Refugee Policy as Border Governance
Refugee return, peacebuilding, and Myanmar's politics of transition
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3615751 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kirsten Mcconnachie (0000-0003-2365-7796, University of East Anglia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 56 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 661-690 |
| Publication date | 2022-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Modern Asian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0026749x20000189 |
| OpenAlex | W3127562545 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 21 |
Refugees have been largely overlooked in analyses of Myanmar's transition, apparently considered peripheral to more prominent topics such as negotiation with armed groups, economic reform, and political elections. By analysing approaches to return and repatriation in three distinct contexts-refugees in camps in Thailand, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and Chin refugees in Malaysia and India-this article shows that proposals for the return and repatriation of refugees are a form of 'border governance' (that is, governance in, of, and through borders). This operates at three scales: (1) global border control by keeping refugees in their region of origin or returning them to their country of origin, (2) national border control by reinforcing boundaries between Myanmar and its surrounding states, and (3) the governance of political transition by reinforcing the Myanmar government's narrative of peacebuilding by recasting continuing conflict as conditions suitable for refugee return. Premature promotion of repatriation has a number of harmful outcomes for refugee communities: encouraging the withdrawal of international aid, escalating fear and uncertainty, and political bolstering of a Bamar-dominated government and military vis-a-vis ethnic minority groups. This analysis supports a broader understanding of repatriation and its consequences, recognising that the promotion of refugee return can have significant political implications that are apparent even before mass returns have been carried out and which may reverberate far into the future
Business · Corporate governance · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics · Peacebuilding · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Repatriation · Sociology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Peacebuilding and International Security · Public Administration
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Anti-Politics Machine
On the (In)Compatibility of Peace-Building and State-Making
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Reclaiming Everyday Peace
The Borders of "Europe"
The Refugee in International Society
From Violent Borders
Safe and Voluntary Refugee Repatriation
The return of refugees to Bosnia and Herzegovina
Refugee Repatriation and Peace-Building
Rethinking liberal peacebuilding, statebuilding and transition in Afghanistan
Aiding State Building and Sacrificing Peace Building? The Rwanda–UK relationship 1994–2011
Securitization and Community-Based Protection Among Chin Refugees in Kuala Lumpur
National Geographic
Top-down and bottom-up narratives of peace and conflict
Where is the local? Critical localism and peacebuilding
Saving liberal peacebuilding
How in Myanmar "National Races" Came to Surpass Citizenship and Exclude Rohingya
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |