Foreign Workers in Fishing Industry and Cultural Violence

Abstract

This article aims to find out why the concept of “cultural violence” makes direct and structured violence against foreign fishing workers acceptable? The researcher used the concept of “the violence triangle” as a framework to conceptualize the data from documents and anthropological fieldwork. The fieldwork in this study consisted of observations and interviews with foreign workers and local people in two fishing communities. The first community was located in Chumphon province in March 2007, and the second one was situated in Prachuap Khiri Khan province in March 2011. The results of this study indicated that cultural violence is acceptable the Thai fishing industry because of 1) the other 2) the ethnocentric 3) the history of nation building and 4) the exploitation of people in different socioeconomic classes. These are the mechanism that make Thai people feel it is acceptable to use violence against foreign workers.