Navigating Marginalization through Religion: Intersectionality and Shifting Positionalities Among Myanmar Migrant Workers in Thailand

Abstract

This study explores how Myanmar migrant workers experience marginalization shaped by the intersection of their social identities and migrant status, and how their shared religious identity with the Thai majority supports them in navigating this marginalization through the lens of translocational positionality. Three focus groups and in-depth interviews were conducted with 28 Myanmar migrant workers and 18 Thai locals, including Buddhist monks. Thematic analysis revealed that the workers faced legal and institutional vulnerability, economic exploitation, and cultural stigmatization, produced through the intersecting axes of nationality, legal and migrant status, cultural background, and transnational forces. Shared Buddhist identity with the host majority emerged as a strategic and symbolic resource through which Myanmar migrant workers navigated their marginalized status. Religious resemblance provided a sense of moral belonging, cultural familiarity, and access to religious spaces, which served as crucial platforms for coping with legal and economic challenges, creating safe cultural spaces, shifting economic and moral positioning, and cultivating a sense of belonging and a new ‘home’ in Thailand. This study highlights the translocational nature of migrants’ positioning—how they shift emphasis across identity markers depending on the social and institutional terrain they navigate.