Email: caucohds@gmail.com

Affiliation: College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University

Nationality: Chinese

Social differentiation of Burmese agricultural workers on the Yunnan border and its mechanisms

Abstract

The border region between China and Myanmar has long been characterized by deep ethnic ties and continuous cross-border trade. Since 2008, ongoing civil conflict in Myanmar has driven many borderland Myanmar nationals to migrate to villages in Yunnan, China, in search of safety and livelihood opportunities. These migrants, often arriving with no assets or means of production, have become an essential yet largely overlooked segment of the agricultural workforce. Based on three rounds of fieldwork conducted in Yunnan from 2023 to 2024, this study examines how Myanmar migrants, having lost all material possessions due to displacement, experience social differentiation in China. It further explores how labor, social, and institutional factors shape this differentiation.

Upon entering Chinese villages without ownership of production means, Myanmar migrants engaged in agricultural labor and gradually experienced social differentiation. Some agricultural workers obtained land through informal land transfers and became sugarcane farmers, employing both fellow Myanmar migrants and Chinese farmers for sugarcane production. Others remained landless agricultural laborers, further stratifying into labor contractors – some of whom engaged in multiple occupations – long-term farmworkers, and temporary wage laborers. This differentiation process does not align with classical agrarian transformation theories.

First, unlike Marx's theory of peasant polarization driven by non-economic dispossession, these agricultural workers lost their basic means of production – primarily land – due to armed conflict, making their transition into agricultural labor a result of forced displacement rather than capitalist economic restructuring. Becoming agricultural laborers, rather than experiencing polarization, appears to be their final status rather than a stage in differentiation.

Second, the observed social differentiation differs from Lenin's analysis of peasant stratification under market forces and commodification. Chinese farmers operate within the framework of the household responsibility system, which ensures land tenure security. Moreover, sugarcane production is supported by sugar enterprises, and sugarcane prices are regulated by the government. As a result, Chinese farmers engaged in sugarcane production do not risk bankruptcy and subsequent land loss. Similarly, Myanmar agricultural workers do not gain a competitive advantage through market mechanisms that would allow them to acquire land. The explanatory power of market-driven social differentiation is therefore limited in this case.

Third, the differentiation of Myanmar agricultural workers does not fit Chayanov's theory of peasant differentiation based on demographic cycles. Unlike Chayanov's model, where household differentiation occurs due to changes in the ratio between consumption and labor force within family structures, Myanmar migrant workers exhibit clear social stratification from the first generation onward. Their differentiation is not determined by shifts in household demographic structure but rather by broader political, economic, and institutional forces.

This study finds that the social differentiation of Myanmar agricultural workers in China results from the combined influences of ethnic social relations, government policies, sugar enterprise interventions, land tenure arrangements, and labor systems. Examining this issue not only provides insights into potential pathways for agricultural modernization amid labor shortages but also contributes to expanding theoretical discussions on peasant differentiation in contemporary agrarian studies.

Bio

Yanglin Liu is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University. Her research focuses on migration, agrarian transformations, labor control, social differentiation, and gender dynamics. Before pursuing her PhD, she earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees in sociology from Huazhong Agricultural University, where she conducted research on divorce among rural women in China. Her current research examines labor control, social differentiation, and social reproduction among Myanmar migrant workers in the border region of Yunnan, China. Specifically, she explores the mechanisms of labor control, the socio-economic stratification of Myanmar workers, and their reproductive practices in this context. She has co-authored a paper titled "Migrant Agricultural Workers: Conceptual Features, Economic Dynamics, and Theoretical Perspectives", published in the Journal of China Agricultural University (Social Science Edition). She has actively engaged in academic communities, serving twice as a volunteer for the international conference Critical Agrarian Studies in the 21st Century and The 5th International Writeshop in Critical Agrarian Studies and Scholar-Activism. Additionally, she is involved in the National Social Science Fund project "Labor Issues in the Process of Agricultural and Rural Modernization in China". Liu has completed her doctoral fieldwork, conducting three rounds of interviews in Yunnan with Myanmar migrant workers, Chinese and Myanmar sugarcane farmers, sugar mills, and local government officials. She can be reached at caucohds@gmail.com.