Hmong Studies Journal (Jul 2020)
From Networks to Categories: Hmong Political Positionality, Mobility, and Remnant Subjectivities in Thailand
Abstract
This article discusses subjectivities of Hmong people (especially immigrants) as they are articulated to power networks in Thailand's space. Whereas some looks at Hmong spatiality have viewed Hmong people as a politically uncomplicated group in relation to the Thai state (Tomforde 2008). I fragment this picture exposing the mosaic of Hmong political identities in Thailand with some in positions of precarity and others in stability. In the chapter, I show how these positionalities are strongly influenced by a historical sequence of regional geopolitical and economic contexts which produce subjectivities as their corresponding power relations, immigration regimes, and citizenship categorizations act on the bodies of Hmong subjects. The road toward eventual precarity is marked by several signposts signaling conditions for the formation of power relations and their corresponding subjectivities which Hmong communities have made intelligible through semi-ethnic categorizations. I highlight differences in these autonymic categories within the Thai Hmong, Lao Hmong, and Vietnamese Hmong. Then I examine each group's mobilities as indicators of their relative precarity.
