ABSTRACT: "Fleeing state-sponsored violence and economic decline in their home country, hundreds of thousands of Myanmar émigrés have in recent years crossed the border into Thailand in search of a better life. For the estimated 2 million Myanmar migrants now living there, however, life in Thailand presents its own challenges. With insufficient legal provisions to handle the influx of migrants, the Thai government has largely turned a blind eye to abuse and exploitation suffered by migrant workers. Yet despite poor working conditions and exploitation, there does not appear to be much of a call to improve conditions through mobilization among the Myanmar migrant community. The marked absence of mobilization on any level thus begs the question: why is the migrant population in Thailand so passive in the face of severe strain and exploitation? This thesis explores the issue of non- mobilization among migrant groups, using as a framework two core concepts: social mobilization and precarity. The long-standing discourse on social mobilization focuses on social and political action in response to societal strain, taking into account other factors such as access to resources and institutional opportunities. Precarity, a newer concept and compliment to the established social mobilization debates, has been used to describe a lifestyle characterized by critical social, economic, and political insecurity..."