Author: Sanda Thant
AIT Library Call Number: AIT Thesis no.GD-03-06
Year: 2003
Academic Program: Gender and Development Studies (GDS)
Type: Thesis (M.Sc.) – Asian Institute of Technology, 2003
Examination Committee: Kyoko Kusakabe (Chairperson); Barbara Earth, A.T.M. Nurul Amin (Examination Committee Members)
Abstract: Myanmar and China have a long history of border trade. Women enjoyed relative freedom in informal small-scale border trade activities. By adoption of market liberalization policies in 1988, the govenm1ent of Myanmar opened the border and formalized border trade. This study examines the effects of the State’s policies changes on women’s small-scale businesses, relationship with the staff personnel, etlmic and national identities, and their status within the household. The study was conducted in Muse (Myanmar-China border town) by interviewing 70 women who had at least two years of experience in small-scale border trade activities. In order to achieve the objective of the research, exploratory research methodology was applied. Women’s trade activities in this study are categorized into five: ( 1) Charcoal. (2) Chilli (3) Garlic ( 4) Other agricultural goods and (5) Manufactured goods. During socialist times, when the State emphasis was on national security, only local women performed subsistence trading. Etlmic and national differences were not visible. With the opening of the border trade, women in all commodity groups reaped the benefits from the broader market as well as from the State’s loose regulation practices on border trade, thus commercial trading flourish. By strengthening border trade, both etlmic and national identities became more visible. Women, once family’s unpaid labours with no prior business experience, came into border trade and as a result income of the household increased substantially, they became economic contributor to the household and as a result, household’s gender ideology also changed. They received more assistance from their husbands and other family members with household responsibilities as well as in trade activities. With taking up such dual roles as mothers/daughters and traders, they articulated their increase bargaining power within the household and in wider social networks, as engaging in their businesses built up their confidence but on the other hand, they had lesser leis
Scholarship Donor(s): Government of Japan
Note: A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, School of Environment, Resources and Development
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