Searching for Security: Women’s Collective Information Security Strategies in the Pursuit of Farang Partners in Pattaya, Thailand

Abstract

I report on two months of ethnographic fieldwork in a women's centre in Pattaya, Thailand and interviews with 76 participants. Findings, as they relate to information 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; (iii) the women navigated a series of online security risks, such as scams and abuse, which shaped their search for a farang; (iv) the women developed collective security through knowledge-sharing to protect themselves and each other in their search for a farang partner. I situate this work in emerging information security scholarship within marginalised contexts.