely potent. As the “real” and “fictitious” worlds collide, liminality becomes a natural element of the DAR praxis. Theater, by its testimonial nature, asks that artists step outside the certainty of their identities and inhabit the needs, desires, fears, and losses of the characters they portray. With DAR, this process is augmented to include a whole new level of liminality:  the space between characters and the actual people those characters are meant to symbolically represent. In participating in a DAR project, actors are asked to dwell in this uncomfortable, uncertain space between the fictional and the real. But to get there requires them to first experience something even more jarring to the human psyche. Here is where we land in Phase Three of the research—​ with a final interrogation, one that builds upon the previous chapters to explicate what is perhaps DAR’s most powerful liberatory paradigm: “Rupture.” Rupture is that moment when one realizes that her old behaviors, assumptions, and views of herself no longer hold true (Shulman, personal communication, 2011). When we encounter a rupture in our lives, we are jolted into awareness, suddenly seeing our old beliefs and ideas as a kind of mirage. This state goes hand in hand with Freire’s “conscientization”—​the act of becoming aware of the political and social structures that inform not only our lived experiences, but also our understanding of who we are. Rupture and liminality go hand in hand, as rupture propels us into the in-​between space in which the world around us is no longer coherent or certain. Thus, in these final two chapters I  turn to look at how the artists who participated in Land of Smiles—​both those who traveled to Thailand from the very different world of Los Angeles, and those who were based in Chiang Mai—​were propelled into a liminal state through ruptures evoked by their participation in the production. I  start by looking at six narratives that emerged in the artist focus groups—​narratives that demonstrate aspects of rupture. Then, in the next chapter, I discuss rupture’s complementary state, “hospitality,” in which the acceptance and embracing of a new worldview becomes possible. Together, these chapters conclude our discussion of the third and final phase of the DAR praxis.

THE ARTIST NARRATIVES

In the artist focus group that followed the performances, actors, stage crew, and designers came together to discuss their experiences working on Land of Smiles, as well as their interactions with migrant participants from Burma. Within this conversation, six narrative themes emerged:

A r t i c u l at i n g A r t i s t N a r r at i v e s  [ 211 ]

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1. “I now see Thailand/​trafficking/​sex work through a new lens” (Discovery narrative) 2. “I no longer know where performance ends and life begins” (Liminality narrative) 3. “I want my work as an artist to serve a higher purpose” (Service narrative) 4. “I can’t go back to who I was before” (Rupturing narrative) 5. “I want to become more aware of the political situation in Burma” (Political Consciousness narrative) 6. “Theater has the power to heal” (Healing narrative)

1. “I Now See Thailand/​Trafficking/​S ex Work through a New Lens” (Discovery Narrative)

The first narrative that emerged from the artist group was what I call the narrative of discovery. This narrative illustrates the artists’ change in perception of the issues that were explored in the musical. Interestingly, the Los Angeles-​based artists experienced this change in perception through their relationships with the characters they portrayed, while the Chiang Mai-​based artists experienced a change in relation to real people in their communities. To prompt this conversation, the moderator asked the artists whether their impressions of the play’s subject matter had changed once they began working on the show. “Well yeah,” began Amanda Kruger, who played the role of Emma. Kruger then recalled her initial response to Emma’s decision at the end of the play to let Lipoh return to her job as a sex worker: I read the script and when I got to the end I was like, “Wait, she lets her go?” I was really confused and conflicted and like, “That’s weird.” I don’t know if I identified if there was a bad guy or a good guy, just that that’s odd that [Emma’s] not trying to get this little girl out of the life she’s in—​she’s just letting her go.

Kruger explained that she had initially been confused by the plot twist at the end of the musical, wherein Emma frees Lipoh from the IDC. In reading the script, she reflected, she didn’t understand why Emma made this choice, as her own assumptions about trafficking and underage sex work were still coloring her view of the story. Kruger later elaborated that it was not until she began digging into the rehearsal process in Thailand and engaging with the migrant women from Burma that she truly understood Emma’s reason for setting Lipoh free. Ultimately, she explained, her perspective on these issues broadened. Kruger’s response illuminates the consciousness-​raising tenet of liberation. By inhabiting the world of the play, she went beyond simply playing a role to more authentically understanding the choices of the character she portrayed. Similarly, actor Melody Butiu described her process of discovering the play’s “world” through the characters she portrayed:

[ 212 ]  The Production Phase

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I like the themes of the play being gray and life is not black and white. I  mean, you can see the different perspectives of Achara’s character wanting to stop people one at a time [from migrating] and follow the rule of law and having some sort of guideline in order to achieve the goal of ending trafficking. And then, you know, the missionaries’ perspective as well. It’s not just simple bad guy and good guy. And then certainly the complexities of Lipoh’s choices and what they have to do to fight for their people and for their survival.

The moderator asked whether she had known about these issues before she began working on the play. Butiu responded: I mean, I knew about it from doing the show [in Los Angeles]. But it didn’t really hit me as much until I started approaching this character [of Soon Nu]. I didn’t play Soon Nu [in Los Angeles], so working the “Kachin Women Are Proud and Strong” number, just going through beat by beat—​it’s such an epic song of the life that they had before, and what their life is like now in war-​torn Burma, and the choices they have to make and the sacrifices they have to make. Even though I kind of knew it intellectually, it didn’t hit me emotionally until working on it this time around.

Here, Butiu described the process of discovering Thailand’s anti-​ trafficking landscape, as well as the realities faced by migrants from conflict-​ridden Burma, through her work with two characters in the show. She explained that although she intellectually understood the hardships migrants faced, it was not until she traveled to Thailand and played Soon Nu (see Image 13.1) that the show’s themes hit

Image 13.1:  “Kachin Women Are Proud and Strong.” Chiang Mai, December 2013. Melody Butiu as Soon Nu. (Photo credit: Chalermpon Poungpeth). A r t i c u l at i n g A r t i s t N a r r at i v e s  [ 213 ]

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home. This actor approached her discovery through the lens of character: by understanding the difficulties her character faced, her views of the issues raised in the play transformed. Interestingly, the Chiang Mai-​based artists’ responses revealed a different aspect of the narrative of discovery. Although they, too, recognized that the play changed their views of Thailand, sex work, and trafficking, their discoveries involved navigating preexisting relationships with members of the local Chiang Mai community. One artist, Marisa Mour, explained: I have Christian missionary friends, so I sort of knew their complexities and conflicting values [going into the play] and basically they want to do good. And so I can kind of deal with all the tensions that they are carrying within them. But I  also know people who are Thai feminist NGO workers and they have the values that Achara does. And so while I was trying to embody this role, it actually made me more compassionate for what people who are Thai feminist NGO workers might be doing.

Another artist, Christy Humphry, described a similar process of discovery through participating in the play while reflecting on the values of her community. Humphry shared: I have to admit before I  moved to Thailand the whole trafficking thing, I  mean I knew nothing about sex workers before I came here. And trafficking I only knew from movies. So I mean, I was pretty naïve in a lot of ways. I mean, just seeing this play and being a part of this. . . . Every time I listen to the words I’m like, “Oh, I’m getting it.” I  mean, I’m a Christian, but I’m not a missionary. But I  have a lot of friends who are, and I kind of understand why they are out to save souls. But I look at it differently after seeing this play. I realize that it’s not necessarily something we need to be doing.

Finally, a third Chiang-​Mai-​based artist, Ann Fink, expressed a similar narrative of discovery: Living here in Chiang Mai is a unique experience. Because I know NGO workers, I know missionaries, I’ve been an NGO worker, I know the people in the audience. They have lived a lot of what they are seeing. And they know the situation, or some know it’s there and choose not to find out about it. So I think this play is very unique for folks in the audience.

Here, Fink expressed a narrative of discovery for members of an audience that, she believed, already knew about the issues raised in the play. Through watching the play, she felt, these community members began seeing the issues in a new way.

[ 214 ]  The Production Phase

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2. “I No Longer Know Where Performance Ends and Life Begins” (Liminality Narrative)

The state of liminality, that in-​between space in which two modalities of experience overlap, was expressed by a number of artists when asked about their impressions of the migrant women. The artists reflected on their experiences interacting with the Kachin migrants whom they met at various points throughout the production process. Their responses reveal a tension as they navigated liminal terrain. “I was just humbled to be there,” commented Melody Butiu. She then reflected: The thing is, I think theater is really powerful and has its purpose, but I’m in awe of the work that they’re doing and their background and the courage that they have to fight for their rights and for their voice. My sister does a lot of social justice work and she’s volunteering in the Philippines right now and whenever I hear what she does it’s always very humbling. She’s like, you know, “We hiked six hours up to this village in the Philippines so we could bring them food,” and I’m like, “Oh, I’m trying to get off book for this show.” I mean, it is so humbling. And not to diminish the work that we do as artists, and the fact that we get to tell this story and start a dialogue and try to you know, encourage awareness, but it is . . . it’s very humbling just to even spend the day with them. And the fact that a bunch of them are going to be here tomorrow [at the performance] is freaking me out!

Butiu’s response illuminates the collision that takes place in the DAR praxis—​a collision between lived experience and artistic practice. In his discussion of Marxist theater, Boal (1979) explained that Brecht sought to expose the social, economic, and political forces that underscore character “objects.” In order to discover the truth about such characters, he suggested, artists must enter the “real world” rather than confine themselves to the world of the stage. According to Boal, “Brecht contends that the popular artist must abandon the downtown stages and go to the neighborhoods, because only there will he find people who are truly interested in changing society” (p. 105). In line with Brecht’s suggestion, participatory methodologies focusing on the arts ask that artists abandon the idea that their job is purely to perform an interpretive, or aesthetic function. These methodologies ask artists (and researchers) to implicate themselves in their work—​investing more than just detached analysis or their skills as performers. Participatory methods speak to the higher purpose of community engagement that is central to DAR. Embracing this ethic of participation, Butiu explained that by coming to Thailand and interacting with the migrant women, her purpose as an artist had changed. Her work was no longer just about “doing a show.” Rather, life and art had begun to merge in a powerful new way. Such a complete entry into liminality is often troubling, as it evokes an uncertainty as to the boundaries of one’s identity (Shulman, personal communication, 2011). Old views of the self are exposed as no longer relevant, and the subject is forced to confront the unknown spaces of the possible self. For an actor who has been accustomed to just “doing a show,” such entry into liminality can have profoundly A r t i c u l at i n g A r t i s t N a r r at i v e s  [ 215 ]

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rupturing effects. Indeed, when asked to compare their experiences of performing the musical in Los Angeles and Chiang Mai, several artists expressed undergoing rupture. As Los Angeles-​based actor Jennie Kwan noted: For me, yeah, [this performance experience] is completely different. I  want to tell the story as authentically as I  can. I  know it is still a musical, I  know it is still a story. I  just want to do the story justice, I  want to tell it honestly. And the reason it is different is because we are so close to it here. We have seen their faces and have been touched by the situation here and it’s close, you know, we are right here.

Another Los Angeles-​based artist added: When we did the workshop (in Los Angeles), even though we knew that it was a true story or inspired by real people, there was still a distance. It was still like, “This is a play. I’m telling a story,” you know, the safety that [Kwan] talks about. It was still an emotional piece in the U.S. but to come here and to meet the people . . . It’s more real than anything that I could have imagined.

The impact of the relationship between art and life was felt full-​force by these actors, who expressed being profoundly moved by the “realness” of the play in Thailand. Those who had performed the show in Los Angeles experienced a kind of awakening in bringing the show to the communities on which the story was based. This process of performing the artistic work before bringing the work into the community, and subsequently making discoveries about the community upon which it is based, illustrates the inherently reflexive nature of the DAR praxis. DAR, as we have seen, is not a linear model in which an artist-​researcher makes a discovery about the world, then transforms that discovery into art. Rather, in DAR it is the artistic process itself that fuels further discovery. As these artists expressed, performing the musical in Los Angeles and then Thailand led them to make discoveries about the anti-​trafficking movement. The DAR process, then, does not stop with the artistic product itself. Instead, performance is one of many steps in unearthing and communicating new discoveries. Along these lines, several actors expressed feeling “trapped” by their experience of liminality. When asked to reflect on the aspects of the production that were most challenging, for example, Kwan remarked: I think there were a couple difficulties: the feeling of not wanting to let down the people whose story we are telling, wanting to serve the piece and do justice, and then on a personal level there is overcoming all the things you thought were true, overcoming your own insecurities, like battling your own demons while you’re looking in the face at everybody else’s.

To this, Butiu added:

[ 216 ]  The Production Phase

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You know, the day before we opened I went up on a line,1 and I was like, “What am I doing?” And just—​“Here we go, I hope it works!” And that it all came together, the tech, and everything, it came out beautifully, it’s simple and lovely and tells the story, and the audience gets it. And the Powerpoint happened, and I  mean, they were up ’til three o’clock in the morning most nights putting that together and formatting it, and everything that needed to be done just seemed so daunting. And the fact that it came together is so satisfying. Like, we did it, you know? And sometimes I  think about the people that we’re singing about and talking about—​that they ran through the jungles for their lives. [So] we can get off book. We can put this together.

Here, Kwan and Butiu expressed their desire to do justice to the piece for the people in the audience whose lives it reflected. Kwan described the personal challenge of having to overcoming insecurities and “demons,” while Butiu discussed her uncertainty as to whether the company could pull together a simple, lovely performance that would express the story to the audience. The satisfaction of working through these demons, insecurities, and uncertainties, in the context of the real world in which the musical lived, was gratifying to both artists. Butiu explained that if the women in the audience could “run through the jungles for their lives,” then she could certainly take on the challenges related to the performance. Liminality was evoked again, as the artists comprehended the merging of art and life, and the production process itself became a mechanism for overcoming challenges.

3. “I Want My Work as an Artist to Serve a Higher Purpose” (Service Narrative)

The third narrative theme that emerged in the artist focus groups was the service narrative. Here, artists expressed a desire that their work serve a greater purpose. This narrative evoked similar emotional content as the liminality narrative. However, what was present here was not so much the tension between art and life, but rather, an active desire to fuse these two spheres. In this way, the service narrative encapsulates a main tenet of the DAR praxis: the awareness that one’s work as an artist can serve a political, social, and even spiritual aim. When asked to reflect on their experiences, three Los-​Angeles-​based artists expressed their desire to be of service (see Image 13.2). As Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) Practitioner Kimiko Warner-​Turner recalled: Well, I guess it has just been a great honor. I was really excited when Erin said, “come along,” and I thought “Ok, what am I gonna do?” And it started out as one thing and it got to be huge, my participation, and I just feel, it’s amazing to be showing the show to people who are the marginalized, in Thailand, and also people to have awareness about these issues. I feel there is an awakening going on with this show. It is astounding. You were all so open throughout everything—​to everybody and

A r t i c u l at i n g A r t i s t N a r r at i v e s  [ 217 ]

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Image 13.2:  Land of Smiles Artists and Kachin Interns. Chiang Mai, December 2013. (Photo credit: Kimiko Warner-​Turner).

every curve and every wave. That is a gift, to bring together people from so many countries in one show.

Kwan then added: I feel like I am in service to something way bigger than myself. It sounds so melodramatic but whenever I would think about it, like when it was getting closer, it was almost like I couldn’t think about it because I knew when I came here it was going to change my life.

The moderator then asked the group whether they had any apprehension or misgivings about doing the show in Thailand. Butiu remarked: When we did the Theater of the Oppressed workshop with the Kachin interns I was just like, “I hope I have something to offer, I hope I have something to say.” That was my apprehension, knowing that they had been through so much and I’m coming, you know, coming from LA. . . . The humility involved and wanting to be open to learning and to hearing their stories.

The service narrative expressed by these artists reflects the proactive tenet of liberation. Proactive engagement is concerned with a community coming together to critically evaluate their collective situation, and take steps to ensure that the [ 218 ]  The Production Phase

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situation improves for the benefit of all. The service narrative exemplifies the call for this type of engagement.

4. “I Can’t Go Back to Who I Was Before” (Rupturing Narrative)

The state of rupture involves splitting from the past and crossing the threshold of liminality into a new version of the self. As such, rupture demands a deep sense of trust, for its passage is always marked by uncertainty and pain. We can even think of rupture as a kind of psychic death. When asked to describe their feelings about participating in the Thailand production of Land of Smiles, several artists expressed experiencing profound ruptures. “It’s been this emotional ‘ugh,’ shared Kruger, “like everything has just flooded out. And it’s like, I feel tired and disoriented, and I feel like I don’t know who I’m going to be when I get home.” “We all are emotionally drained at the end of these shows,” added another artist. “I mean, most of us are crying, most of us are just overwhelmed by the message at the very end. It’s unbelievable.” Artists also expressed a sense of rupture when reflecting on their participation in the Theatre of the Oppressed workshop with the migrant women from the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT).2 Kruger noted: For me, I think the most surprising thing was the unifying aspect, the fact that as we’re playing these games and we can’t communicate directly with one another we still felt just like people. And that’s when, for me, something clicked. And I called my mom and I called my boyfriend and I was like, “I just don’t think I’ll be the same,” because all of a sudden that distance and that safety that I felt before . . . suddenly I’m like, “you’re just like me!” “Right,” agreed Kwan. “They’re still being bombed.”

Kruger then went on: And they’re still being . . . One girl was like, “My village isn’t there anymore.” And we’re just like, “What?” I’m just in awe. It’s amazing how quickly your heart just goes, “I treasure you for what you’re doing here.” And now I’ll just be praying always for the Kachin boy whose hand I’m holding, like, “I hope that you’ll be ok.” And before it was safe because I didn’t know what he looked like.

In reflecting on her interactions with the migrants who had participated in the TO workshop, Kruger articulated a feeling of personal transformation (see Image 13.3). Evoking the liminality narrative, she expressed apprehension about not knowing who she would be when she returned home. Here we see how inhabiting the realities of art and life simultaneously can give way to a sense of breaking from past notions of identity—​of shedding one’s old scripts. In realizing that the Kachin boy whose hand she was holding was not just a statistic or an abstraction, but a real A r t i c u l at i n g A r t i s t N a r r at i v e s  [ 219 ]

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Image 13.3.:  Theatre of the Oppressed Workshop. Chiang Mai, December 2013. Amanda Kruger (left), and Melody Butiu (right). (Photo credit: Erin Kamler).

person, “just like me,” Kruger was confronted with a kind of breakthrough about the state of the world, and her place in it. She no longer saw herself as the same person she was before she began her work on the project. Rather, she saw her “previous” self as illusory. This disjointed sense of identity, stimulated by the liberatory criteria of rupture, is a fundamental aspect of the DAR praxis. The merging of life and art prompts a change to take place within the artist-​researcher, thereby reinforcing the participatory nature of this praxis. This stands in sharp contrast to positivist approaches, in which the researcher (and in the case of Entertainment-​Education, artists who are also considered to be researchers) is thought to remain static, detached from his or her subjects of study. In DAR, by contrast, it is the researchers themselves—​in this case, the artist-​researchers—​who must undergo a transformation in order for the project to be effective.

5. “I Want to Be More Aware of the Political Situation in Burma” (Political Consciousness Narrative)

Several artists agreed that the musical can and should be used as a tool for political advocacy. When asked to clarify what they believed the show was advocating for, however, debate rippled through the group. [ 220 ]  The Production Phase

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“Yeah, but what are we advocating here?” asked one male American artist. “What we need to advocate is how do we support these people so that their young women don’t have to be prostitutes to defend their villages.” “You mean going back to the root causes?,” clarified the moderator. Kimiko Warner-​Turner suggested, “I think what this play advocates is [that we shouldn’t] believe one story [we’ve] been given, and to maybe shake people up about what they think is the story.” Another responded, “I think the issues are so universal. It’s not just about Thailand and Burma, it’s about the United States, it’s about Europe, it’s about the issues, about thinking no matter who you are that you know best. And you think you’re being sensitive when you really haven’t done the research.” At this point, one artist noted that she had initially been troubled by the ending of the musical: . . . because the Kachin army is being supported literally on the backs of their young women, and there’s no other source of income. And so that leads me to wonder what the geopolitical scheme of things is? If the reason they are being driven off their land by the junta up until now, or even now, is because they are sitting on resources minerals, timber, coal . . .

Another interjected: Yeah, and they don’t have access to the resources because they are not Burmese, they are not Thai, they are hill tribe and they are marginalized. They are people without a country. So they don’t have any resources. Like when Soon Nu sings, “I’m not Burman, I’m not Thai, I’m nameless, I’m a ghost.”

Ann Fink then noted: You don’t hear about this in the States. You don’t hear about what’s going on in Burma. Most people don’t even know who Aung San Suu Kyi is. I would say that ninety-​nine percent don’t know who she is.

In his “poetics,” Boal (1979) theorized that while an idealist theater arouses feelings, a Marxist theater incites action (p. 106). As the focus group responses indicate, many artists felt passionate about the utility of the production as a tool for political advocacy. Many were also left wanting to better understand the root causes, or push factors that underscore migration and trafficking processes. Agreeing that the musical could be used as an advocacy tool to raise awareness, one artist then asked the important question, “What are we advocating for?” The artists then began debating the subject matter of the musical as well as its controversial ending, in which Lipoh crosses the river holding a gun above her head, presumably preparing to return to Kachin State to become a combatant. The artists were conflicted about this ending, and were quick to suggest that the play should not be used as an advocacy tool to promote fighting or sex work, but rather, eradication of the root causes of A r t i c u l at i n g A r t i s t N a r r at i v e s  [ 221 ]

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Image 13.4: Artist-​ Migrant Reflections. Theatre of the Oppressed Practitioner Kimiko Warner-​Turner (front-​left) and Kachin Intern Coordinator Ban Seng Bu (front-​right). (Photo credit: Erin Kamler).

the Kachin conflict. Unlike the policies of the anti-​trafficking NGOs that attempt to curb trafficking through Smart Raids, the artists understood the play’s message of needing to more deeply analyze the factors that lead to trafficking and irregular migration, and address the issue according to the logic of those root causes, rather than their “end” results. The artists also pointed to statelessness and land resource management as root causes of the Kachin conflict. One artist expressed frustration that people in the United States know very little, if anything, about Burma. Drawing on the issues raised in the production as well as on their own discoveries about Burma’s political situation, the artists expressed a desire to take action around these issues, as well as learn more (see Image 13.4). Through their deep discussion about these issues, we may see how the dialogic aspect of liberation was engaged by the artist participants.

6. “Theater Has the Power to Heal” (Healing Narrative)

The final narrative that emerged in the artist focus group was the healing narrative. Here, artists described the power of theater and music to evoke an emotional response in audiences as well as in themselves. When asked what sort of challenges they had to overcome as artists, respondents described the emotional nature of their connection with the audiences, as well as with the roles they played, and described the challenge of being emotionally invested in the dramatic and musical material of the piece: [ 222 ]  The Production Phase

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“I mean just emotionally Soon Nu is a powerhouse of a role,” commented Butiu. “Her solo is like a five-​act play in one song. So that is just emotionally challenging and emotionally draining.” Jennie Kwan then added: For me, I felt the first night just like, super relieved when people started clapping. Not that I thought the production was bad, but the subject matter is clearly volatile. And you’re just like, are they gonna hate us, or are they gonna like us? Are they gonna swallow it or are they gonna spit it back out? And to see them stand, it was overcoming. I thought I was going to cry right there before bowing. I was like, “Keep it together, cry after.”

Another artist added: When I thought of coming to Thailand, I wouldn’t listen to the music on purpose. Because if I listen to it and I’m open to it, then it just affects me really deeply. So for me it’s a challenge doing the show because I have to tell the story and I have to get through it. But it just hits you right at your heart, at your core.

Yardpirun Poolun then remarked, “All the melodies and all the notes are so emotional, that I can cry easily on the show stage.” The artists articulated that the production evoked deep emotional responses, ultimately leading to a sense of communion between artists and audiences. This sense of communion was highly dialogical, as it relied upon communication as a way of healing community wounds. I suggest that we conceptualize the healing nature of DAR projects in a different sense than that of Aristotelian logic. Let us recall Boal’s analysis of Aristotelian empathy, which he saw as being a “dangerous weapon” in the arsenal of a dramatist (1979). Recall also that Boal saw this particular form of empathy as a tool for manipulation, used to “warn” an audience not to undertake the antisocial (read: critical, politically engaged) behavior. This warning was a mark of the tragic figure in Aristotelian drama. Empathy, Boal explained, juxtaposes the universes of the real and the fictional. This juxtaposition has the effect of encouraging spectators to incorporate the reality of the fiction portrayed in the dramatic narrative. Clearly, this is not the same logic of empathy as it plays out in the very political context of DAR. Furthermore, in contrast to the logic of Aristotelian drama, Boal saw that the poetics of the oppressed (and, I would add, of DAR), “focuses on the action itself: the spectator delegates no power to the character (or actor) either to act or to think in his place; on the contrary, he himself assumes the protagonist role, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions, discusses plans for change—​in short, trains himself for real action” (Boal, 1979: 122). Consistent with this idea, we note how the artists in Land of Smiles were so profoundly struck by the healing and action-​oriented nature of participation. Rather than remaining detached spectators, they instead embodied the experiences and relationships evoked in the play. Through embodiment, the themes of the musical became real, and they were no longer bystanders, A r t i c u l at i n g A r t i s t N a r r at i v e s  [ 223 ]

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disassociated from the events of the dramatic narrative. As participating witnesses, the artists became actively implicated and empowered.

Inhabiting the potent liminal space between the real and the fictitious allows us to synthesize events in deeper ways, respond differently to the cultural narratives we have been told and have been telling, and feel things we otherwise would not (Dolan, 2005: 139). As a liminal event, the Land of Smiles production offered the artists a way to hold their own feelings of ambiguity and uncertainty, and form new questions about themselves. Because of this, new articulations of experience become possible. In the next and final chapter, I will tie the artists’ narratives together with the symbolic process of moving from rupture to hospitality—​a place where these newfound discoveries are able to synthesize, and where my explication of the DAR praxis concludes.

[ 224 ]  The Production Phase

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CHAPTER 14

Rupture and Hospitality Artist Subjectivities

Love is an ethics of otherness —​Kelly Oliver (2002)

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felt it too—​that sense that I’d been changed. By the time the stage lights fell on the final tableau, in which we, the audience, see Lipoh step into the river separating Thailand from Burma and begin to swim across, I felt as if there was no going back. Not fully. Not to the same place, or the same understanding, or the same knowledge. Los Angeles would be different. The United States would be different. Even Thailand, and what it meant to be there, and the weight I had been carrying while preparing to give birth to this project—​this thing that now lived, not just in me but in dozens of other people from different walks of life—​that, too, would be different. All I could do now was look, with open eyes, to the other side.

What waits for us on the other side of rupture? How can we trust that this passage through liminality, this dive into the unknown will carry us through to a new self that embraces us across a distant divide? “Hospitality” is the answer to the ruptures we experience. Following our sudden awakening and subsequent endurance of the unknown, hospitality is what welcomes us into a new, transformed state. Hospitality involves a revaluation of what individuals and communities “owe” one another. Often, ethical contracts are formed around a commitment to “sameness,” that is, a respect for an other who has taken on similar characteristics to the self. In an ethics of hospitality, the emphasis is not on contracts of “sameness,” but rather, on “encounters with the unknown” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008: 151). In these alternative contracts, we allow for new aspects of the self to engage with unexpected

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aspects of the other; discovering in this process a “mysterious connectedness” with the other (p. 151) that reinforces the potentiality of the newness of the self. Through participating in the DAR project, the artists began to undergo the passage from rupture to hospitality. They moved from a space in which artist and migrant, self and other, were fixed categories, into a space of unknown connection—​a liminal zone in which barriers between self and other were no longer firm. This space, in turn, incited a sense of implication and action in the artists—​what we might, in essence, call participation. Moving beyond a view of themselves as actors “just doing a show,” the artists became invested in the migrants’ processes of liberation. In communicating the story of the musical, the artists sought to actively create a site of resistance against the structures of oppression that were holding the migrants back. Additionally, and critically, through their participation in the DAR project the artists began to interrogate their own experiences of bystanding. They located aspects of their lives in which they felt held back or disengaged—​unable to draw on their own agency to incite change. This willingness to interrogate their roles as bystanders fostered profound experiences of rupture and hospitality—​liberatory processes that are key tenets of the DAR praxis.

THEATER AS DISCOURSE

In his “poetics,” Boal (1979) suggested that expression occurs not only through words, but also through the body. In this way, the body’s experience becomes a tool for dialogue. Thus, in Boal’s imagining, theater itself is a form of discourse. Artists, as somatic vehicles for communication, naturally exemplify this idea. The artists participating in Land of Smiles, however, experienced this process of communicating through the body in new ways. In contrast to other theatrical contexts, they did not perceive their roles in this project as being confined to memorizing lines, conveying emotion, and aesthetic—​that is, doing a job. Nor did they perceive themselves to be the agents of an Aristotelian tragedy designed to inspire “pity and fear” among a passive audience. Rather, the Land of Smiles artists became active agents of change. While craft and aesthetics formed the basis of their participation, the heart of their roles incorporated something much deeper—​a willingness to surrender to the liminal space in which life and art merge, and embrace the unknown, not only onstage, but also within themselves. In this way, the artists moved into a space of liberation. In the artist focus group, participants expressed feeling changes occur on a somatic and emotional level, both in their experiences onstage and in the world. Butiu’s discussion of the enormous emotional toll she felt performing “Kachin Women” for the Chiang Mai audiences illustrates the power of the body as a tool for discourse and a site for transformation. Through embodying the character Soon Nu, Butiu facilitated a dialogue to take place among the character, the audience, and herself. Her body became the site for this dialogue, her voice the vehicle for articulating a complex narrative about the character’s lifeworld. [ 226 ]  The Production Phase

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Similarly, Jennie Kwan’s description of relief when the audience stood at the end of the performance speaks to the notion of theater as discourse. Kwan was initially apprehensive about the way the musical would be received by the Chiang Mai audience. When the audience rose, demonstrating acceptance and enjoyment of the musical’s complex message, Kwan expressed a feeling that her own personal commitment to social justice had been heard. Beyond merely playing a role, she took on the message of the musical, both physically through the use of her body and voice, and psychically through her newfound commitment to the emancipation of the migrants themselves. Kwan stepped into dialogue in a new and transformative way. Land of Smiles as Site for “Concientization”

The artists’ sense of implication in the dramatic narratives they were communicating reflects Freire’s “conscientization,” in which the oppressed begin to unearth silences, understand their own structural positions within society, and overcome fear (Freire, 1993: 39). Freire’s theory is premised on the idea that every human being has the capacity to be critical. Out of a combination of reflection and action comes praxis: a critical practice that moves beyond the limitations of academic abstraction and is thus imperative for the humanization of all. As Freire explained, a culture of silence enshrouds the oppressed as they internalize their oppression. Parallel to this, oppressors themselves engage in the continuum of oppression, or bystanding. In Freirean terms, bystanders are defenders of the status quo, having internalized a subject-​object relationship with those they dominate (p. 57). As bystanders engaged in a struggle toward liberation—​a struggle that takes place at every level of society—​the artists underwent a process of “conscientization.” This process was spurred by their embodied participation in communicating a narrative in which they felt both implicated and invested. Throughout the production process, the artists engaged in listening, not only to the migrants but also to their own inner voices. By being willing to undertake this journey into the self, they grappled with overcoming habitual thinking (Watkins & Shulman, 2008:  133). This underscores the dynamic process of rupture, in which old modalities of thought are suddenly and irrevocably troubled. Rupture was demonstrated by artists who spoke of no longer being able to see the world the way they saw it before. Some expressed apprehension about traveling back to the United States, a place that had become a symbolic site for bystanding and disassociation. In returning to this site, the artists feared they would be forced to confront the conditions of oppression that underscored their feelings of powerlessness. Although on the surface, returning to the United States was seemingly disconnected from the act of giving voice to migrant experiences, this return symbolized an even more personal journey—​that of the artists’ return to themselves. By clearly identifying their newfound political voices, the artists brought themselves into their roles, a process Boal described as changing from passive beings, what he termed “spectators,” into “spect-​actors”—​subjects who transform dramatic action. Boal (1979) explained, “The liberated spectator, as a whole person, launches R u p t u r e a n d H o s p i ta l i t y  [ 227 ]

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into action. No matter that the action is fictional; what matters is that it is action!” (p. 122). The artists became present with their characters, in essence, speaking to the audience through these characters, rather than being mere vessels through which the characters speak. This difference, I suggest, is crucial to the integration of Boal’s poetics in the DAR praxis. Actor-​C haracter Visibility

In the performances of Land of Smiles, a reflexive process took place between artist and character. Crucially, this process was made visible to the audience, who witnessed the artists’ dynamic, ruptured state as they performed on stage. An example of this visibility of rupture occurred in the final scene of the musical, in the moments after Emma has let Lipoh free from the IDC: As the company sang the finale, “Home to You” Lipoh appeared at the edge of the river, preparing to cross back into Burma. The audience then saw the lights rise on Lipoh’s mother, standing on a separate part of the stage, waiting for her daughter to come home. Lipoh turned to her mother, and sang: LIPOH I KNOW YOU’RE WAITING I KNOW YOU’RE PRAYING HOME IS THE LOVE YOU GAVE ME AND ONE THING’S TRUE I’LL COME BACK HOME TO YOU As the scene went on, Soon Nu appeared at the river and handed Lipoh a gun. Lipoh took the gun and looked at Soon Nu, as if to ask whether it was all right to cross. Soon Nu nodded, giving Lipoh both the permission and the courage to cross, and to return to Kachin State and join the resistance. The audience knew that by doing this, Lipoh would help her people survive: SOON NU MA RE DE WA MA RE DE WA NA (GO BACK TO THE VILLAGE) JI WOI NIA LAM HTAH HAKA NAH (WALK THE ANCESTOR’S PATH) On the other side of the stage, the audience then saw Emma, about to board a plane bound for the United States. The audience knew she was returning home to a troubled life marked by her parents’ silence as they buried their own trauma about the loss of their son, Emma’s brother. Having experienced a rupture propelled by her [ 228 ]  The Production Phase

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relationship with Lipoh, the now-​transformed Emma could return to the United States and face this trauma head-​on: EMMA MOM AND DAD JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW I’M COMING HOME . . . HOME IS A FAMILY HOLDING ON Finally, in a pool of light across the stage, Lewelyn and Achara appeared. They were still in their office at the NGO, remaining steadfastly committed to rescuing trafficking victims. It was clear that unlike Emma, they had not experienced rupture, or undergone change: LEWELYN THERE WILL ALWAYS BE ANOTHER GIRL TO RESCUE ACHARA THERE WILL ALWAYS BE ANOTHER GIRL TO SAVE LEWELYN AND ACHARA WE CARRY ON EMMA BUT I HAVE CHANGED As the song went on, all the women turned toward the audience and sang Lipoh’s anthem, “Home to You.” In the final tableau, Lipoh held the gun high above her, and stepped into the river. The audience could hear the sound of water rushing as the lights faded to black. As the actors performed this final song, they were often overcome with emotion, and expressed this emotion through tears. I too, was often overcome with deep emotion while accompanying them on the piano. Other members of the artistic crew noted that the audience, too, was often moved to tears during the musical’s final moments. All responded to an identification with Lipoh and Emma, who underwent profound shifts in their perception of the world, and of themselves. The actors seemed to be responding to their own newfound consciousness. The actors’ emotionality was complexly situated. In the professional theater, it is normally considered problematic for an actor to convey an emotion that goes beyond the boundaries of his or her character. This process, known as “breaking character,” is considered unprofessional and discouraged. In the context of Land of Smiles, however, an entirely different process occurred. During the musical’s emotional climax, the walls between actor, character, and audience became porous. In essence, the barriers between these worlds became removed. The audience was able

R u p t u r e a n d H o s p i ta l i t y  [ 229 ]

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to witness the actors’ embodiment of a newfound consciousness. Their experiences of rupture, hospitality, and “conscientization” were laid bare for all to see, and share. In this way, the artists’ physical responses exemplified Boal’s notion of theater as discourse—​their bodies took over, communicating a commitment to liberation that went beyond words.

DISORIENTATION, CONFRONTATION, AND DAR

In the focus group discussion, the artists frequently expressed feelings of disorientation, the notion that things were not the way they were before. This was evident in the artists’ liminality narratives. Many artists expressed a desire to “figure out” what to do with their feelings of uncertainty, as exemplified by Kwan, who stated, emphatically, “I don’t know. I just don’t know, but I’ve been changed.” These feelings of disorientation mark an important aspect of the DAR praxis, as they carry within them a liberatory potential. As Boal discussed, the conditions for certain theatrical engagements to foster liberation and other theatrical engagements to foster oppression are quite distinct. In Aristotelian drama, when man fails to achieve his objectives, “the art of tragedy intervenes” (Boal, 1979: 27). Here, Boal was referring to the destructive nature of Aristotelian tragedy, which relies on dramatic catharsis as its primary vehicle. As noted previously, according to Boal, the purpose of catharsis is to purge the spectators of their own impulses toward the “bad behavior” reflected in the tragic character’s downfall. In empathizing with the tragic character, and thereby experiencing a catharsis, we—​the audience—​undergo a kind of “homeopathic cure” for our own tendencies toward antisocial behavior. By getting a “dose” of this bad behavior, we, in turn, cure our own tendencies toward its replication. The goal of tragedy, according to Boal, is to prescribe this emotional experience, which is also a political experience in that it is designed to prompt us—​the spectators—​to uphold the interests of law and order and the social world as it is, rather than how we might want it to be. The tragic flaw is, therefore, a flaw of nonconformity. By bringing the audience’s attention to this flaw, tragedy becomes a “coercive system” (p. 33)—​an implicit instruction to conform. Responding to this oppressive nature of Aristotelian theater, Boal then presented an alternative vision of theater, one meant not to reinforce coercive social behavior but rather to incite transformation in both the artist and the audience. Boal’s poetics “focuses on the action itself: the spectator delegates no power to the character (or actor) either to act or to think in his place; on the contrary, he himself assumes the protagonist role, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions, discusses plans for change—​in short, trains himself for real action” (p. 122). Arguing that the site of theater is the human body, in Boal’s vision we must first focus on changing the habits of the human body in space and in the material world. In this way, he suggested, theater becomes a site for dialogue. Disorientation—​the inhabiting of liminal space—​is a first step toward changing the human in the world. If we disrupt our bodies’ patterning, in essence “act” [ 230 ]  The Production Phase

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ourselves into other social realities, we can begin to affect the conditions around us. The feelings of disorientation that the artists experienced during the production of Land of Smiles were tied to the liberatory nature of the story narrative. Had it been written according to Aristotelian logic, Land of Smiles would have presented Emma as a flawed, tragic character: Unable to conform to the standards that her job in the NGO demands, she is instead steered down the tragic path of empathizing with Lipoh—​a path that, in turn, leads to her losing her job. Emma’s tragic flaw would have been the actual process of “conscientization” that leads her, in the end, to release Lipoh from the IDC. In an Aristotelian retelling of the story, we, the audience, would be taught to avoid such consciousness and corresponding behavior, pitying Emma as we witness her demise. Fortunately, Emma is not a tragic hero in Land of Smiles, but a celebration of the paradigm of “conscientization.” I suggest that it is precisely this inversion, this refusal to portray Emma’s “conscientization” as a tragic experience that evoked a sense of disorientation on the part of the artists. Far from recreating the conditions of conformity that Aristotelian tragedy prescribes, Land of Smiles pushed back against this trope of pity and fear. Responding to this, the artists, too, broke their patterns of habitual thinking. Embracing liminal space often gives rise to feelings of confusion, and a sense of meaninglessness as the ruptured participant searches for clarification of his or her old viewpoint. In the DAR project, participants were initially able to avoid such regression, as the focus groups and social support provided them with a “container,” a way of embracing their own processes of rupture and the disorientation that accompanied it.1

BEYOND BYSTANDING: THE THEATRE OF OPPRESSED WORKSHOP

One of the richest points of reflection that emerged in the focus group discussion involved the artists’ participation in the day-​long Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) workshop, conducted in partnership with migrant interns from the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT). In the workshop, TO facilitator Kimiko Warner-​ Turner, in collaboration with the participants, identified aspects of daily life that could be thought of as “traumas.” The Kachin migrants described scenarios from their home country such as forced portering, forced displacement, abuse by the military, and sexual violence. Artists from the United States identified scenarios of their own, including racism, homophobia, and intolerance of religious differences. From here, participants worked together to act out scenes exploring these themes. Participants were then led through the process of reflection about these scenarios. The group offered ideas about strategies that could help overcome the problems presented in the scenes. Participants were then invited to re-​enact the scenes they had presented, incorporating strategies that the group had identified for overcoming the problems. The workshop was designed to augment the inquiry into DAR as a process of fostering experiences that were dialogical, proactive, rupturing, consciousness-​raising, and performative. R u p t u r e a n d H o s p i ta l i t y  [ 231 ]

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In the focus group discussion, many artists expressed feeling a sense of rupture and “conscientization” following their participation in the TO workshop. This occurred, I suggest, because it was not simply the traumas of the Kachin interns that were being explored and confronted. Rather, the artist participants were asked to reflect on their own traumas. Through this process, the artists began to move from bystanding to witness, thereby restoring their subjectivity in their own life-​dramas. In identifying themselves as human beings first, and theater professionals dedicated to communicating aesthetic and craft second, the artists made discoveries about the nature of their own agency. They realized that they, like the migrants, were affected by the problematic social processes that constricted and deterred them. Bystanding and powerlessness were explored in American contexts as well as Kachin contexts, allowing the artists to voice their frustrations about participating in a society undergoing a collective trauma of its own. Subsequently, they discovered that they too could become empowered to change the circumstances that constrained them. Again, in the focus group discussion, several expressed feelings of no longer knowing who they were, or not being able to go back to the way they were before. The artists’ realizations demonstrate the consciousness-​raising and dialogical aspects of Land of Smiles as a DAR project. They also recall our discussion of hospitality: by awakening to their own traumas alongside the migrants, the artists began to break down their previously held imaginings of self and other, stepping out of the habit of objectification–​that is, perceiving a community as being different than ourselves and operating according to a separate set of standards, behaviors and values (Kaufman, 2003: 252)—​and instead, enacting an ethic of hospitality.

POSITIONALITY AND THE ARTIST-​R ESEARCHER

The feminist research ethic asks that researchers be attuned to positionality—​the attention to process and to location of subject-​participants, the critical interrogation of power, and the researcher’s own self-​conscious location in the research context (Ackerly & True, 2010). Feminist research requires a “circling back” approach, in which the researcher engages in constant reflection and a willingness to backtrack and reapproach the research project from a new position. Because of this, feminist research is particularly dependent on a kind of mindfulness—​a constant analysis of process and willingness to contend with whatever new issues, questions, and struggles come up as the process shifts. Feminist research also relies on subjective relationships between participants in the research process, making it highly collaborative and complimentary to the arts. Issues of social location and shifting notions of social identity came to light in the artist discourses. Several artists, particularly those who had lived and worked in Chiang Mai prior to their participation in the production, expressed newfound awareness about their social roles, and the performances of these roles in their everyday lives. In discussing the themes raised in the musical, they began to re-​evaluate the social locations of people who reflected characters in the musical. [ 232 ]  The Production Phase

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An example can be seen in the artists’ changed perceptions of the role of missionaries. Recall that Marisa Mour and Christy Humphry each discussed their friendships with missionaries in Thailand. Both talked about how they began to see their missionary friends differently, as a result of participating in the musical. Mour developed more empathy for her friends who, she said, were trying to “do good,” while Humphry began to see the inherent problems with missionaries who were out to “save souls.” The musical helped her better understand the perspective of the sex workers’ rights movement, and transformed her view of the missionaries’ who try to civilize them. She began to see the inherent power differences that come into play in relationships between Western missionaries and migrant women who inhabit unequal structural locations. By doing this, she began to interrogate her own role as a Christian expat in Thailand. Similarly, Ann Fink shared that many of her friends in Chiang Mai were NGO workers and missionaries, and that she, herself, had worked in an NGO. During the performance, Fink was confronted with the knowledge that many people in the audience were living what they were seeing onstage. She expressed sensitivity to the power of their social roles, and her role as an actor in reflecting these roles back to them. Like the actors from Los Angeles, the Chiang-​Mai-​based actors spoke through their characters in order to construct a discursive space between actor, character, and audience. Interestingly, however, this discourse involved inciting criticism, rather than unity, around the perspectives their characters held. Again, what is critical here is the visibility of process:  the Chiang Mai-​based actors inhabited the same social worlds as audience members who were (to some degree, at least) living the lives of the characters they played, and were aware that their performance was being witnessed by these audience members. Subsequently, the actors’ process of holding a critical lens up to the social roles of NGO workers and missionaries was made visible to the audience. The NGO employees and missionaries in the audience were implicated in this process, as the criticism of them came not from an actor “just playing a role,” but from a spect-​actor—​a dynamic agent of change whose consciousness was attuned and alive. Boal explained that Marx saw theater as the most powerful of all art forms, due to “its immediate contact with the public, and its greater power to convince” (1979: 53). In Marx’s view, all artists are situated in a political structure whose interests lie in the self-​perpetuation of power. Drawing on this framework, Brecht conceived of characters not as subjects, but as objects of social and economic forces. For Brecht, the true subjects were the social and economic forces at play, while characters were merely objects in the larger social drama. Boal thus described Brecht’s characters as being “object-​subjects” (p. 92). The Chiang-​Mai-​based actors process of confronting the audience engaged this Brechtian (i.e., Marxist) notion of character-​as-​object. The actors themselves did not personally share the perspectives of the NGO worker and missionary characters they portrayed. Instead, they objectified these characters by presenting them in a critical light. Through this process, the actors, as spect-​actors, became subjects, negotiating this critical lens in a dynamic dialogue that took place with an audience comprised of R u p t u r e a n d H o s p i ta l i t y  [ 233 ]

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the actual individuals they were criticizing. This process of engagement demanded an enormous personal investment on the part of the Chiang Mai-​based actors, as they used their performance to critique their own social worlds. Drawing on Boal’s “poetics,” this process illustrates how DAR can serve as a site for discursively illuminating and addressing contested social issues. While the Chiang Mai-​based artists made new discoveries about their positional location in a social community, all artists expressed newfound awareness about Burma’s political situation and as a desire to understand this situation more deeply. This political consciousness narrative evoked a postcolonial feminist epistemological framework, which asks that feminists doing intercultural work attend to “the micro-​politics of context, subjectivity, and struggle, as well as to the macro-​politics of global economic and political systems and processes” (Mohanty, 2003: 501). In recognizing the struggles of the migrant women as reflections of larger political and economic processes in Burma and by locating, organically, a desire to further understand the implications of these processes, the artists engaged this feminist frame. In their political engagement, the artists began to take on the identity of the “humanist, revolutionary educator” (Freire, 1985: 75), or what I have been calling “artist-​researchers.” No longer merely a performer doing a show, and simultaneously rejecting positivist objectivism—​that problematic frame of the supposedly neutral observer that feminist theories of positionality trouble—​the artists began to think from the perspectives of the marginalized, thereby acquiring a broader understanding of the world. The processes of “conscientization” and rupture experienced by the artists challenge claims to the superiority of the positivist approach, and overcome the splitting of self-​versus-​other that feminist research seeks to overcome.

Articulating lived experience through theater comes with social and psychological costs. As we have seen in these last six chapters, DAR is not appropriate work for the unreflective or uncommitted. The processes of rupture, liminality, and hospitality run deep in the psyches and social interactions among artists, migrants, NGO employees, and audience participants. DAR is more than entertainment and even more than social science interrogation—​it is a leap into the unknown, with the promise of transformation waiting on the other side. Through participating in the Land of Smiles DAR project, the artists changed their location from passive performers to active artist-​researchers, and to participatory agents of change. They merged consciousness with craft, interrogating their experiences in a new way, and openly engaged in processes of rupture and hospitality. In line with Tuhiwai Smith’s (1999) concept of “researching back,” the artists enacted a process of “performing back” against the dominant narratives, against the tropes of victimhood, and against their own passivity in a culture (and a cultural industry) marked by trauma and an unfamiliar idea of participation. In so doing, they spoke with newfound voices. By engaging in critical, horizontal modes of inquiry, in which their own self-​ reflections were interrogated alongside those of the migrant participants, the artists resisted the problematic and simplistic practice of “speaking for others” (Alcoff, [ 234 ]  The Production Phase

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1991–​1992). By consciously working against this practice, the artists engaged in a dialogical process of performing back, using their craft as well as their subjectivity to bear witness to the struggles that the musical brought to the fore. Rupture and hospitality are revolutionary acts for intervening in and overcoming social catastrophe. As such, they are among the highest goals of the DAR praxis. The artists in Land of Smiles realized these goals. Their deepened understandings, strengthened commitments, and transformed experiences exemplify DAR at its very best.

R u p t u r e a n d H o s p i ta l i t y  [ 235 ]

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CONCLUSION

Dramatization as Research A Feminist Communication Intervention

Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, and those who stand and struggle side by side a gesture of defiance that heals, that makes new life and new growth possible. It is that act of speech, of “talking back,” that is no mere gesture of empty words, that is the expression of moving from object to subject—​the liberated voice. —​bell hooks (1990: 9)

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ocial catastrophe—​that breakdown in the ability of a community to respond collectively to its own trauma—​has left our communication stunted, particularly in development contexts, where social inequalities are vast and where human rights defenders strive, not always successfully, to intervene. Even those whose intentions are fundamentally good—​who seek justice for the marginalized, who are trying to do everything right, can become bystanders, blind to their own roles in perpetuating trauma, and thus unable to help restore the community’s health. This inability to respond in ways that are truly effective can subsequently reinforce neocolonial hegemonic frameworks and essentialized ideas about difference, even among those who are the most vocal advocates for victims of human rights atrocities. The “oversight” of the actual lived experiences of the marginalized, and the urgent need for its “correction” (Scott, 1991)  is an ongoing problem plaguing international development practice. How can human rights advocates break through these spaces of bystanding and engage with their beneficiaries as equals? How can policymakers come together with communities at the grass-​roots level as partners to implement real and effective change? How can women on the ground, who seldom have a voice in the foreign-​ driven projects intended for their benefit be authentically seen by Western “experts,”

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and how can these “experts,” in turn, adopt new ways of seeing themselves? These visions are not “utopian,” to borrow Dolan’s (2005) term. They are, rather, visions of what we should expect our world to be. But often along the way, while combing through the thick weeds of social catastrophe, development practitioners lose sight of these goals, making horizontalism seemingly unobtainable and thus, creating a need for more radical interventions to take place. While socially-​conscious art—​that is, art intended to communicate a social message or purpose, as well as art whose creation is inspired by social processes—​is not a new phenomenon, the merging of art and the social sciences—​particularly international research and, as an additional specification, feminist international research—​ is only just beginning to be understood, both by the academy and by those engaged in development practice. Furthermore, while top-​down approaches to behavior change have dominated the thinking in research dealing with international development communication, the intersection between the process of making art, and the process of uncovering meaning in the social world has seldom been interrogated in ways that are salient for marginalized women. The need, therefore, is far greater than simply finding a way to intervene in inadequate development practices—​these interventions must attend, first and foremost, to understanding and communicating women’s lived experiences. In this book, I have brought together the seemingly unrelated domains of dramatization and social science, through an analysis of the processes by which feminist international research and art-​making are conducted, and I have shown how these processes not only serve the mutual objectives of both artists and researchers, but are also co-​constitutive in their practice. That is, I have shown how the process of uncovering meaning in the social world and the process of making art work together, answer one another’s questions, and serve complimentary purposes. Land of Smiles, the musical at the heart of this interrogation, is unlike other communication interventions that unite the arts and the social sciences. This project was not designed to be a prescriptive tool for behavioral change, nor did it simply involve opening a window into the world of a marginalized community. Rather, Land of Smiles and the larger Dramatization as Research (DAR) praxis that I have explicated here is a roadmap for a more holistic type of discovery and change. DAR is a feminist, liberatory praxis dedicated to the uncovering, recovering, and articulation of lived experience through the powerful medium of theater. It relies, at its foundation, on feminist epistemologies in research—​that is, feminist ways of “knowing” lived experience; participatory methodologies—​that is, methods that involve horizontalism and the re-​orientation of the researcher-​subject relationship; and an evaluative framework that engages a liberatory ontological foundation. With this project, I wanted to show the importance of lived experience in informing our understanding of a complex development issue—​the trafficking of women in Thailand—​and the power of theater in conveying that understanding. In order to demystify the contours of this praxis, I have laid out a three-​phase process of field research, creative dramatization, and production that can be replicated by other artists and researchers, and applied in other contexts. In doing this, I have also illuminated my own process of discovery, so that readers may appreciate the broad range of C o n c l u s i o n  [ 237 ]

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challenges and possibilities that inform the DAR praxis, and prepare to take on these challenges themselves. This demystification speaks to the tenets of the feminist research ethic, which asks that we approach our research in ways that are useful not only to ourselves as scholars, but also to the women in the communities we study (Ackerly & True, 2010). In Phase One, or the “fieldwork” phase, I  showed how the policies of the anti-​ trafficking movement in Thailand often have disastrous consequences for the very women they are supposedly trying to help. I did this by examining the role that culture and national identity play in shaping the anti-​trafficking movement’s narratives about trafficking and subsequent policies to combat trafficking in Thailand. I asked, “In what ways and with what consequences are the contradictory approaches taken by anti-​trafficking actors in Thailand influenced by the project of nationalism, and how is nationalism used as a source of power in the anti-​trafficking movement?” I drew on three dominant narratives about trafficking to answer this question, and examined the way the national identity projects of both Thailand and the United States shape the “spectacularized” rhetoric (Hesford, 2011)  of the anti-​trafficking movement and are “performed” (i.e., communicated and presented in a way that deliberately sways the emotions of the viewer and creates a “spectacle”) by its members. I mapped my process of conducting interviews with NGO employees, government officials, activist community-​based organizations, immigration officers, members of the Royal Thai police and, most important, female migrant laborers (including domestic laborers, factory workers, and sex workers) themselves, to understand the normative values and practices that underpin the movement. Specifically, I  discussed “Smart Raids”—​the policy in which U.S.  government-​ funded NGOs, in collaboration with the Royal Thai Police raid brothels, karaoke bars, and massage parlors in an attempt to identify victims of human trafficking, facilitate prosecutions, and bolster Thailand’s ranking in the annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report—​and the “victim-​versus-​criminal narrative” these raids communicate. I then discussed the “narrative of rescue” that is communicated by anti-​ trafficking NGO employees whose jobs involve making the issue of trafficking legible to Western publics and donors. Finally, I looked at the organizational divides that take place between large, government-​supported anti-​trafficking NGOs and the local community-​based organizations (CBOs) whose methods to combat trafficking through participatory practices often generate more productive results for women at the grass-​roots level. Here, I discussed what I call the “narrative of resistance.” In Phase Two, the “creative” phase, I worked to recover the voices of the research subjects through the conceptualization and creation of a musical designed to intervene in the trafficking discourse. The second section of the book explicates the process by which I developed the musical Land of Smiles as a vehicle for communicating the Phase One research findings. Land of Smiles dramatizes a story about the trafficking of women in Thailand and presents a critical look at how the story about trafficking is told. It challenges the dominant trafficking narrative and exposes the counter-​ narratives that are seldom voiced and rarely incorporated into policy. By turning the dominant trafficking narrative on its head, the musical shows that finding a solution to this problem is far more complicated than it seems. [ 238 ] Conclusion

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In the creative phase, I  further explicated the praxis of Dramatization as Research, arguing that qualitative field research and creative dramatization are reflexive processes that inform the generation of knowledge in unique and useful ways. I presented this argument through a deconstruction of the process by which I researched and created the musical’s characters, examining the storytelling tools that are used by all dramatists, and showing how the narrative frameworks of original interviews informed my own process of writing key scenes and songs. I  then turned to the discussion of embodiment, looking at how the actors themselves, through engagement with character, story, and song, unearthed discoveries that led to further questions in the research. In this phase, the material minutia of the DAR praxis began to take shape as the musical itself came to life. Finally, in Phase Three, the “production” phase, I  concluded the project with a study focused on the articulation of the subject’s lived experience through a production of the musical in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This involved assembling a team of artists and researchers from Thailand and the United States to stage Land of Smiles for an audience of anti-​trafficking NGO employees and migrant laborers whose demographics matched those of the participants in my original field research. The goal of the performance and the focus groups that followed was to foster dialogue between participants around the discourse on human trafficking by presenting a dramatic reflection of the lived experiences of actors from these communities. Analyzing the narratives of NGO employees, migrant laborers, and the artists themselves, I  unearthed the subjective transformations that occurred through their participation, and assessed the way “liberation” was achieved through processes that were rupturing, dialogic, consciousness-​raising, proactive, and performative. I also drew on key liberation psychology paradigms—​of restorative justice and reconciliation; recollection, mourning, and witness; and rupture and hospitality—​to show how participants moved from spaces of silence, passivity, and bystanding to active spaces of witness. I connected this analysis with my vision of DAR, showing how feminist epistemologies, participatory methodologies, and a liberatory ontological framework situate DAR as an innovative, transformational praxis. As this study demonstrates, Dramatization as Research, or DAR, has implications on the way in which international development advocacy work is conducted. As a method whose primary purpose is to disrupt normative paradigms, DAR seeks to critically interrogate human rights witnessing, and the processes that inform it, and provide a roadmap for enacting more holistic approaches. As the initial field interviews, creative development process, and focus group study demonstrated, NGO employees benefit from having a space in which to pause and reflect on their own work activities, and question—​if only for a few hours—​the assumptions they make and the values they bring into their work. Spaces of reflection are essential for the health of not only individual NGO employees, but for the entire community of advocates who steer the direction of anti-​trafficking policy. Simultaneously, this study provided the opportunity for migrant laborers who self-​identified as survivors of trauma to critically reflect on their own experiences. As other scholars have noted, migrants from Burma are often marked by an inability to name their traumatic experiences (Skidmore, 2004; White, 2004). For the migrant C o n c l u s i o n  [ 239 ]

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laborers who participated in the focus groups, many of whom had been victims of community violence, the dialogical space created by the DAR project generated new pathways for expression and visibility, and provided these actors with new tools and strategies for engaging with their own life experiences. DAR, as a theoretical and methodological approach to research, creates a space in which such reflections may take place simultaneously for multiple stakeholders in a given community. Through this process, those who are accustomed to operating within closed realms and contexts can, at least momentarily, see each other in a new light. This type of reflection and insight into the world of the other is typically not incorporated into advocacy work, as NGO employees and migrant laborers often operate in isolation without the benefit of inter-​organizational collaboration. Furthermore, large donors such as the U.S. government who offer funding streams to development organizations often reinforce this type of isolation by not encouraging truly collaborative efforts between different types of organizations. DAR offers a solution to the problem of this isolation. As a nonconfrontational, dialogical intervention into seemingly intractable spaces, DAR makes the contours of these spaces more porous; in effect, bridging communication gaps between and among otherwise isolated actors. Because of this, DAR could be an invaluable tool to incorporate within any issue-​driven policy space—​ supporting stakeholders to come together to reflect, collaborate, and achieve meaningful and measurable change. Finally, this study highlights DAR’s potential as a method for engaging those outside the purview of a given social movement, but for whom the movement’s visibility nevertheless has important consequences. Here, I  am referring to the artists, who brought the words, music, and experiences of the Land of Smiles characters to life. In line with Freire’s “conscientization” and Boal’s “poetics,” in this project the artists were asked to step out of their normative frameworks and undergo processes of rupture and change. In the context of the anti-​trafficking movement and the seemingly intractable, politicized discourse that accompanies it, the artists were asked to engage with anti-​trafficking narratives in ways that publics—​those not directly impacted by trafficking and migration processes and those not directly involved with implementing policy—​typically do not. In both the creation and first readings of the project, as well as the Thailand production and the focus groups that followed, the artists began to question the underlying assumptions often made by audiences who consume the messages of the abolitionist anti-​trafficking narrative, and the normative framework that this project sought to challenge. The artists’ experiences thereby demonstrate the power live theater has to cause ruptures in consciousness, and disrupt the taken-​for-​granted thinking that often occurs around social issues that are heavily influenced by the political agendas of states, and the normative frameworks of the actors working within them. It is, therefore, not only policymakers whose conceptions of the world and actions within it can be changed by this work—​it is also the values and actions of the public.

[ 240 ] Conclusion

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DAR’S LIMITATIONS

Despite its success as a communication intervention, DAR, and more specifically, this DAR project, has limitations that cannot go unaddressed. First, the nonparticipation of the missionaries and sex workers union members in the focus groups that followed the performances revealed questions about whether the project might have had a liberating effect on these actors. Additionally, the absence of their perspectives in the focus groups may have limited those who did participate in realizing the full dialogical potential of their own participation. However, the nonparticipation of the missionaries and sex worker’s union members is an important datapoint in itself. Their absence from the focus groups suggests that live musical theater is a powerful tool that not only allows, but in fact provokes discourse to take place. The potential of the arts to confront those who hold the most typically polarized perspectives in any given discourse, should not be overlooked. The lack of participation among these groups also reveals the extent to which actors in the anti-​trafficking movement often retreat to their known normative frameworks for affirmation and validation. This idea was discussed in-​depth in ­chapter 4, in which I interrogated NGO employees’ narratives about trafficking and discussed the tendency for these employees to retreat into “static” ways of thinking in order to cope with anxiety related to their daily work activities. DAR offers a way to step out of those normative frameworks. Such an opportunity can, of course, be met with both curiosity and fear. Because of this, future studies should seek to examine what measures can be taken to more inclusively incorporate the participation of actors who tend to stay on the “outer edges” of a seemingly rigid discourse—​in effect, preventing those edges from being made porous. Beyond this study, the broader DAR praxis also has its limitations. As the final six chapters of the book (Phase Three) showed, this approach to research is not for the faint of heart. Participants are asked to give the project and its facilitators their trust—​trust in a process that is not straightforward, that demands emotional, as well as intellectual engagement, as well as a willingness to embrace unfamiliar and, at times, confronting modalities of practice. This, in essence, raises the stakes of DAR projects in terms of their impact on participants. Those involved—​from artists, to researchers, to audience members, to respondents—​must be willing to actively engage, and through this engagement, make new discoveries about themselves and the world around them that are not always easy to quantify. This is a tall order for participants in any research project. However, as we have seen, the results make this engagement well worth the investment. DAR is also limited in its reach. Because these projects are premised on liveness and participation, they are only able to reach one community at a time, rendering the scope of their impact relatively small. Future interventions could certainly involve the scaling up of these processes; however, shifting the medium of DAR to incorporate, for example, film, television, or other mediatized communication modalities (that have the potential to reach larger audiences) could dilute the foundations of the live connection and embodiment that make DAR so powerful.

C o n c l u s i o n  [ 241 ]

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Another limitation involves the material resources needed to conduct a DAR intervention. These projects involve engaging in three unique processes—​field research, creative dramatization, and production—​all of which necessitate a robust gathering of material resources (including time and space). While DAR projects can be done on modest budgets, they cannot be done “small”; that is, the presence of people—​which necessitates accounting for their travel, their time, and their labor—​ is required in order for these projects to have their desired impact. Finally, DAR projects are limited by their noncommerciality. Though a question remains as to whether, under the right circumstances, DAR projects could be promoted to larger audiences, their utility as social interventions—​not merely commercially oriented entertainment products—​should be recognized. Transitioning from the research environment to the entertainment “free market” would require shifting a project’s contours in ways that would very likely make it no longer DAR. These parameters are important to acknowledge, as they illuminate the value of this praxis in all its idiosyncratic specificity, as well as its limitations.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

What future lies ahead for DAR? What can we hope to achieve through this work as researchers, artists, development practitioners, and community members, and how can this praxis find a home at the academia-​art-​policy nexus? Given theater’s power as a site of social and political intervention, as a tool for both communicating political messages and unearthing new research inquiries, and—​as was demonstrated by the very aspects of the project that seemed to limit its outcome—​as a vehicle for disrupting a dominant discourse and inviting change to occur within that discourse, we are tasked with the question of where to take these interventions next. What direction should artists, researchers, and the rare combination of those who practice both vocations take in our projects and inquiries, and how can these projects be maximized to achieve change, not only at the level of social discourse, but also at the level of international development policy? I suggest that while a direct line from DAR project to policy change may not necessarily be the best goal of this work, the process of how policy change comes about can and should include DAR as a component. Strategic communication and good governance, as communication approaches utilized by a range of actors in today’s international development arena (see Riley et al., 2014), could, for example, incorporate DAR within their frameworks. Programming that focuses on the challenges faced by women in development contexts—​from sexual violence in conflict, to representation in politics and the media, to issues of education, migration, culture, and human rights (to name a few)—​in short, any context in which gender, culture, politics, and rights collide and intersect—​could be a valuable site for a DAR intervention. One project at a time, on scales large and small, this needed praxis could—​and should—​aid the development community in its efforts to engage meaningful social change throughout the world.

[ 242 ] Conclusion

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Further research might interrogate the potential for DAR to be incorporated into training for those who seek to do international work in a new way, and strive for more integrated, holistic results. Government actors, NGO employees, civil society organizations, and others whose communication, research, and programming activities are often limited by bureaucratic norms could benefit from these tools, which seek to unearth more human-​centered processes of discovery, self-​reflection, and change. Incorporating the DAR method into their work could help these actors interrogate not only what policies will be most beneficial in a given context, but also, better understand the way in which their own experiences and values inform the creation of those policies. Issues of self-​reflection and process are, as I have shown, cornerstones of this work. Just as aspects of restorative justice have been integrated into international development initiatives and educational settings (see, for example, McLaughlin, 2003; Zernova, 2007), so too might DAR be woven into the fabric of institutional culture as a site of exploration and innovation. Doing this could help improve flexibility and connection in spaces that, too often, suffer from slow movement and narrow processes of engagement. Finally, it is imperative to understand that DAR can, indeed, be replicated. As a tool for questioning narratives that commonly go unexamined, this praxis provides a roadmap for integrating critical thinking and creativity into existing structures and frameworks. The tools offered here have the potential to empower not only marginalized communities that bear the fruit (or, in many cases, the brunt) of international development practice—​ they also have the potential to empower policymakers themselves, for “in a global, interdependent world, there are fewer shared languages that restitute the unity of human experience” than the language of art (Castells, 2012: 5).

DAR AS A FEMINIST DEVELOPMENT PRAXIS

The fields of academia, entertainment, and development practice each share a dearth in feminist thought. But it is development practice specifically, wherein policy can be directly applied to the lives of marginalized women and produce transformational results. Introducing DAR, as a feminist praxis, into international development processes at both the policymaking and program implementation levels, could impact women’s lives in a myriad of positive ways. As I have argued throughout this book, crafting better policies that address the needs of women and communities requires attending to the feminist research ethic and integrating narratives of positionality, experience, and embodiment. These feminist approaches allow for the voices of women to be expressed and heard in crucial ways. They are, therefore, paramount to the success of international development projects whose stated goals involve the empowerment of women. Conversely, development projects that do not integrate feminist methods suffer from the absence of these voices and their expressions, and reinforce the silence of women at all levels of society. The feminist research ethic, as explored by Ackerly and True (2010), incorporates issues of process and location, the critical interrogation of power, and the researcher’s C o n c l u s i o n  [ 243 ]

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own self-​conscious location in the research context. It is also reflexive, requiring the researcher’s constant reflection and willingness to backtrack and reapproach the research question/​project from a new position and new discoveries. Because of this, feminist research is particularly dependent on mindful analysis of process, and the willingness of the researcher to tackle whatever new issues, questions, and struggles come up as that process shifts. In line with Haraway’s (1988) conception of an epistemological framework that privileges perspectives that are “particular” and idiosyncratic, and through which unrecognized social realities can be brought to the fore (p.  4), feminist research also relies on the interrogation of relationships of power within the process of research itself, and on the attention to the positionality of all involved. DAR makes these feminist theoretical concepts concrete, by involving the participation of multiple subjects and inviting contradictory and “situated” perspectives to come to light throughout the research process. As a feminist praxis, DAR’s potential is far-​reaching.

DAR AS A LIBERATORY DEVELOPMENT PRAXIS

Development processes are in need of liberatory frameworks to guide them and help practitioners reimagine the potentially transformational effects of their work. The field of liberation psychology and its close cousin, liberation arts, are premised on the potentiality of transformation that takes place, through art, within the psyche and the community (Watkins & Shulman, 2008). As we have seen throughout this book, such a transformation represents a series of turns: the turn from bystander to witness, the turn from dissociation to participation, and the turn from object—​or in this case, “victim”—​to subject. These transformations require participation—​and a shared commitment to inciting change. In this model, the artist-​researcher becomes an “invited guest” working alongside members of a marginalized community. This process “destabilizes notions of expertise such that the role of researcher transforms into that of a co-​researcher and collaborator” (Watkins & Shulman, 2008: 269). DAR fosters such collaborations to take place at every level of the research and creative processes. In addition, Freire asked that we reflect on whether, as researchers, our research mirrors our dream for a community, or a community’s dream for itself (as cited in Watkins & Shulman:  2008:  30). DAR fosters this reflection through a process whereby the dream of research is fused with the imagination of the artist. As a feminist communication intervention, DAR sparks the exploration of cultural values among participants in both the artistic and research processes. Through researching, writing, and performing Land of Smiles, and through the subsequent discourses that emerged among community members in the anti-​trafficking movement, the binary categorizations that had been cemented into the discourse on trafficking were interrupted, and the epistemological claims that informed that discourse were troubled. NGO employees, migrants, and artists demonstrated an ability to critically evaluate the roles they play within the anti-​trafficking movement in new and productive ways. Normative conceptions about victimization and rescue, the [ 244 ] Conclusion

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role of the West, and agency among sex workers were challenged, and the dialogical, rupturing, consciousness-​raising, proactive and performative tenets of liberation were evoked in the responses of all participant groups. Through this study, we see how dramatization and research become reflexive, co-​ constitutive processes. Additionally, we see the dynamic, powerful interconnection that exists between performance and politics and marks our social world. Indeed, integrating narratives that allow for marginalized women’s voices to be uncovered, recovered, and articulated, and through that process, understood in a wholly new way, begets the promise of a new approach to advocacy—​one that engages us all not as spectators, but as spect-​actors: empowered agents of change.

In this book I  have illuminated, however preliminarily, a window into a process. In doing so, I have unearthed a number of questions that I believe require careful consideration. The definitive role of the artist-​researcher, of community members, and of the contours of their participation in the DAR praxis remains in need of refinement. Questions arise about whether teams of artist-​researchers can more easily embark on such projects than a solo artist-​researcher, so as to alleviate the need for one individual to assume both roles. The issue of audience engagement is also an open question—​should DAR projects seek to move beyond the realm of liberation and advocacy, and into the world of policymaking? Where is the dividing line between these spaces, and how far should our research take us in evaluating the outcomes of a given DAR intervention? However these questions finally get answered, though, I have demonstrated in this book that DAR, and its expression in this project through musical theater, has a legitimate place as a feminist, liberatory praxis. As a live, embodied medium, musical theater requires participation—​the act of people coming together in a room and witnessing, in a somatic way, the emotional, aesthetic, inherently political journey of characters—​characters who sing what cannot be spoken, who express their truths through the ephemeral modalities of poetry and song. As participant-​ witnesses to the dramatic story, we coexist in liminal space and time, or “non-​time,” with these characters and with each other. We “see the way we see,” embarking on journeys that reflect our own experiences, and mirror that which we have not yet been able to express. In this process, the mind, body, and spirit recreate our understanding of the world. We restore our subjectivity, and witness the restoration of the subjectivity of others. The vision of Dramatization as Research, then, is a vision of liberation. We live in a society polarized by discursive divisions, a society in which communication is stunted by false conceptions of “self”-​versus-​“other,” and in which collective trauma goes unacknowledged, even as it stares us in the face. All members of such a society are in equal need of liberatory practices. Dramatization as Research helps us reorient ourselves toward the idea of liberation. This vision stands in contrast to the expert-​layperson model, in which the process of “othering” replicates practices of dominance and repeats the cycle of collective trauma. In such a model, we believe that the psychologist, the teacher, the scholar, and the human rights witness C o n c l u s i o n  [ 245 ]

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are not broken. But in trying to fix others, our visions turn to spectacularizations, and our understandings of ourselves are impeded. We become bystanders in our own dramas, blind to the reality of our own suffering and paralyzed by the suffering of others. The artist knows better. The artist knows that gestures toward beauty, defiance, and truth are a way of claiming what we all know but cannot bear to express: that we are all broken and searching for a way to be whole.

[ 246 ] Conclusion

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APPENDIX A

Phase One Methodology RECRUITMENT During Phase One, I  traveled to Thailand three times throughout 2011 and 2012 and conducted 54 interviews with employees at international and local NGOs, CBOs, U.S.  government and UN agencies; female migrant laborers (including sex workers, factory workers, and domestic laborers); members of the Royal Thai Police, the Cambodian border police, and Thailand’s Office of Immigration. Interviews took place in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Samut Sakhon, and along the Thai-​Cambodian border. One interview was conducted via Skype after the conclusion of the research trip. I  relied on “snowball sampling” among members of the anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand to inform the process by which interview participants were recruited. An information sheet describing the project was provided to each respondent, and interview questions were translated into the Thai and Burmese languages. In interviews with Thai, Burmese, Akha, Khmer, and Kachin participants whose knowledge of English was limited, translators fluent in each language were employed.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What cultural factors have impacted the trafficking of women in Thailand and the subsequent rise of the anti-​trafficking movement? 2. How do NGOs, as primary actors in this movement, narrate trafficking to the public, as well as to themselves? 3. What anti-​trafficking policies are in place in Thailand, and how do these policies affect female migrant laborers and potential trafficking victims? 4. What strategies, if any, are being implemented as alternatives to these policies?

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PARTICIPANTS

Participants included 20 employees of local and international anti-​trafficking NGOs, 1 sex workers’ union NGO employee, 6 migrant sex workers, 1 Thai sex worker, 2 migrant factory laborers, 4 migrant domestic laborers, 10 CBO activists, 2 Thai immigration officers, 1 Cambodian border police officer, 1 Thai border police officer, 3 U.S.  government employees, and 3 United Nations employees. Interview participants were solicited via email, with a recruitment script attached. Participants were of American, Australian, Thai, Burmese, and Cambodian nationalities and of Kachin, Karen, Shan, Akha, Burman, and Khmer ethnicities. All participants were over the age of 18. Participants were informed that for the purposes of this study, no names of individuals or organizations would be used; rather, participants would be coded according to gender, ethnicity, and role in the organization (i.e., Thai Female International NGO Employee, American Male Local NGO Employee, etc.), or role in the community (i.e., Female Akha Sex Worker, Female Kachin CBO Activist, etc.), and identified by pseudonyms.

PROCEDURES

Each interview lasted between 45 minutes and one hour, and was recorded while I  took notes by hand. Throughout the research process, I  used analytic memos to identify emerging themes and further “steer” the direction of the interviews. The data were stored on my laptop computer, as well as uploaded into a Dropbox in order to prevent loss. Some interviews were arranged prior to the research trip, while others were arranged in-​country. To the greatest extent possible, I centered the interviews on the experiences of female migrant laborers, as these actors are the focal point of the anti-​ trafficking movement’s “victim-​ centered approach” (U.S. Department of State, 2011). Much rich data has been collected on stories of experiences that support such women’s status of victimization—​for example, stories of exploitation in prostitution and other labor situations, often told through the lens of NGO employees who have worked to assist the women. Critically, I chose not to focus on the experiences of women who were currently being assisted by NGOs, as I  felt the authenticity of the women’s responses could easily be compromised. Rather, I engaged with female migrant laborers who were in the midst of their labor migration experiences, as I suspected these responses would be more authentic, if not also more complexly situated within the trafficking discourse. Most of the female migrant laborers I interviewed were connected with a CBO.

ANALYSIS

Following data collection, I relied on the assistance of a graduate student to transcribe the interviews and organize a respondent “key” of participant demographics, according to gender, nationality, ethnicity, and role in organization or community. [ 248 ]  Appendix A

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The data were then parsed into categories based on participant populations, for further analysis. Interview excerpts and analytic memos were color coded according to emergent themes. I revisited my field journal to assess my responses to the themes that emerged, and to reflect on my own location and potential bias in the research process. I  then compared and contrasted participants’ responses to emerging themes, noting the nature of inconsistencies and agreement among participants. Taking these complexities into account, I  then summarized the emergent themes broadly, noting, where possible, variations among participants.

LIMITATIONS

Some NGO and CBO participants worked in positions that required them to have direct contact with female migrant laborers on a daily basis while others worked in positions that required them to have little to no contact with the female migrant laborers whom their organizations served. Furthermore, some female migrant laborers were receiving direct assistance from a CBO, while others received no such support. These discrepancies, as well as the limited sample size of respondents, prevents the Phase One research from being generalizable to all NGO and CBO employees working in the anti-​trafficking movement in Thailand. Additionally, the limited sample size does not allow the research to claim to be representative of all female migrant laborers in Thailand.

A p p e n di x  A  [ 249 ]

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APPENDIX B

Phase Two Methodology In Phase Two I  conceptualized, wrote, and produced two staged readings of Land of Smiles. I  relied on the dramaturgical guidance of Ted Braun, professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts; Mina Yang, professor of ethnomusicology at USC’s Thornton School of Music, and producer Rick Culbertson to guide the development of the story narrative, script, and music. During this process, I  also kept a field journal to document emerging issues. I frequently returned to my Phase One interview transcripts as guides for the script and score development, reflecting on themes and discoveries, and noting these in my field journal. I used these ethnographic field notes as a guide to explicate the way the creative process interfaced with the research process. During the rehearsal process, I used the interview recordings as tools to help guide the actors in better understanding their characters’ accents, speech patterns, and the social context of the story.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. How could I, as an artist-​researcher, draw on the initial data to inform characters, narrative arcs, dramatic themes, emotional textures, and, ultimately, communicate the complexity of my findings through the medium of a musical? 2. How might the dramatization process further inform research questions on the issue of trafficking in Thailand?

STAGED READINGS

Phase Two involved producing two staged readings of the musical. During this “incubation” period, data were captured about the reflexive nature of the artistic and research processes. I kept a detailed field journal of the experience of working and reworking the piece, based on the Phase One data collection and my own responses to the data. Integral to this process was also a collaborative aspect, both with members

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of my artistic team and online communication with my community partner organization in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The first reading took place in September 2012 in a 99-​seat theater space in Santa Monica, California. Six female actors (four Asian American and two Caucasian) played the roles of the American, Thai, and Kachin characters. The musical was directed by Ted Braun, and produced by Rick Culbertson and Gregory Franklin. I directed the music and accompanied the performance on the piano. This reading was attended by approximately one hundred audience members, most of whom worked in the entertainment industry and in higher education. The second reading took place in February 2013, at a USC conference, From Prosecution to Empowerment:  Fighting Trafficking and Promoting the Rights of Migrants, sponsored by the USC Center for Feminist Research, the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, and the USC Department of Sociology. This reading was attended by two hundred members of the USC community and the general public.

PARTICIPANTS

The creative team included dramaturge/​ director Ted Braun and producer Rick Culbertson. I  served as producer, musical director, and accompanist. The cast was as follows: Emma—​Lowe  Taylor Lipoh—​Jennie Kwan Achara—​Melody  Butiu Lewelyn—​Kerri-​Anne  Lavin Woman 1 (Soon Nu, Mama X, Mae, Volunteer, Guard, Customs Officer)—​Joan Almadilla Woman 2 (Mother, Nono, Buya)—​Katy Tang

A p p e n di x   B  [ 251 ]

2 5

APPENDIX C

Phase Three Methodology Phase Three involved producing the musical in Thailand in 2013 for an audience of community members whose demographics were similar to those of the 2011 interviews. Five focus groups were held, in which 64 participants were asked to discuss their understandings of the musical, share their attitudes toward the materials, and reflect on their experiences. The focus groups included three migrant groups, one Western NGO group, and one artist group. The focus group design and implementation was constructed in partnership with USC doctoral student Prawit Thainiyom, who served as Co-​PI on the focus group research.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. After viewing the performance, did NGO employees, migrants, and artists critically evaluate the roles they play within the anti-​trafficking movement? 2. After viewing the performance, were normative conceptions about victimization and rescue, the role of the West, and the agency of sex workers challenged? 3. After viewing the performance, was “participatory practice” demonstrated by all three groups according to Watkins and Shulman’s (2008) evaluative criteria?

PARTICIPANTS

Focus Group participants included 9 NGO employees, 40 migrants, and 15 artists. Participants were asked to provide demographic information regarding gender, age, visa and employment status, and length of residence in Chiang Mai. We selected these variables in order to capture basic demographic information and variance of participant experiences in Chiang Mai (i.e., as short-​term visitor, long-​term resident, employee, intern, performer, etc.). This allows the results to be transferable (or used with limitations) to others with similar profiles in Chiang Mai. Groups were divided according to Western NGO employees, migrants, and artists. This ensured

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the somewhat homogeneous characteristics of the participants in each group, and contributed to fostering a welcoming environment in which participants would be encouraged to discuss relevant topics openly, thereby reaching a certain level of consensus. Artist participants included director Rick Culbertson, TO facilitator and assistant director/​choreographer Kimiko Warner-​Turner, state manager Eleonor Chaban Delmas, lighting designer Ben En Vadrouille Berimbau, prop master Jeff Lynn, music assistant Christy Humphry, production assistant Jessica (Mai) Nkhum, and co-​ producer Stephan Turner of The Gate Theater Group. I served as producer, musical director, and accompanist. The cast was as follows: Emma—​Amanda Kruger Lipoh—​Jennie Kwan Achara—​Marisa Mour Lewelyn—​Ann Fink Woman 1 (Soon Nu, Mama X, Mae, Volunteer, Guard, Customs Officer) —​Melody Butiu Woman 2 (Mother, Nono, Buya)—​Yardpirun Poolun

FOCUS GROUPS

The NGO focus group was moderated by Prawit Thainiyom. The migrant focus groups were moderated by a staff member of a Chiang-​Mai-​based NGO, an artist participant, and an external field consultant. The artist focus group was moderated by a staff member of a Chiang-​Mai-​based NGO. Questions were designed to encourage participation among those involved in every stage of the project, and included the following themes: Questions for anti-​trafficking NGO employees: 1. Reflections on NGO employee experiences—​personal and professional 2. Ethical dilemmas and challenges faced by the employees in the anti-​trafficking sector 3. Use of the musical as an advocacy tool 4. Representation of survivors and victims 5. Tensions between faith-​based and secular organizations Questions for migrants: 1. Reflections on personal migrant experiences 2. Discussion on being a survivor of trauma 3. Migrant needs versus society needs 4. Representation of migrant voices in the production 5. Use of the musical as an advocacy tool 6. Opinion about NGOs in the anti-​trafficking sector

A p p e n di x  C  [ 253 ]

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Questions for artists: 1. Experiences participating in the production 2. Changes of knowledge about issues related to human trafficking 3. Challenges of performing in front of the Thailand audience 4. Difficulties and concerns about the production 5. Engagement with the migrant groups 6. Changes in awareness about the political landscape in Burma

COMPENSATION

Participants were not compensated monetarily; however, some compensation was given to the migrant women’s organization in the form of hiring members of the organization to serve as production assistants during the pre-​production phase of the musical. Translators from this and other community-​based organizations were employed and compensated. A light meal was provided for all participants.

PROCEDURES

Focus groups took place in two rooms adjacent to the theater. One focus group took place in the theater itself following the performance. Data was recorded via handheld audio and video devices, to ensure backup. Data was then stored on the computers of the two Principal Investigators and transcribed by two graduate assistants in the United States. NGO employee and migrant participants were then coded according to gender and group (for example, “Female Artist,” “Male Migrant,” etc.) and anonymized. The names of artists were not anonymized, as their identities had already been made public.

EVALUATION

Data were analyzed by color coding emergent themes in the focus group transcriptions. I then drew on the discursive themes to assess the impact of the musical on members of the three participant groups, consistent with the framework of “participatory practice” that suggests that a successful participatory project be:  (1) Proactive, (2) Rupturing, (3) Dialogical, (4) Consciousness-​raising, and (5) Performative.

Theatre of the Oppressed Workshop A Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) workshop was also included as an activity in Phase Three. During the workshop, the TO facilitator introduced theater of the oppressed games and exercises to engage participants. Games included opening the voice, [ 254 ]  Appendix C

52

moving the body, and interacting through improvisation. Such techniques were ideal for participants from different cultures who did not speak the same language, as the theater games allowed participants to engage sounds and motion in ways that freed them from the need for translation. From there, the TO facilitator, in collaboration with the participants, identified aspects of daily life that could be considered “traumas.” The migrants described scenarios from their home country, such as forced portering, forced displacement, abuse by the military, and sexual violence. Artists from the United States identified scenarios of racism, homophobia, and religious intolerance. Participants “acted out” scenes exploring these themes, and were led through a process of reflection. The group then offered ideas about strategies that could help overcome the problems presented in the scenes.

A p p e n di x  C  [ 255 ]

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APPENDIX D

Phase One Interviewee Identification Chart

Respondent Country of Gender Origin

Ethnicity Age

Undoc

1 2

Thailand Thailand

F M

Thai Thai

40s 60s

3

Thailand

F

Thai

30s

4

Thailand

M

Thai

40s

5

Thailand

F

32

6 7 8 9

Cambodia Cambodia Cambodia Cambodia

M F M M

Thai (Issan) Khmer Khmer Khmer Khmer

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Thailand Cambodia Burma Burma Burma Burma Burma Burma Burma Burma Burma Burma

M F F M F F F F F F F F

Thai Khmer Kachin Akha Akha Shan Karen Akha Akha Akha Kachin Kachin

50s 20s 30 21 19 20s 60s 30s 30s 30s 30s 20s

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

22

Burma

F

Kachin

20s

Yes

State-​ Occupation less

50s 40s 28 50s

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Location

Head, Local NGO Commander, Royal Thai Police Anti-​ Trafficking Division IDC Immigration Officer Anti-​Traff Officer, Local NGO Sex worker

Chiang Mai Bangkok

INGO employee Head, INGO NGO employee Cambodian Border Police Officer Thai Border Police INGO employee Domestic laborer Domestic laborer Sex worker CBO activist CBO activist Sex worker Sex worker Sex worker CBO activist Domestic worker, CBO activist Domestic worker

Border Border Border Border

Bangkok Bangkok Bangkok

Border Border Chiang Mai Chiang Rai Chiang Rai Chiang Rai Chiang Rai Chiang Rai Chiang Rai Chiang Rai Chiang Mai Chiang Mai/​ Laiza Chiang Mai

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Respondent Country of Gender Origin

Ethnicity Age

Undoc

23 24

Burma Burma

F F

Kachin Kachin

50s 20s

Yes Yes

25 26 27

Burma Thailand US

F F F

Burman 40s Thai 30s American 30s

Yes

28 29

Thailand Burma

F F

Thai Burman

62 19

Yes

30 31

Burma Burma

F F

Burman Burman

30s 20s

Yes Yes

32 33 34 35 36

Burma Thailand Thailand US US

F F F M F

Burman Thai Thai American American

40s 30s 30s 50s 50s

37

Thailand

F

Karen

?

38

Burma

F

Akha

?

39

Burma

F

Kachin

?

40

Burma

F

Kachin

?

41

Burma

F

Kachin

?

42 43 44

Thailand Thailand Australia

F F F

Thai 50s Thai 50s Australian 50s

45 46 47

Burman F American M United StatesM

Burma 20s American 50s American 30s

48

United StatesM

American 30s

49

United StatesF

American 30s

50 51 52 53

Thailand American American Thailand

F M M F

Thai American American Thai

54

American

M

American 40s

30s 50s 40s 50s

State-​ Occupation less

Yes

Location

Domestic worker Chiang Mai CBO activist, formerChiang Mai domestic worker Sex worker Chiang Mai Director, Thai NGO Chiang Mai Program manager, Bangkok INGO Dir, Thai NGO Bangkok Shrimp factory Samut Sakhon worker CBO Coordinator Samut Sakhon Shrimp factory Samut Sakhon worker CBO Director Samut Sakhon INGO employee Bangkok INGO employee Bangkok INGO employee America Faith-​Based NGO America employee Faith-​Based NGO Chiang Mai employee Faith-​Based NGO Chiang Mai employee Migrant, CBO Chiang Mai activist Migrant, CBO Chiang Mai activist Migrant, CBO Chiang Mai activist Thai NGO employee Chiang Mai Thai NGO employee Bangkok Sex Worker’s Union Chiang Mai NGO employee Sex worker Chiang Mai INGO consultant Bangkok U.S. government Bangkok employee U.S. government Bangkok employee U.S. government Bangkok employee INGO employee Bangkok INGO employee Bangkok U.N. employee Bangkok U.N. employee Bangkok U.N. employee

Bangkok

A p p e n di x  D  [ 257 ]

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APPENDIX E

Focus Group Demographics

#of Responses* %Male %Female Age Range Average Age Nationality

Current Residence EMStatus

Years in Thailand Ethnicity

Sexual Orientation Relationship Status

Thai Spouse?

NGO Employee

Migrant

Artist

9 33% 67% 25–​60 33.56 U.S.A. –​  3 Canada –​  2 Thailand, Myanmar, Australia, Ireland Chiang Mai –​ 6 Bangkok –​ 3

32 34% 66% 13–​49 27.06 Kachin –​  25 Myanmar –​  2 Myanmar/​ Kachin –​  2 Other –​ 2 Chiang Mai –​ 16 T. Faham –​ 5 Other –​ 6 Work Visa –​ 7 Student Visa –​ 9 Undocumented –​  3 Other –​ 12 6 mo. Or less –​ 12 1–​5 years –​  9 5 years + -​10 Asian 100%

7 0% 100% 2–​48 39.71 U.S.A. –​  4 Thai –​  1 French –​  1 Filipino-​U.S. –​ 1 Thailand –​  4 U.S. –​ 3

Work Visa –​ 6 Retirement Visa –​ 1 Thai Citizen –​ 1 Other –​ 1 6 mo. Or less –​ 0 1–​5 years –​  8 5 years + -​1 White –​  78% Asian –​ 22% Heterosexual –​  67% Homosexual –​  11% Bisexual –​ 22% Married –​  0% Single –​  67% Divorced –​  11% Relationship –​ 22% Yes –​  22% No –​ 78%

Heterosexual –​  97% Homosexual –​  0% Bisexual –​ 3% Married –​  16% Single –​  77% Divorced –​  0% Relationship –​ 6% Yes –​  0% No –​ 100%

Work Visa –​ 1 Student Visa –​ 1 Tourist Visa –​ 2 Other –​ 2, Thai-​1 6 mo. Or less –​ 2 1–​5 years –​  2 5 years + -​2 White –​  43% Asian –​  43% Other –​ 14% Heterosexual –​  71% Bisexual –​  14% Other –​ 14% Married –​  14% Single –​  43% Relationship-​ 43% Yes –​  0% No –​ 100%

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Religion

Education

NGO Employee

Migrant

Artist

Christianity –​  22% Buddhism –​  11% Agnostic –​  33% Other –​ 33% Some college –​ 11% College grad. –​ 33% Postgrad. –​ 56%

Christianity –​  97% Catholic –​ 3%

Christianity –​  14% Catholic –​  14% Agnostic –​  14% Other –​ 57% Some college –​ 14% College grad. –​ 43% Postgrad. –​ 43%

Employment Status

Full-​time –​  89% Self-​employed –​ 11%

“Consider to be”

Theater goer –​ 22% NGO worker –​ 89% Expat –​ 33%

No high school –​ 19% Some high school –​ 2% High school grad –​ 13% Some College –​ 3% College grad. –​32% Full-​time –​  43% Part-​time –​  7% Self-​employed –​  7% Disability –​  4% Unemployed –​  11% Student –​ 29% Student –​  52% Migrant –​  42% NGO worker –​6%

Full-​time –​  29% Self-​employed –​  43% Unemployed –​  14% Student –​ 14%

Theater goer –​ 50% Expat –​ 50%

A p p e n di x  E  [ 259 ]

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NOTES

INTRODUCTION 1. I tend to bristle at the term “developing world,” as it is a fundamentally problematic way of trying to demarcate the difference between “the West and the rest,” or, to put it in more nuanced but no less problematic terms, differences between “preindustrialized,” “conflict-​affected,” “non-​European,” or “postcolonial” societies, and Western ones. It is an outmoded term in need of an upgrade. That said, for the sake of simplicity, and noting the many problems this term evokes, I will nevertheless use it here when referring to places such as Burma and Thailand—​the site of my field research—​places whose difference from “the West” informs the content of this study in a myriad of ways. 2. In the aftermath of the 1988 pro-​democracy uprising, the former military junta officially changed the country’s name from Burma to the “Union of Myanmar” overnight. However, throughout this book I  refer to it as “Burma,” the name still widely used by the country’s democracy movement, the U.S.  government, and the majority of female migrant laborers who participated in this study. 3. Kachin State is an ethnic region in northern Burma that has long been in conflict with the central Burmese government. Ongoing warfare has caused its citizens to migrate to neighboring countries such as Thailand in search of work, making them highly vulnerable to trafficking. 4. “Beneficiary” is another term I generally prefer not to use, as it implies that those on the receiving end of development programming are, in fact, receiving benefits from these programs. As this book argues, this is certainly not always the case. However, for the sake of clarity, I use the term throughout this book as a way of identifying the populations whom NGOs and other development actors intend to be helping. CHAPTER 1 1. Some TO practitioners do make a point of engaging in advocacy efforts that extend beyond the realm of the performance. This is, indeed, the point of the work—​ however, challenges remain around the structure of the TO framework itself, which doesn’t offer a specific roadmap or guidelines for this type of engagement. Thus, in development programming, for example, when TO techniques are utilized, they are often implemented as ad-​hoc, stand-​alone events led by artists who come and go from a given community, rather than being comprehensively woven into a long-​term program. 2. See Appendices A-​C for an overview of methodologies utilized, including: recruitment strategy, participants, procedures, interview and focus groups questions, and analysis. 3. See Appendix E for a key of respondent demographics. CHAPTER 2 1. A floor-​length wrap-​around fabric worn by women in Burma. 2. The Burmese Army.

2 6

3. Burma’s seven ethnic states include Kachin, Shan, Kayin, Kayah, Chin, Mon, and Rakhine. Active armed conflict has gripped each of these states for over six decades, forcing thousands of civilians to become refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). In the past two decades, an unprecedented number of Shan have entered the labor market in Northern Thailand, making them one of the largest group of migrants from Burma (Jirattikorn, 2017). 4. Thailand’s northern cities of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, and the territories that surround them are considered part of the ancient Lanna Kingdom, which was established in the thirteenth century along the borders of Burma and Laos (see Scott, 2009). 5. There have been some recent accounts of citizenship being granted to Tai Yai/​Shan communities in Northern Thailand under the authority of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. However, this gesture of legitimacy seems to have occurred sporadically, and has not been meaningfully adopted as policy (Silp, 2006). 6. Importantly, not all individuals who migrate from ethnic Burma into Thailand are stateless; indeed, many (such as the Kachin) possess citizenship in Burma. However, the essential takeaway here is their precarious treatment by the Thai government. Regardless of their citizenship status, without proper documentation, ethnic peoples who migrate, as well as those who have resided in Thailand for generations, are denied fundamental rights and access to key resources, making their experiences at once diverse, and consistently oppressive. 7. For example, trafficking scholar Kevin Bales has estimated that 27 million people are enslaved worldwide, but admits that this figure is merely an approximation (Bales, 2009:  8). In contrast, the International Labor Organization has provided evidence that there are 12.3 million people in forced labor around the world, with 2.4 million being victims of human trafficking (ILO, 2009). Clearly, there are vast discrepancies between anecdotal ideas about trafficking and real empirical data. 8. Gramsci theorized that “common sense” is constructed out of long-​standing practices of cultural socialization that are often rooted deeply in national traditions. It is not the same as “good sense,” which he described as developing out of “critical engagement with the issues of the day” (Harvey, 2005: 39). 9. At time of writing in 2018, Thailand has been upgraded to Tier 2 status.

CHAPTER 3 1. See Appendix D for Phase One interviewee identification chart. 2. It should be emphasized that actual sex trafficking does occur in Thailand and elsewhere. However, quantifying this problem remains difficult, in part due to the sensationalist narrative that conflates consensual prostitution with trafficking. An important scholarly debate about the problem of “hard numbers” can be seen in the work of Agustin (2007), Kempadoo, Sanghera, & Pattanaik (2016), Parreñas (2011), and Sanghera (2005). 3. About U.S. $5. 4. I recognize the danger in taking all informants’ statements at face value—​that doing so can cause the very same “flattened” view of experience that this study seeks to challenge. Noting this limitation, it is nevertheless important that we allow for women’s voices to be heard—​even when those voices may seem to reinforce an equally simplistic view of what “agency” means. In this case, I  tried to triangulate the data around this respondent’s close relationship with her mama san by asking other sex workers in the brothel to describe similar relationships. Overwhelmingly, the response was the same: mama sans are more often trusted by sex workers than feared. So while we cannot know the entirety of the dynamics that take place between these individuals, the narrative of trust communicated by this respondent and others is important to acknowledge. 5. About U.S. $7–​$9. 6. A city on the Thai-​Burma border.

[ 262 ] Notes

3 6 2

7. Such improvements have been demonstrated in the Netherlands, where brothel legalization has led to an increase in law enforcement’s ability to detect cases of sex trafficking (United Nations Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, 2007).

CHAPTER 4 1. See Appendix D for Phase One interviewee identification chart. 2. As noted in c­ hapter 3, we have also seen this rhetorical move made by journalists—​ for example, The New  York Times’ columnist Nicolas Kristof, who along with his partner Sheryl WuDunn’s in their 2009 bestseller Half The Sky:  Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide infamously ignored the “everyday” experiences of girls and women worldwide, in favor of focusing on the more “newsworthy” (i.e., sensationalist) topic of sex trafficking. Scholars, too, have been implicated in this tendency to sensationalize the plight of sex workers—​see, for example, Siddarth Kara’s Sex Trafficking:  Inside the Business of Modern Slavery. For one of the many excellent critiques of Kristof, see Soderlund (2011). For deft critiques of Kara, see Cheng (2010) and Ditmore (2009). 3. See, for example, the websites of The Salvation Army, http://​salvationarmynca. org/​antihumantrafficking/​ and World Vision, https://​www.worldvision.org/​child-​ protection-​news-​stories/​pray-​end-​human-​trafficking 4. About U.S. $41.47. CHAPTER 5 1. In 2011, an estimated 500,000 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) lived in camps in Burma’s southeast, with an additional 150,000 refugees living in camps along the Thailand-​Burma border (Thailand Burma Border Consortium, 2012). This trend began over 20 years ago; thus, many of the activists and exile groups discussed in this chapter emerged from refugee communities themselves. For a compelling portrait of life on the Thai-​Burma border see MacClelland (2010). 2. A city in Burma on the border of Northern Thailand. 3. The government-​controlled capital of Kachin State. 4. The former capital, and largest city in Burma. 5. Today, about U.S. $30. 6. A city in Northern Thailand near the border of Burma. 7. An organization in Northern Thailand providing support to migrant groups from Burma. 8. At the time this research was conducted, Burma had just begun to undergo a transition from military rule to democracy, and labor trafficking from Burma into Thailand’s now notoriously dangerous fishing industry had received little international attention. More recently, Thailand’s fishing industry has come under criticism for exacerbating the plight of migrants from Burma—​particularly those of the Rohingya, Burma’s persecuted Muslim minority. 9. About U.S. $3–​$10. 10. While the U.S. TIP Report consistently notes that prevention is an important category of anti-​ trafficking advocacy work, anecdotal evidence suggests that prevention campaigns and programming receive comparatively less funding from government donors, as their impacts are comparatively more difficult to quantify than prosecution-​ focused activities. CHAPTER 6 1. The perception of the KIA as a “rebel” group has changed somewhat in recent years. Since Burma began opening its doors to the West in 2010, the KIA has been taken off the U.S. government’s official CIA list of terrorist organizations. In a striking reversal, U.S.  government agencies are now funding development programs that support civil society actors with direct ties to EAOs, and certain funding streams have been benchmarked for building the capacity of EAOs. This support, however, is not benign

N o t e s  [ 263 ]

4 6 2

in nature. Rather, it is itself complicated by a geopolitical agenda that is playing out in Burma’s development landscape.

CHAPTER 8 1. See Appendix B for a discussion of the staged reading logistics and a breakdown of the cast. 2. It should be noted that this process of successfully embodying a character does not come “automatically” to every actor. In the Land of Smiles readings, as well as in the production, many actors were initially considered for their participation. As outlined in the Appendices, the cast members in each reading and production differed to some extent, due to the changing nature of the script, and the production team’s evolving understanding of what kind of actor would best suit each role. As with all casting processes, ultimately, it was the actors who could best embody their role who were selected to participate in the final production. 3. This process is akin to what psychoanalysis refers to as “free association,” and draws on a similar unique informative logic. CHAPTER 9 1. At the time of this study, The Gate Theater Group was the only English language theater production company operating in Northern Thailand. 2. “Do no harm” was a common phrase I  heard among the CBO members who participated in this study. This phrase was often geared toward larger, international NGOs or government actors who, in the process of providing aid to marginalized populations, end up causing damage to the very communities they are ostensibly seeking to help. Interestingly, during the Phase One fieldwork I  never heard this phrase in conversations with anti-​trafficking NGO employees. CHAPTER 11 1. Notably, none of the migrants who attended the performance reported having personally worked in the sex industry. It can be hypothesized, however, that some of the attendees may have worked as sex workers, either currently or in the past, but were not willing to admit this, as sex work is stigmatized in many ethnic communities. 2. The NLD came to power in late 2015, sweeping Burma’s first democratic elections in over a generation. This landslide victory marked a triumph in Burma’s reform process, and a formal end to the country’s military rule. 3. Burmanization is the act of hegemonically imposing Burmese cultural practices on ethnic minority communities in an effort to deny these communities their cultural rights. For example, Burmanization involves the practice of mandating that the Burmese language be taught in all schools, while simultaneously denying ethnic communities the right to teach and study in their own ethnic languages. As such, it could be called a national identity project in its own right. 4. Child labor, including the use of children as forced combatants in armed groups, as forced porters, and in other vocations, is “one of the most prominent child protection problems in Myanmar” (UNICEF, 2016). 5. In one scene in the play, Lipoh tells Emma that her uncle was “made to be a porter, carrying 100 pounds on his back.” CHAPTER 13 1. To “forget one’s line” 2. A community-​based organization in Chiang Mai that partnered with the production of Land of Smiles. CHAPTER 14 1. It remains an open question as to whether the American artists remained in this ruptured state following their participation in the project, and to what extent

[ 264 ] Notes

5 6 2

regressive tendencies emerged upon their return to the United States. As Amanda Kruger expressed, “I feel tired and disoriented, and I feel like I don’t know who I’m going to be when I  get home.” This artist may have been voicing a premonition of having difficulty processing the rupture she endured during the production in Thailand. While such an inquiry goes beyond the scope of this study, it is, nevertheless, an important consideration for further research.

N o t e s  [ 265 ]

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INDEX

abolitionism. See also U.S. Abolitionist Project as cultural narrative, 84–​85 historical roots of, 56–​57 as NGO worker focus, 84 U.S. foreign policy and, 62 abolitionist anti-​trafficking movement artists’ experience of, 240 employees of, 85 sex worker agency and, 137 term/​label use in, 10–​11 Thailand’s sex industry and, 9 abolitionist feminists. See also Palermo Protocol; U.S. Abolitionist Project debates with pro-​rights feminists, 60 in developed world, 8 on prostitution, 6, 7, 60 Achara Montri (Land of Smiles character) commitment of, 229 development of, 120–​21 on NGO’s anti-​trafficking efforts,  142–​44 response to, 163–​77 Thai National Identity Project and,  128–​29 Ackerly, B., 27, 38, 243–​44 Act on Prevention of Traffic in Women and Children (1997), 64 actor-​character visibility,  228–​30 advocacy claims to the public, 196 self-​advocacy, 197–​200 within migrant communities, 196–​97 advocacy narrative, 195–​200. See also migrant narratives agency narrative, 164–​65. See also NGO narratives Agustin, L., 8, 62, 63, 262n2 Ahmed, S., 80–​81 AIDS/​HIV, 73, 93, 94, 191–​92 Akha (minority community) as exploitable commodity, 54

Kachin rebels and, 156 in Land of Smiles, 137, 156 migrant experience of, 69–​70 NGO programming for, 91–​92 sex work conditions for, 77–​78, 79 as stateless, 49, 50 Anti-​Prostitution Loyalty Oath (APLO) (“The Pledge”), 14, 73–​74 anti-​trafficking movement. See also community-​based organizations (CBOs); NGO employees; NGO narratives; Palermo Protocol; rescue narrative; “Smart Raid” policy; Thailand’s National Identity Project; U.S. Abolitionist Project agenda of, 9–​10 American culture wars and, 7 binary categorizations in, 244–​45 denial of interconnectedness by, 111 disparate goals in, 67 in field research phase, 12–​15, 238, 247 on invisibility of women, 8–​9 in Land of Smiles,  4–​5 in production phase, 16 prominent narratives in, 68, 240 “rescue industry” and, 62–​64 term usage by, 10–​11 trauma and, 29 “voices” in, 4 Western subjectives/​complicity in, 9–​10,  21 anti-​trafficking policies. See also “Smart Raid” policy; Thailand’s National Identity Project; U.S. Abolitionist Project dramatization of, 141–​44 performance of culture and, 9–​10 in Thailand, 141–​44 in TIP report, 71 women’s sexuality and, 59 Aristotelian tragedies, 25, 223–​24 Aristotle,  36–​37

0 8 2

artist narratives discovery narrative, 212–​14 healing narrative, 211–​24 political consciousness narrative,  220–​22 rupturing narrative, 219–​20 service narrative, 217–​19 themes in, 211–​12 artist-​researcher binary notions of, 144–​45 positionality of, 124, 232 visibility of, 125–​26 artists. See also theater/​theater artists anti-​trafficking movement and, 240 confusion of, 231 disorientation of, 230–​31 location in human trafficking, 17 social justice and, 1–​2 as travelers, 210 arts-​based interventions, 20, 30–​31. See also Entertainment-​Education (E-​E); Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) Asia Indigenous People’s Pact (AIPP), 47 audience, participation/​engagement of,  125–​26 audition process, in Land of Smiles,  150–​51 Aung San Suu Kyi, 194, 195, 221 Bales, Kevin, 262n7 Ban Gretegarn (immigration detention center), 139, 140, 141 Ban Seng Bu, 222f Barry, Kathleen, 7, 60 “beneficiary,” as term, 261n4 Boal, Augusto on Aristotelian empathy/​drama, 223–​24,  230 Forum Theatre techniques of, 162 on Marxist theater, 215, 233 “poetics of the oppressed” of, 36–​37, 221–​22,  226 on spectators, 227–​28 on theater of discourse, 229–​30 Theatre of the Oppressed and, 25–​26 Bolt, B., 32 boundaries dramatic license in, 145–​32.170 between research and art, 144–​45 Brand, Lewelyn (Land of Smiles character) on “choice” to be a prostitute, 84 commitment of, 229 development of, 120–​21 “Mary Kate” inspiration for, 84–​85, 91–​92,  93–​96 rescue narrative and, 128

[ 280 ] Index

responses to, 163–​77 Braun, Ted direction of Land of Smiles, 149, 151–​52, 156, 250, 251 on “natural story,” 15, 118, 133, 145 photo of, 154f Brecht, B., 215, 233–​34 brothels description of, 69–​70 dramatization of, 134–​36 NGO employee interview on, 74 as paradoxical sites, 82 sex workers status in, 72 Buddhism/​Theravada Buddhism acceptance of prostitution in, 45–​46, 55, 66 sexuality in, 54–​55 in Thai identity, 45 Butiu, Melody. See also Soon Nu (character in Land of Smiles) apprehensions/​misgivings of, 218 audition of, 147, 150, 151 as cast member, 251, 253 on discovery process, 212, 213–​14 emotional response of, 215, 223, 226 ethic of participation and, 215 experience of liminality, 215, 216–​17 photos of, 154f, 166f, 193f, 213f, 220f in production phase, 162, 215, 216–​17 service narrative and, 218 Burma anti-​trafficking NGOs in, 194–​95 citizenship status, 262n6 collective trauma in, 203–​4 ethnic states of, 262n1 ethnic women’s migration from, 49–​50 female migrant laborers from, 12 hill tribe population/​migration, 51–​52 in Land of Smiles, 4 map of, 48f name change of, 261n2 Burmanization, 264n3 Bush, George W., 14, 56–​57, 73–​74 Buya (character in Land of Smiles), 69 “bystanders” artists’ experience as, 226 “conscientization” and, 185, 227 continuum of oppression and, 35, 227 embodiment of experience and, 223–​24 to human rights crises, 21 to human trafficking, 21–​22 NGO employees as, 14, 89, 98–​100, 111, 163,  187–​88 in restorative justice paradigm, 184

1 8 2

transformation to witnesses, 123–​26, 128, 163, 165, 171–​72, 173, 178–​79, 199, 244 to trauma, 2–​3, 236 vision of liberation and, 245–​46 Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights, 74 Caruth, C., 183, 197 character development author’s objectives in, 122–​23 “cycle of migrant women,” 119f,  119–​20 material thinking in, 120–​22 types of engagement in, 117 “voice” of characters, 121 child labor, 264n4 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 59 civilizing message, in rescue narrative,  89–​92 civil society organizations (CSOs), 86 Clinton, Hillary, 73 Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), 60, 77 collaborative discovery, in performance process,  153–​55 collective trauma, in Burma, 203–​4 communication, theater and, 1–​2 community-​based organizations (CBOs). See also narrative of resistance on collective bargaining strategy promotion,  108–​10 discrimination practices and, 104 exile groups in, 103 history of, 102 liminality of, 111 narrative of resistance and, 102–​13 passport/​document issues, 105 perspective of, 102 as “public homeplace,” 108 results of, 102 run by/​for sex workers, 107–​8 serving Kachin migrant population,  104–​7 on Thai-​Burma border, 101–​2 trafficking prevention strategies of, 110 trust in, 86 unity of experience in, 105–​7 complexity narrative, 174–​78. See also NGO narratives confusion, artists’ feeling of, 231 Conquergood, D. D., 32, 38, 150 conscientization “bystanders” and, 227 Land of Smiles as site for, 227–​28 theory of, 13, 35–​36, 102, 111, 186, 211

consciousness-​raising, as liberation tenet, 212 consensual sex workers agency and, 136 characterization of, 130 NGO policies and, 97 silencing of, 87 term definition, 11 Convention to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women and Children. See Palermo Protocol creative process, in Land of Smiles character development, 118–​20 material thinking in, 120–​22 music/​musical themes in, 121–​22 use of time in, 121 criminal message, in Smart Raids, 78–​79 Culbertson, Rick, 151–​52, 162, 250 cultural narratives community values and, 84–​85 liminal space and, 224 cultural production, of stories, 132–​33 culture wars, 6, 7, 8, 56–​57 Davidson, O’Connell, 126 deportation Immigration Detention Center (IDC) and, 139 of sex workers/​migrants, 67, 119–​20 “Smart Raid” policy and, 70, 81 threat of, 72 “developing world,” as term, 261n1 Development Education Programme for Daughters and Communities (DEPDC), 47 disorientation, artists’ feeling of, 230–​31 Doezema, J., 8 Dolan, Jill on need for new words, 1 on theater, 32 “utopian” term of, 236–​37 on “utopian” vision, 236–​37 dominant trafficking narrative, 4, 10, 12, 15, 38, 118–​19, 123, 130, 133, 167, 238. See also “trafficking victim” dramatic arts, international human rights research and, 1 dramatic license, 145–​32.170 Dramatization as Research (DAR) praxis. See also Entertainment-​Education (E-​ E); Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) articulation phase of, 157 artists’ disorientation and, 230–​31 author’s journey/​process in, 11–​12

Index [ 281 ]

2 8

Dramatization as Research (DAR) praxis (Cont.) character development and, 118–​22 contextual discoveries and, 207–​8 creative phase in, 15–​16, 38, 238–​39 creative processes in, 23, 118, 157 definition of terms in, 10–​11 description of, 3 epistemological foundations of, 26–​31 evaluative criteria for, 13, 181 as feminist development praxis, 243–​44 field research/​fieldwork phase, 12–​15, 38, 238 future directions for, 242–​43 goals of, 22–​23, 28, 146 iconic memory and, 208 as inquiry into process, 20 as liberatory development praxis, 237–​38,  244–​45 liminality in, 211 naming of, 20 narrative of resistance and, 102–​13 need for, 20, 21–​23 potential for, 240 production phase, 16–​18, 38–​39, 161–​62,  239 as research approach, 240 as space for recollection, 203–​5 spectacularization and, 28–​29 for understanding lived experience, 70 as vehicle for mourning, 205 as vehicle for witness, 205–​7 Dramatization as Research (DAR) praxis, methodology of analysis,  248–​49 compensation, 254 evaluation,  254–​55 focus groups, 253–​54, 258 interviewee identification chart, 256 limitations, 241–​42, 249 methodological foundations, 31–​33 ontological foundations, 33–​35 participants, 248, 251, 252–​53 practical foundations, 37–​39 procedures, 122–​248, 254 recruitment, 247 research questions, 247, 250, 252 staged readings, 250–​51 ECPAT International, 64–​65 “88 Generation,” 102 Eley, G., 43 embodiment actor’s job in, 148–​49 audition process in, 150–​51 performance process in, 153–​55

[ 282 ] Index

post-​performance reflections,  155–​56 rehearsal process in, 151–​53 staged readings in, 149 Ensler, Eve, 22 Entertainment-​Education (E-​E), 13, 20, 23,  24–​25 ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), 48–​49, 103, 263–​64n1 ethnotheater, 22 factory workers collective bargaining strategies and, 103,  108–​10 in narrative of resistance, 102 undocumented status of, 109 Fanon, Franz, 202 female migrant laborers. See also community-​based organizations (CBOs); Lipoh (character in Land of Smiles); “Smart Raid” policy; Thailand’s National Identity Project; “trafficking victim”; U.S. Abolitionist Project anti-​trafficking advocates and, 8 from Burma, 12 CBOs’ support for, 14–​15 conceptualization of, 87 DAR praxis and, 30, 111–​12 exploitation of, 54 “life skills” training and, 80 lived experience of, 14, 73, 74–​75, 85, 98, 122 as participant group, 16, 47 symbolic journey of, 119–​20 term definition, 10–​11 victim-​versus-​criminal binary and, 71 feminist epistemologies DAR and, 31, 204, 237–​38, 239 musical theater and, 30 in research, 3 social catastrophe and, 2–​3 feminist international research. See also artist-​researcher; Dramatization as Research (DAR) praxis alternative methodologies and, 2 DAR praxis and, 3, 12 liberation psychology and, 14–​15 positivist methodologies and, 2 postcolonial perspectives in, 29 self-​interrogation and, 27 socially-​conscious art and, 237 fetishization, 28–​29, 80–​81, 206, 207 Fink, Ann, 162, 168f, 169–​70, 214, 221, 233 forced labor, number of people in, 262n7

3 8 2

Forum Theatre, 36 Foucault, M., 134 Franklin, Gregory, 151 Freire, Paolo “conscientization” of, 35–​36, 102, 111, 186, 211 on culture of silence, 227 on products of social inequality, 36 From Prosecution to Empowerment: Fighting Trafficking and Promoting the Rights of Migrants (University of Southern California), 149 Gable, Emma (Land of Smiles character) actor’s identification with, 229 artist-​researcher positionality and, 124 artist-​researcher visibility and,  125–​26 development of, 120–​21 in dramatization of sex worker agency,  136–​38 experience of rupture, 228–​29 musical theme of, 122, 148 on NGO’s anti-​trafficking efforts,  142–​44 responses to, 171–​73 on stories, 132 transformation of, 123–​24 as “would-​be savior,” 123 Gate Theater Group, 162, 264n1 gender, in Thai National Identity Project,  54–​56 gender relations, in Thailand,  45–​46 Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW), 60–​61 Gramsci, Antonio, 63, 262n8 Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Kristof and WuDunn), 263n2 Haraway, Donna, 2, 4, 27–​28, 32, 125, 207,  243–​44 Harding, Sandra, 207–​8 healing narrative, 211–​24. See also artist narratives Hesford, W., 12–​13, 28–​29 HIV/​AIDS, 73, 93, 94, 191–​92 “homeplace,” CBO as, 108 hooks, bell, 236 hospitality DAR praxis and, 234 ethic of, 225–​26, 232 experiences of, 229–​30 as revolutionary act, 235

rupture and, 17–​18, 163, 209, 224, 226, 239 humanism/​humanitarianism distinction, 35 human trafficking invisibility of women in, 8–​9 as “modern day slavery,” 6 sex-​work debates and, 6–​7 in Thailand, 3 Humphry, Christy, 214, 233 identities, being caught between, 19 identity projects. See Thailand’s National Identity Project; U.S. Abolitionist Project internally displaced persons (IDPs), 49, 194, 195, 262n1, 263n1 International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic (1904), 58 International Detention Centers (IDCs) deportation and, 139 dramatization of, 133, 134–​36 “power moment” dramatizations of,  139–​41 Smart Raids and, 71 “trafficking victim” in, 139, 140, 145–​46 international human rights research, dramatic arts and, 1, 2 International Justice Mission, 74 International Labour Organization (ILO),  51–​52 international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), 86. See also NGOs (Nongovernmental Organizations) International Organisation for Migration (IOM),  51–​52 interventions. See also Entertainment-​ Education (E-​E); Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) arts-​based interventions, 20, 30–​31 as “liberatory,” 3 lived experience and, 26 musical theater and, 22 need for, 20 judgment message, in Smart Raids, 76–​77 Kachin Independence Army (KIA), 48–​49, 104, 263–​64n1 Kachin Independence Organization (KIO),  48–​49

Index [ 283 ]

4 8 2

Kachin/​Kachin State (minority community). See also migrant narratives CBO case study, 104–​7 conflict/​warfare in, 261n3 culture/​history of,  47–​49 KIA resistance and, 156 story of “Shayi,” 105–​7 Thai government relationship with, 50 trafficking and, 54 “Kachin Women” (song in Land of Smiles),  150–​51 Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT), 47, 219, 231 Kara, Siddarth, 263n2 Kristof, Nicholas, 77, 263n2 Kruger, Amanda. See also Gable, Emma (Land of Smiles character) audition of, 147 narrative of discovery, 212 personal transformation of, 219–​20, 264–​65n1 photos of, 166f, 171f, 220f Krywotz, B., 118 Kwan, Jennie. See also Lipoh (character in Land of Smiles) artist narrative of, 210–​18f on being changed, 210 as cast member, 251, 253 character discovery by, 127, 148 commitment to social justice, 227 emotional response of, 223 experience of liminality, 215–​16, 229 experience of rupture, 219 feelings of disorientation, 230 liminal experience of, 215–​16 personal challenge of, 217 photos of, 154f, 193–​98f in production phase, 162 rupturing narrative and, 219 service narrative and, 218 labor trafficking, 108–​10, 196–​97, 263n8 Land of Smiles agents of change in, 226 artists and interns, 218f audition process in, 150–​51 cast and crew of, 154f characters in, 5 creative phase/​process for, 15–​16 discourse on trafficking in, 8 dual identities in, 176–​77 foundation for, 12 as framework for learning, 118 as liminal event, 224

[ 284 ] Index

performance space for, 161 plot of, 133 post-​performance reflections,  155–​56 “power moments” in, 133 production phase of, 16–​18 rehearsal process in, 151–​55 as site for “concientization,” 227–​28 staged readings of, 149, 153–​54 as story about trafficking, 4–​5 liberalism, human experience and, 2 liberation, tenets of, 181 liberation, concept of, 163, 181, 212 liberation psychology. See also “bystanders”; social catastrophe anti-​trafficking movement and, 12–​13 constructs of, 181 DAR praxis and, 26, 244 feminist international research and,  14–​15 group narratives and, 16 language of, 184 liminality in, 111 lived experience and, 112 paradigms of, 239 participatory approaches and, 31–​32,  33–​34 social catastrophe and, 2–​3 theater interventions and, 23 “liberatory” interventions, 3 “life skills” training, 91–​92 liminality in DAR praxis, 211 experience of, 210–​11 learning through, 151–​53 in liberation psychology, 111 narrative of, 215–​17 rupture and, 211 Lipoh (character in Land of Smiles) actor’s identification with, 229 in brothel raid, 135–​32 development of, 120–​21 in dramatization of sex worker agency,  136–​37 identities of, 19 as imagined female migrant, 44, 68 non-​victimhood of, 191 situated knowledge and, 127–​28 song of, 19, 148 victim narrative and, 126–​27 visibility of rupture and, 228 lived experience. See also conscientization, theory of; rescue narrative articulation of, 2, 3, 20, 31, 187–​88, 234 character development and, 118–​19, 151

5 8 2

communication of, 39 complexity of, 1, 3, 8, 24, 99–​100, 122,  126–​27 as creative phase focus, 15–​16 DAR praxis and, 22–​23, 26–​27, 31, 44, 70,  237–​38 as fieldwork focus, 37–​38, 131 flattening/​silencing of, 73, 74–​75, 82 in interventionist approaches, 26 knowing and, 26 of migrants/​migrant sex workers, 70, 128–​29, 193–​94,  203 of NGO employees, 89, 95–​96, 99,  178–​79 positionality and, 187–​88 as production phase focus, 16–​17, 38–​ 39, 161–​62, 239 as research phase focus, 12, 113, 118 social catastrophe and, 3–​4, 14 as witnessing, 112 MacKinnon, Catherine, 7 male promiscuity institutionalization of, 45–​46 legitimization of, 66 Mann Act, 56–​57, 58–​59 maps of mainland Southeast Asia, 46f of Myanmar (Burma), 48f Martin-​Baro, I.,  2–​3 Marxist theater, 215, 221–​22 material thinking, in character development,  120–​22 Mae (character in Land of Smiles), 69 memory narrative vs. iconic, 208 visibility of, 132–​33 methodological foundations, 31–​33 migrant laborers reasons for coming, 202 traumatic experiences of, 239–​40 migrant narratives advocacy narrative, 195–​200 power of liveness in, 200–​1 of recognition, 200 recollection and mourning in, 203 role of NGOs in, 194–​95 “victim” narrative, 190–​94 migration, feminization of, 52–​54 migration stories, 43–​45, 52 mimetic distance, reconciliation and, 187 missionaries, nonparticipation of, 169–​70,  241 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, 101 moralizing message

in NGO narrative, 167–​69 in rescue narrative, 92–​94, 128 Mour, Marisa, 162, 168f, 214, 233 mourning DAR as vehicle for, 205 as liberatory paradigm, 17 musical dramatization, research and, 1 musical theater. See also Land of Smiles for communicating experience, 1–​2, 4 DAR use in, 3 feminist epistemologies and, 30 as intervention, 22 power of liveness in, 200–​1 social critique and, 4 “myth of certainty,” 126 narrative of resistance, 14, 102–​13 narratives. See advocacy narrative; agency narrative; artist narratives; complexity narrative; dominant trafficking narrative; healing narrative; migrant narratives; narrative of resistance; NGO narratives; “othering” narrative; political consciousness narrative; rescue narrative; rupturing narrative; self-​awareness narrative; service narrative; victim narrative; victim-​ versus-​criminal narrative national identity projects. See Thailand’s National Identity Project; U.S. Abolitionist Project National Plan and Policy on Prevention and Resolution of Domestic and Cross Border Trafficking in Children and Women (2002), 64–​65 National Policy and Plan of Action for the Prevention and Eradication of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (1996), 64 “natural story,” 15, 118, 131, 133, 134, 144–​45, 146, 157 neoliberalism rescue industry and, 62–​64 Thailand’s sex industry and, 66–​67 women’s migration and, 53 NGO employees. See also Gable, Emma (Land of Smiles character) in anti-​trafficking movement, 16 as bystanders, 98–​100 at Land of Smiles performance, 163 lonely profession of, 180–​81 need to please donors, 177–​78 NGO narratives agency narrative, 164–​65 complexity narrative, 174–​78

Index [ 285 ]

6 8 2

NGO narratives (Cont.) missionaries in, 169–​70 moral debate narrative, 167–​69 self-​awareness narrative,  170–​73 sex workers union and, 165–​67 NGOs (Nongovernmental Organizations). See also rescue narrative conflict in Burma and, 194–​95 diplomatic role of, 86 donor values and, 88 employees of, 85 globalization process and, 86 intelligence role of, 86 language/​term use by, 86–​87 policy implications and, 88 rhetorical strategy of, 87–​88 role/​intentions of, 86 in Thailand, 85–​86 objectivism/​objectification, 2, 35, 63, 71, 103–​4, 119–​20, 165, 183, 185, 186, 206, 207, 233–​34 Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (JTIP), 61 Oliver, Kelly, 225 oppressor/​victim categorization, 26 “Orientalist” imagination, 10 Orloff, A. S., 81 “othering” narrative as abdication of responsibility, 174–​75 complexity and, 174 to negotiate dual roles/​identities, 176 as organizational strengthening tool, 175 rescue narrative and, 96–​97 self reflection and, 178 as vehicle for resistance, 175–​76

of artist-​researcher, 15, 124–​25, 232–​35 in DAR praxis, 13, 20–​21, 26–​27 in feminist research, 31 importance of, 129–​30 lived experience and, 187–​88 process of interrogating, 28 positivism, as research approach, 2 post-​traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),  202–​3 potential trafficking victims, term definition, 11 power inequality/​imbalance,  28–​29 powerlessness, 3, 70, 181, 199, 227, 232 “power moment” dramatizations of anti-​trafficking policies, 141–​44 of brothel raid, 134–​36 description of, 15, 133–​34 of sex worker agency, 136–​38 Practice-​Based Research (PBR), 13, 32–​33 President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), 73 pro-​rights feminists. See also Palermo Protocol debates with abolitionist feminists, 60,  193–​94 on prostitution, 6 sex-​positive narrative and, 98 on women’s sexuality, 7 prostitution. See also “Smart Raid” policy conflation with trafficking, 7 debates about, 56 in “first world” feminist thought, 6–​7 in Thailand’s development, 45–​46, 55 Thai National Identity Project and,  54–​56 “public homeplace,” CBO as, 108 push factors, in women’s migration, 52–​54

Page Law, 56–​57, 59 Palermo Protocol, 6, 8, 11, 58, 60–​62, 71–​72, 73, 77, 78, 97, 106, 129–​30 Participatory Action Research (PAR), 13, 20–​21, 31–​32, 34, 38, 111 Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire), 35 People’s Global Action Manifesto, 180 personal transformation. See rupturing narrative Phelan, P., 207 “poetics of the oppressed,” 13, 36–​37, 221–​22,  226 political consciousness narrative, 220–​22. See also artist narratives Poolun, Yardpirun, 162, 166f, 193–​98f, 223 pornography, debates on, 7 positionality

recollection character creation and, 117 community restoration and, 208 DAR praxis and, 203–​5, 208 as liberatory paradigm, 17, 163 lived experience and, 26 process of, 206–​7 spaces of, 112 reconciliation mimetic distance and, 187 as restorative justice counterpart, 182 trauma and, 185–​87 reform messages, in Smart Raids, 79–​80 Refugee Convention (1951), 50 rescue narrative. See also Gable, Emma (Land of Smiles character) civilizing message, 89–​92

[ 286 ] Index

7 8 2

moralizing message, 92–​94 othering message, 96–​97 primary messages of, 89 savior message, 94–​96 victim message, 97–​98 research. See also artist-​researcher; Dramatization as Research (DAR) praxis; feminist international research; Participatory Action Research (PAR) boundaries between art and, 144–​45 musical dramatization and, 1 positivism as approach to, 2 restorative justice dramatization and, 185 liberation tenets and, 181–​82 as mode of engagement, 16–​17 vs. retributive justice, 182, 184 role of oppressors in, 183–​84 understanding of, 182–​85 retributive justice, vs. restorative justice, 182, 184 Rich, Adrienne, 147 Royal Thai Police, 12, 14, 70, 71, 238, 247. See also “Smart Raid” policy Rubin, Galye, 7 rupture in DAR praxis, 17–​18 Emma’s experience of, 228–​29 hospitality and, 17–​18, 163, 209, 224, 226, 239 liminality and, 211 Lipoh’s experience of, 228 rupturing narrative, 219–​20. See also artist narratives; hospitality Said, E., 10, 168–​69 Sassen, S., 53 savior message, in rescue narrative, 94–​96 Scott, James, 5, 50, 126–​27 self-​awareness narrative, 170–​73. See also NGO narratives self-​identity, response to trauma and, 2–​3 service narrative, 217–​19. See also artist narratives sex industry (in Thailand) growth of, 66–​67 reputation of, 9 role of, 54 sex tourism, 9, 55 sex trafficking, 9, 10, 14, 60, 63, 80–​81, 82, 85–​86, 93, 108–​9, 166, 178, 196–​97, 262n2, 263n7, 263n2. See also dominant trafficking narrative; “trafficking victim”

Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery (Kara), 263n2 sex work debates on, 6–​7 as legitimate form of work, 107–​8 sex workers agency of, 136–​38 CBO run by/​for, 107–​8 criminal messages about, 78–​79 incentives/​choices of,  77–​78 judgment messages about, 76–​77 reform messages about, 79–​80 victimization messages about, 77–​78 sex workers union, 165–​67, 178, 241 Shan/​Shan State (minority community), 47, 50–​51, 54 “Shayi” (Kachin migrant laborer), 105–​7 Shulman, H., 33, 34, 35 Siam. See also Burma precolonial borders, 50 Western mapmaking and, 50–​51 situated knowledge character as center point in, 127 as collective process, 127–​28 communication of, 4 in DAR praxis, 13, 26–​28, 31, 32–​33,  207–​8 of female migrant laborers, 126–​27,  128–​29 feminist empiricism/​theory and, 20–​21,  126 memetic distance and, 187 recovery in, 157 victimization and, 193–​94 “Smart Raid” policy criminal message in, 78–​79 description of, 70 effects of, 12, 75, 82 implementation of, 75 judgment message in, 76–​77 migrant prostitute options during, 70 origin of, 14, 73–​75 reform message in, 79–​80 rhetorical silence and, 80–​82 in Thailand, 71–​73 victimization message in, 77–​78 Smith, Anna Deveare, 22, 117 Smith, Tuhiwai, 234 social catastrophe advocates’ experience and, 29–​30 creative interventions and, 20 forms of, 3 in liberation psychology, 2–​3 stunted communication and, 236 trauma and, 21

Index [ 287 ]

82

social justice, theater artists and, 1–​2 social learning theory, 24 Soon Nu (character in Land of Smiles) character of, 129–​30 embodiment of experience and, 151 “Kachin Women” song, 150–​51 song of, 147 spectacularization, 28–​29, 165, 184,  245–​46 “spectacularized rhetoric,” 12–​13 staged readings in development process, 153 future projects and, 156 as liminal modalities, 153 purpose of, 149 subject matter insights and, 156 statelessness, concept of, 50, 52, 222 State Peace and Development Council (SLORC),  48–​49 Steinem, Gloria, 7 stories artists/​dramatists and, 132 world’s need for, 132 Stucky, M., 87, 99 Suny, G., 43 survivors, term definition, 11 Suzuki, N., 98–​99 Taft, William Howard, 58 Techtonic Theatre Project, 22 “teeth and bone” method, 140 terms, definition of, 10–​11 Thailand anti-​trafficking movement in, 4 citizenship status, 51 differences with the West, 90 ethnic communities in, 45, 47–​50 ethnic women’s migration to, 49–​50 female migrant laborers in, 8 in Land of Smiles, 4 noncompliance with U.S. Abolitionist Project, 64–​66, 67 role of prostitute in, 45–​46 sex industry reputation of, 9 sex tourism in, 55 “Tier 2 Watch List” status of, 71 three pillars of identity, 45–​46 U.S. relations with, 66–​67 Thailand’s National Identity Project colliding cultural projects, 66–​68 definition of “Thainess,” 45 ethnic communities and, 45, 47–​50 gender and, 54–​56 migration and, 52–​54 as nation-​building project, 13–​14 Smart Raids and, 73

[ 288 ] Index

theater makers/​dramatic writers, 22 theater/​theater artists. See also artists; musical theater communication and, 1–​2 as form of discourse, 226–​30 as vehicle for articulating experiences, 3 Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), 13, 20, 23, 25–​26, 162, 208, 217, 219, 220–​22f, 231–​32, 254–​55,  261n1 Theravada Buddhism acceptance of prostitution in, 45–​46, 55, 66 sexuality in, 54–​55 in Thai identity, 45 third-​person effects, 24 trafficking. See also dominant trafficking narrative discourse on, 6–​9 media portrayal of, 161 Palermo Compromise definition of, 61 “panic” over, 8 Western complicity in, 21–​22 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, 61, 65, 71, 88, 128–​29, 238, 263n10 “trafficking victim.” See also Lipoh (character in Land of Smiles); “Smart Raid” policy approaches to, 77 in civilizing message, 91 in dominant narrative, 12, 14 EAOs and, 103 in IDCs, 139, 140, 145–​46 in Land of Smiles,  122–​23 NGO employees and, 100, 170–​71, 178, 184, 229 NGO identification of, 75 NGO programming for, 91–​92 in reform message, 79–​82 in rescue narrative, 87–​88 research questions on, 247 as term, 106 Thai police and, 92 uncovering lived experience of, 37–​38 visibility of, 8–​9 Western framing of, 10–​11 Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), 61–​62,  71 trauma articulation of, 208 as collective experience, 21, 202–​3 confronting experiences of, 110 reconciliation and, 185–​87 unconscious trauma narratives, 197–​200 unknowing/​irrational nature of, 189–​90 trauma theory, 17 True, J., 27, 38, 243–​44

9 8 2

Truong, T., 55, 66 Turner, Stephan, 162 two-​step flow, 24 United Nations Convention to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women and Children (2000). See Palermo Protocol U.S. Abolitionist Project colliding cultural projects, 66–​68 description of, 13–​14 historical roots of, 56–​59 labor practices and, 64 male promiscuity and, 66 neoliberal model and, 63–​64 Palermo Compromise and, 60–​62 Smart Raids and, 73 Thailand’s noncompliance and, 64–​65,  67 Thai-​U.S. relations and, 66–​68 U.S. foreign policy and, 7 USC Center for Feminist Research, 149 USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, 149 USC Department of Sociology, 149 U.S. foreign policy. See also U.S. Abolitionist Project of abolitionism, 62 anti-​trafficking movement and, 56–​57,  73 on prostitution, 7 U.S. Operation Mission (USOM), 51 victimization, situated knowledge and,  193–​94 victimization message, in Smart Raids,  77–​78 victim narrative. See also migrant narratives

agency and, 164–​65 vs. agency narrative, 164 complications in, 190–​94 disruption of, 126–​27 victim/​oppressor categorization, 26 victim-​versus-​criminal narrative, 14, 68, 70, 82, 113, 238 visibility of memory, 132–​33 trappings of, 206 Walby, S., 81 Warner-​Turner, Kimiko, 217–​18, 221, 222f, 231 Watkins, M., 33, 34, 35 “White Slave Panic,” 56–​57, 58, 136 “White Slave Traffic Act.” See Mann Act witness/​witnesses DAR as vehicle for, 205–​7 as liberatory paradigm, 17 to trauma, 2–​3 Woman One (Land of Smiles character). See also Soon Nu (character in Land of Smiles) costume pieces of, 153 development of, 121 Woman Two (Land of Smiles character) characterization of, 130 costume pieces of, 153 development of, 121 Women Power Bar (fictional bar), 121, 137, 142–​43, 166f, 166–​67, 178 women’s voices, hearing of,  262n4 WuDunn, Sheryl, 263n2 Yang, Mina, 250 “Zomia” (ethnic population), 50–​52

Index [ 289 ]

0 9 2

1 9 2

2 9