Personal Statement
I am a linguistic and sociocultural anthropologist with interests in childhood and youth, transnational migration, the politics of language learning, bureaucracy, and the semiotics of social difference. My geographical expertise centers on Thailand, Burma, and mobility in and out of Southeast Asia. I earned a B.A. in Humanities from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, an M.A. in Asian Studies at Cornell 
University, and a PhD in Anthropology at University of Chicago.
I teach introductory courses which helps students engage closely and critically with key concepts and theories in cultural and linguistic anthropology. I have also developed several courses based on my research experiences, including Childhood, Migration, and Nation; Language and Foreignness; Migration and Mobility in Asian Contexts; Ethnography and Fieldwork; Youth Culture and Digital Media; Anthropology of Education; Anthropology of Bureaucracy. My courses are cross-disciplinary and usually attract students who are interested in anthropology, sociology, international and global studies, linguistics, and human rights.
Before joining the department of anthropology at the University of Florida in 2022, I had taught university-level courses in diverse academic cultures, both in the United States and Thailand. As a lecturer, I strive to develop anti-oppressive pedagogical approaches which recognize the variability in students’ strengths and personalized goals. My primary mission is to promote inclusive learning environments and to challenge my students’ assumptions about the world—whether their own immediate surroundings or unfamiliar lived experiences.
In addition to teaching, I am currently working on several research projects. My book manuscript, based on ethnographic studies I conducted in 2017-2018, explores how migrant childhood has emerged as a site of state control vis-à-vis Burmese migrant workers in Thailand. I argue that state-sponsored schooling generates zones of liminality in which migrant subjects are partially and provisionally accepted into Thai society. Complementing my first research project, my next project will focus on Thailand’s role as a sending country that officially sponsors the educational migration of its own citizens. I will study how migrant students’ life trajectories are shaped by nationalist discourses of anticipated return as well as hierarchical relationships between youth, the public, and agents of the state.
Recently, I have developed a deep interest in student-led political movements in Thailand which have emerged in 2020. As a researcher, I want to capture the dynamic of youth politics online and offline by looking at internet memes, hashtags, YouTube videos, and other textual artifacts youth activists use to express their voices during the protests. I am particularly interested in the carnival-like nature of digital activism as well as competing discourses of childhood, adulthood, and age-based social hierarchies in Thai social media.
Areas of Interest/Research
State and Bureaucracy, Migration and Mobility, Childhood and Youth, Temporality, Language Politics, Education, Semiotics of Identity, Social media communication, Digital ethnography, Gender and Sexuality
Contact Information
Email: m.sudcharoen@ufl.edu
Office: B133 Turlington Hall
Mailing address:
Department of Anthropology
University of Florida
P.O. Box 117305
Gainesville, Florida 32611-7305