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Paper short abstract

This article examines songs written by Thai migrants working in Israel, theorised as a form of unwaged social reproduction labour, by which migrants from Thailand’s rural sending migration communities maintain the possibilities their home communities open to them as they move between labour markets.

Paper long abstract

This article examines songs written by Thai migrants about their experiences working on Israeli farms. The songs are analysed in the context of the Thailand-Israel labour migration regime. The recruitment of Thais was part of Israel's aim to replace, weaken and control the Palestinian workforce from the occupied Palestinian Territories in the West Bank and Gaza, aiming to maintain the Jewish majority through policies controlling migrant workers' lives, exploitative employment structures, continuous rights violations and social and physical isolation.

Writing, performing, and listening to such songs is theorised in this article as a form of unwaged social reproduction labour, by which migrants from Thailand’s rural sending migration communities in the northeast region (Isaan) maintain the possibilities their home communities open to them as they move between labour markets. With this analysis, I expand the scope of social reproduction theory (SRT) by arguing that unwaged creative labour is a further type of social reproduction labour.

In capitalist, racialised, and discriminatory migration regimes, migrants’ homes are more than a physical place of origin. They encompass a multiplicity of relations, affective worlds, and power dynamics. They are spaces where responsibilities, a sense of belonging, and hopes materialise and are negotiated. Although the creative social reproduction labour is embedded within capitalist labour relations and is part of the latter’s reproduction, the creative labour and the gravity of sending communities into the lives, imaginaries, and future-oriented visions of migrants serve as a potential means of political struggles and knowledge production.