Searching for a Farang: Collective Security among Women in Pattaya, Thailand

TL;DR

This paper examines how Thai women in Pattaya, many working in sex and massage industries, navigate digital security while seeking farang partners. Using two months of ethnographic fieldwork at a women’s centre and interviews with 76 participants, the authors show how women present themselves online, adopt Western technologies, and rely on collective knowledge-sharing to mitigate online scams, abuse, and trafficking risks. The study contributes to digital security scholarship by emphasizing situated, normative, and collaborative security practices rather than technology-centric fixes, and argues for design approaches that enable access to beneficial technologies within local contexts. Overall, the work highlights the importance of ethnography and community-driven education in developing security interventions that reflect the lived realities of marginalised groups and their goals for security and mobility.

Abstract

We report on two months of ethnographic fieldwork in a women's centre in Pattaya, and interviews with 76 participants. Our findings, as they relate to digital security, show how (i) women in Pattaya, often working in the sex and massage industries, perceived relationships with farang men as their best, and sometimes only, option to achieve security; (ii) the strategies used by the women to appeal to a farang involved presenting themselves online, mirroring how they were being advertised by bar owners to attract customers; (iii) appealing to what they considered `Western ideals', the women sought out `Western technologies' and appropriated them for their benefit; (iv) the women navigated a series of online security risks, such as scams and abuse, which shaped their search for a farang; (v) the women developed collective security through knowledge-sharing to protect themselves and each other in their search for a farang. We situate our work in emerging digital security scholarship within marginalised contexts.