Living on the borderline: The lived experience of young migrants and refugees growing up on the Thailand-Myanmar border

Abstract

This study is an exploration of the lived experience of young people growing up in contexts of displacement and lack of documentation along the Thailand-Myanmar border. The evolving nature of cross-border population flows and protracted displacement globally is giving rise to increasing numbers of young people spending their formative development years as ?illegal migrants? on the margins of host country societies. To date, little remains known about how these young people manage their everyday lives in social and legal isolation, particularly in non-western contexts, or the Global South.

This study sought to address this gap in our understanding through a case study based in and around the town of Mae Sot in northwest Thailand. Decades of civil conflict and economic oppression in Myanmar have driven millions of people across the border into neighbouring Thailand. In and around the border town of Mae Sot, generations of young people are growing up facing restricted mobility, limited access to education and other essential services, narrow migrant labour market demands, and everyday vulnerability to exploitation and poverty.

A qualitative case study methodology, underpinned by social constructionist principles, was adopted to facilitate a bottom-up, person-centred study and the prioritisation of young people?s voices and perspectives within their cultural contexts. Following on from a preliminary key informant phase, the main data collection comprised 44 semi-structured interviews with 35 young men and women aged between 18 and 24, who were either born in Thailand or who arrived alone or with their families before the age of 12. Recruitment sought diversity and included young people from in and around Mae Sot, the nearby Mae La refugee camp, as well as Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand.

The study?s findings revealed nuanced insights into the lived experience of growing up as an ?illegal migrant?. Legal and social precarity characterise lifeworlds and define young people?s ways of being in the world. From a young age, the young people are aware of their marginalised position in Thailand, and develop a myriad of strategies to keep themselves safe. The young people are deeply embedded in interdependent family relations. While education is valued, in the face of uncertain returns and the immediacy of family needs, work is often prioritised. Suffering and struggle as migrants and refugees in Thailand are necessary in order to create a better future for them and their families.

The study contributes to our understanding of young people?s agency and resilience in contexts of extreme adversity. Optimism and pragmatism, resistance and endurance, determination and flexibility are all key facets of the young people?s engagement in their worlds, and keep them going in the face of certain uncertainty.