Creation of a Common : Political Subjectivities of Staffing Agency Mediated Transnational Thai Workers

Abstract: This thesis investigates to what extent staffing agency mediation and employment produces a political subjectivity of transnational Thai workers in Thailand. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to a general discussion on how the disaggregation of borders and staffing agencies as border agents affects political subjectivities of transnational workers. The aim is to interact with possibilities for the organisation of labour. In-depth interviews with representatives of the labour movement in Thailand have been conducted and analysed with a critical theoretical perspective, mainly based on the ontological assumption of the border as productive.  This thesis has shown that a multitude of borders differentiate transnational Thai workers from each other. When the borders intersect, they produce a proliferation of labour subjectivities. The borders, hence subjectivities, articulated in the interviews in relation to staffing agency mediated transnational Thai workers were social, legal, economic, and political. The thesis also shows that several political subjectivities that include staffing agency mediated transnational Thai workers are articulated by the labour movement. Furthermore, the thesis has shown how political translation is made on varying levels of aggregation within the labour movement in Thailand, analysed as creation of commons. The three main political subjectivities are the staffing agency mediated transnational Thai worker, the transnational Thai worker, and the migrant worker. In conclusion, staffing agency mediation of mobility and employment are constituting a political subjectivity of transnational Thai workers to some extent, however, primarily included in a common of transnational Thai workers which does not differentiate between agency mediated workers and other Thai labour migrants.