Tracing Citizenship and Displacement: New Faces of Statelessness in Myanmar

What is the relationship between citizenship and displacement?

This multi-sited, interdisciplinary qualitative project examines how Myanmar citizenship – both in law and experience – has been forged through histories of conflict and displacement.

The project links previous experiences of citizenship, displacement, and statelessness in the borderlands and urban Myanmar to new forms of displacement, statelessness, and conceptions of citizenship triggered by Myanmar’s 2021 military coup.

In tracing how the conditions necessary for both displacement and statelessness are created overtime, it investigates the ways in which noncitizenship status increases the risk of displacement and how displacement increases the risk of statelessness. This collaborative research project will be carried out primarily in Thailand along the Thai-Myanmar border.

In addition to interviews with civil society organizations working with displaced Myanmar people and Myanmar people living in diaspora, Myanmar research teams will employ oral history interviews with religious minority communities originating from Myanmar now settled in Thailand.

The project also makes extensive use of archival materials to trace histories of statelessness, citizenship, and displacement in Myanmar.