The political economy of labour migration within the Greater Mekong Sub-region

The states of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMSR) are diverse politically and economically. While this chapter concerns the GMSR generally, the more specific focus is on Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Yunnan Province in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the case of Cambodia and Laos, the emphasis here is on migration into Thailand. By contrast, for Yunnan Province, the focus is on internal migration within the PRC. China’s relative diversity in terms of both geography and development, coupled with the complex political economy of internal worker migration, provides the justification for this focus. While these places have differing political and economic contexts, there are underlying commonalities among them in terms of their emergence from economic isolation and/or disadvantage.Griffith Business School, Department of International Business and Asian StudiesNo Full Tex