This dissertation establishes Thai lierature about rural-urban migration as an important contemporary genre that stands alongside the large and growing body of migration literature globally. This genre emerged in the 1960s in Thailand in response to the rapid industrialization of the country as well as a new Thai openness to regional literature. It reached its peak of literary production with the acceleration of processes or industrialization, urbanization, and globalization during Thailand's boom years of 1986-1996. The Asian financial crisis of 1997 halted Thailand's period of extended economic and urban growth, and migration literature in the post-crisis years reflects this shift through a slight tapering off in production and a more cynical view of global processes. Thai literature about rural-urban migration continues to document Thailand's process of "becoming urban" and the personal, social, political, and artistic implications of this rural-to-urban transition.
This dissertation offers a theme-driven overview or the genre, exploring Thai literature about rural-urban migration through the symbolism, imagery, and themes that the writers themselves have chosen to consistently represent in their work. The chapter entitled "The Train" examines the train as a vessel and icon of migration. "Nature and the City" looks at the migrant's privileged perspective--through his personal experience of "becoming urban"--on the broader urbanization of the country. "Animals and the City" explores the use of animal imagery in literary depictions of migrants in Bangkok, as writers express the dehumanizing effects of the urban environment on the individual. "Migration and Human Nature" details the myriad ways migrants negotiate the transition from a rural to an urban way of life. "Urban Mobility" reveals the intimate connection between transportation and class in Bangkok: for the poor, the interminable wait at bus stop evokes a broader social "immobility," while middle class mobility and access are figural in the ability to "escape the bus stop" in a taxi. "On the Margins," looks at those left behind in the context of migration literally and figuratively. And the final chapter, "Return," explores the ways in which the migrant's return to the village throws his experience of migration into light, forcing him to concretize his sense of self and personal identity.
