Customary border checkpoints (dan prapheni) are usually located between a Thai and Lao village that are situated across the river from each other. The checkpoints in Ban Sing and Ban Plee have prevailed as points of entry and exit for many local villagers despite the opening of the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge as the official border-crossing site in Loei province. The checkpoint in Ban Donmai was created after the opening of the Bridge. The primary purpose of these checkpoints is to regulate the movement of people between the two villages. Border-crossers are not permitted to stay overnight on the other side and must return within the same day. At all three checkpoints in my research area, the Thai paramilitary was situated in a house or hut near the pier on the one side and specialised Lao border officials were located in a house or hut near the pier on the other side. Boat operators and labourers from both villages made money by transporting people and carrying goods across the river during the official opening times of the checkpoints. The three checkpoints in my research area differed in several ways.
The checkpoint in Ban Plee was open every day and was used by the highest number of people (several hundred) on border market days. This checkpoint was equipped not only with the presence of Thai Rangers but also with CCTV cameras that recorded
64 After the opening of the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge, cross-border flows were channelled across the Bridge. Customary border checkpoints were established for the border residents in the villages adjacent to the checkpoints and to decrease “illegal” flows across unmarked border-crossing sites.
movements across and along the border, which were monitored by the district administration in Thali. This was due, according to the village headmen, to the history of smuggling in this area. The checkpoint in Ban Sing was also open every day and was used by the second largest number of people (up to a few hundred) on border market days. The checkpoint in Ban Donmai was no doubt the most inconspicuous of the three and during my research I would sometimes drive past it by accident. It was only open on border market days twice a month and only a small number of Lao villagers used it (under one hundred).
Image 12: Customary border checkpoint, showing the Lao side of the border with the border guards’ house on the right and the boat operators’
bamboo hut on the left (Source: Author)
When crossing over the border at a checkpoint, Thai border residents had to leave their ID card with the Rangers and pay the boat operator for the trip across the river. Upon arrival on the Lao side, a fee called kha yiab din (step-on-the-land-fee) was payable to the Lao border official. When leaving the Lao side to go to the Thai border village across the river, Lao residents also had to pay the “step-on-the-land-fee” to Lao authorities (although it might then be better translated as “step-off-the-land-fee”). The amount of the fee varied from checkpoint to checkpoint and was usually different for
Thai and Lao residents. This variation reflected the economic asymmetry between Thailand and Laos as well as between the different border villages. At the checkpoint in Ban Plee, for example, the fee for Thai residents was 60 baht but for Lao residents only 40 baht. In Ban Sing, the fee for Thai residents was 40 baht and 20 baht for Lao residents. In Ban Donmai, the fee for both Thai and Lao residents was 20 baht. The fee did not apply to people over 70 years of age. It is worth noting that the “step-on-the-land-fee” on the Lao side was also paid in Thai baht, reflecting the power of the market over monetary sovereignty in Laos’ borderland.
When Lao villagers crossed the checkpoint they were required, in addition to paying the fee, to tell the Lao border official their name, age and place of residence before their departure in order to receive a “temporary permit for crossing the border” (baisamoe kham daen chuakhrao), which they would have to submit to the Thai Rangers upon their arrival (Image 13). The fact that Lao border-crossers did not have to show any form of identification on paper but only verbally transmit their personal details to the Lao border official made due for the fact that many of the Lao villagers in my research area did not possess any form of paper identification other than their household register.
Image 13: Temporary border permit at customary border checkpoint (Source: Author)
Keeping these formalised procedures in mind, the feel of the customary border checkpoints was less that of a technocratic state institution and more that of a place of sociability. In addition to the Thai Rangers’ duty stations, the boat operators also had a hut at each of the river piers where they could rest, eat, and socialise. With the Rangers’
and boat operators’ huts situated very close to each other at all of the checkpoints, the border guards, boat operators, and labourers could often be seen mingling with each other in one or the other hut (though more often in the boat operators’ hut), sharing food, drinks, and stories (Chapter 5). One of the Thai Rangers stationed in Ban Sing had become so well acquainted with one of the boat operators that the latter invited the Ranger to join him at the annual village festival in Ban Sawan. Walking along the street parade myself at the time, I met them as they were drinking whisky together, both clad in civilian clothes.
Having spent much of my time at these checkpoints, particularly at the checkpoint in Ban Sing, I found that there were many adaptations of the formal procedures to accommodate the situation on the ground. On one of the border market days in Ban Sing, for example, I noticed that many Lao visitors were arriving without a document.
They had paid the fee to the Lao border official but had not received a permit. When asking about this, the Ranger that I was sitting with quickly trivialised the situation by explaining that the Lao officer “must have run out of paper again”. The fact that it did not seem to be a major issue highlights not only the flexibility of state practices at this checkpoint but also the extent to which paper documents are insignificant at border-crossing sites where there is a strong familiarity between the examiner and the examined. There were differences, however, between the adaptations of such state practices at the checkpoints in Ban Sing and Ban Plee.
As several hundred villagers were traversing the customary border checkpoint in Ban Plee one border market day, they were also missing their permits from the Lao authorities. Unlike the Rangers in Ban Sing, however, the guards in Ban Plee noted down the information of all border-crossers in a register book while another checked their bags for illegal items. At the registration table, one of the elderly woman was only able provide her first name, explaining that she did not have a last name. The Ranger laughed understandingly at this response and told her to invent a name or choose that of a friend instead. Despite the differences in the degree to which technocratic procedures were flexible and adapted, the actions of state actors at both checkpoints confirm
Herzfeld’s statement that the state often makes use of a “language of kin, family, and body to lend immediacy to its pronouncements” (Herzfeld 2005: 2). In doing so, state actors are able to reinforce their authority. The adaptations thus demonstrate how the border comes into being in different ways at different checkpoints.
While state actors often used the language of the non-state realm to reinforce their authority, non-state actors also reinforced the state’s authority by supporting them in their duties. When the Rangers were late for work in the morning or on a mission outside the checkpoints, for example, boat operators would act on behalf of the Rangers by taking the border permits from Lao arrivals and stacking them neatly on the Rangers’
table until the Rangers came back. By fulfilling the duties of state actors, boat operators not only blurred the lines between state and society but also took on the form of the state on a temporary basis. This shows how the cultural intimacy between state and society not only rests on the social embeddedness of the state but also on the intimacy of society towards the state. In the case of the boat operators, the cultural intimacy was reinforced by the strong social relationship that existed between border guards and boat operators at customary border checkpoints.
Strong social relationships also existed between the local shop owners and the border guards at customary border checkpoints and facilitated the shop owners’ cross-border passage. When crossing over to Ban Sawan, they were neither required to leave their ID cards with the Thai border guards, nor did they have to pay the “step-on-the-land” fee on the Lao side. Kew, for example, whose shop was situated directly next to the customary border checkpoint in Ban Sing, needed merely pay the 10 baht transportation fee to the boat operators. Instead of stopping by the Rangers’ hut, Kew would walk straight to the pier and ask one of the boat operators to take her across. Sometimes she would have to wait in the boat operators’ hut for more people to arrive at the pier as the boat operators preferred to take several people across at once. On the Lao side, Kew did not stop by the border officials’ hut either. If a border official was sitting outside the hut and saw her pass by, the two would nod or smile at each other in complicit silence. But usually, border officials on both sides simply ignored Kew when she crossed over the checkpoint.
Shop owners like Kew crossed over the checkpoint with ease because of their established relations with border officials on both sides of the checkpoint. Due to the
traders’ close proximity to the checkpoint, their daily trading activities across it and their daily interactions with the border officials, but also due to their engagement in gift-giving practices with the officials (Chapter 4), these traders had established good relations with the border guards on both sides. “We know each other well” (rucak kan di) was the phrase that the traders usually used to describe their relationship with the border officials. Towards the end of my research, Kew explained in passing that she was also related (phinong) to the Lao border official on the other side of the checkpoint.
They were members of the same extended family and therefore knew each other well.
The trust and familiarity that existed between her and her relative further facilitated her cross-border mobility.
While the other two shop owners in Ban Sing were also able cross the checkpoint without documents or fees, the daughter of one of them was still required to pay the fee on the Lao side of the border. Although she did not have to leave her ID card with the Thai Rangers, she bemoaned the fact that she had to pay the fee to the Lao official despite having helped her mother in the shop on a daily basis for several years and regularly crossing over the checkpoint to take orders from customers. It was taking her more time and effort than expected to establish the kind of relations that would lead to more flexible state practices. What is interesting here is that undocumented cross-border mobility was something worth striving for. It was not in the least deemed to be a dangerous or “illegal” practice. It was rather seen as a privilege, indicating not only a close relationship between the trader and the representatives of state power but also demonstrating the agency of the trader in this relationship. The daughter of the shop owner already had agency in her interactions with the Thai Rangers but not yet with the Lao authorities.
There was a difference, however, between the shop owners who had established close social (or kin) relations with the border guards on both sides, and the villagers from Laos who only crossed the checkpoint a few times a month. The familiarity between the shop owners and border guards was much stronger that between most Lao villagers and the guards. Although one of the Rangers in Ban Sing told me that by having worked at this duty station for a year, he now recognised most people’s faces, the Rangers’
familiarity with the border-crossers was based more on the latter’s border performances during the border examination. This was particularly evident in the case of female visitors who came to shop at the border market. On busy border market days, the Thai
Rangers usually checked some of the Lao visitors’ bags and pockets for drugs and weapons. While sitting in the paramilitary’s hut watching them perform these duties one day, the guards visibly enjoyed checking the bags of women and girls whom they considered pretty (Image 14). The women and girls smiled and laughed consistently during this process. At one point, one of the guards laughingly turned around to me and said: “Aren’t they beautiful, these Lao girls?” Many of the younger women and girls had done their hair and make-up, and were wearing nicer clothes than their regular everyday outfits. Speaking to a Lao NGO worker in Mueang Sayaboury about this, he confirmed my observation and explained: “I will tell you a secret about Lao people, especially when they go to the talat nat [border market] in Thailand, they will dress especially nicely because they know that Thai people look down on them and so they want to look nice when going there.”
Image 14: Thai Rangers search the bags of female Lao visitors at a customary border checkpoint (Source: Author)
Aware of this stereotype, appearance was an important aspect of border performance for Lao visitors. Despite the fact that the women and girls were checked more often for the purposes of pleasure and sexual desire than for their potentiality as a threat, the women
and girls also behaved in a way that indirectly reaffirmed the Rangers’ authority. This often stood in contrast to the young men whom the Rangers checked. Those young men who wore jeans and T-shirts were more frequently checked than middle-aged men who wore suit trousers and collared shirts. If not dressed in accordance with the ‘norm’, however, one’s clothes may also impede on one’s ability to cross the checkpoint. This was not just the case for young, male visitors at the border market who wore jeans and a T-shirt, thereby raising suspicion on the part of the Thai Rangers, but also the case for Thai border villagers who crossed the checkpoint to visit the Lao side.
Another example of border performances of Lao villagers on the Thai side involved my own encounter with two female traders who were sitting on blankets at the top of the pier next to the customary border checkpoint. They were selling fermented fish in small buckets for visitors to the border market to take back across the border. At the Thai border markets, Lao petty traders were tolerated by authorities to sell their own products as long as they only stayed for a short amount of time and if they sold only a small amount of goods. Wondering whether the two female petty traders were in fact from Laos, I approached them and after introducing myself, I asked where they came from.
They simply smiled and responded: “From here! From the village here!” Later, I spoke to one of the workers at the customary border checkpoint and asked about the two petty traders. The worker explained that the two women were from a village in Ken Thao district. She then approached the women together with me and asked them the same question I had asked before, to which they responded that they were in fact from the Lao side of the river. I experienced a similar situation a few times during my research. It seems that many of the Lao villagers I met, and particularly those who were undocumented, felt compelled to switch their identity when speaking to me as a foreigner, thereby depicting me as a border examiner, but not so when speaking to Thai traders from the same border area with whom they were familiar and whom they trusted. This made the cultural intimacy that existed among people of the borderland further evident.
Border performances were also important at checkpoints on the Lao side. One of the female Thai border market traders in Ban Plee spoke of an incident with a Lao state official who did not allow her husband to cross over the checkpoint because he was wearing short trousers. When entering Lao territory, the border guard had maintained, men would have to wear long trousers. In this case, admission was refused on the basis
of wrong dress. Not only does this confirm the importance of performing according to the ‘norm’ in border examinations, it also demonstrates that what the ‘norm’ entails may be different on the Thai and Lao sides of the same checkpoint. While short trousers worn by Thai residents were unacceptable to Lao border officials, long jeans and T-shirts worn by Lao residents raised suspicion among Thai Rangers.
While it was clear that the “norm” was different on either side of the border, Thai border residents were generally more reluctant to cross over to the Lao side than vice versa. This was not merely due to the fact that Lao border residents were largely dependent on access to the Thai market but it was also based on Thai border residents’
perceptions of Laos as well as the act of crossing the border itself. Mu, the female border market trader I introduced in Chapter 3, for example, had relatives on the Lao side whom she rarely visited. One of the reasons for not visiting them was because she felt that Lao state officials at the checkpoint were very suspicious of Thai border-crossers: “They stare at me, suggesting that I am carrying drugs!” which made her feel uncomfortable and afraid of the consequences in case they did accuse her of being involved in the drug trade. She also feared that the border official might impose a higher fee at his own will, which she would not be able to pay. Mu’s reasons for not crossing over the border coincided with those of many of my other Thai informants whose trading activities did not involve crossing over the border regularly. Mu had not
perceptions of Laos as well as the act of crossing the border itself. Mu, the female border market trader I introduced in Chapter 3, for example, had relatives on the Lao side whom she rarely visited. One of the reasons for not visiting them was because she felt that Lao state officials at the checkpoint were very suspicious of Thai border-crossers: “They stare at me, suggesting that I am carrying drugs!” which made her feel uncomfortable and afraid of the consequences in case they did accuse her of being involved in the drug trade. She also feared that the border official might impose a higher fee at his own will, which she would not be able to pay. Mu’s reasons for not crossing over the border coincided with those of many of my other Thai informants whose trading activities did not involve crossing over the border regularly. Mu had not