生活在四个政体中字幕缅甸-泰国边境的国家和跨境流动

CONCLUSION

In this dissertation I have focused on two related issues: border control and cross-border mobility. The characteristics of the Myanmar-Thailand borderland-inconsistency, arbitrariness and precariousness that struck me when I first stepped into the border checkpoint have remained the central puzzle for me to resolve in this dissertation. This work therefore narrates what I have experienced and investigated in the Myanmar-Thailand borderland in order to answer three main research questions: 1) To what extent have states and non-state actors shaped the mobility of people and commodities in the past five decades?; 2) How do border communities respond to border control and state-imposed rules and regulations under the successive regimes of border control?; and 3) Are these dynamics specific to this section of the Myanmar-Thailand borderland or are they of wider significance?

In this conclusion, I follow a similar pattern as that of the introduction. I will describe the contribution of this work and suggest discussions that could further our knowledge in four study areas: borderland studies, state transformation, cross-border flows, and mobility and migration studies.

Borderland studies

The investigation of the Myanmar-Thailand borderland in this research exemplifies the new direction of borderland studies, which is moving away from taking nation-state borders as their focus. Nonetheless, there is a degree of consensus amongst scholars that borderlands and borders cannot be sufficiently studied by neglecting the existence and proliferation of nation- states (van Schendel & de Maaker, 2014), Consequently, researchers in this field have devised concepts to understand dynamics of borderlands and borders elsewhere across time and space (Newman, 2003; Rumford, 2006; Konrad, 2015). The Myanmar-Thailand borderland is a case study applying this new approach.

I have argued throughout this research that this borderland reflects a high degree of complexity because here cross-border communities acknowledge informal political boundaries more than formal nation-state borders. Two-sided national spatiality segregated by national borders does not actually coincide with the imagined boundaries that people on the ground perceive and interact with. This contradicts the ideology of the ideal modern nation-state in which two nation-states should be recognized, and play an active role in managing border affairs. Due to the borderland's multifaceted nature, individuals are able to strategize to suit the needs of