Born Into Hospitality – Are Second-Generation Refugees Temporary Guests or Residents "at Home"?

Abstract

While the focus on the Rohingya refugees in Thailand tends to be on those who fled from Arakan/Rakhine State due to their violent persecution by the military regime, this paper focuses on the second generation of Rohingya born and/or growing up in Thailand. Based on an ethnographic inquiry, I argue that despite the state’s hospitality towards refugees, migrants, and stateless people, second-generation Rohingya create routes of home in Thailand. Focusing on the life story of Shafak, I show that second-generation Rohingya's sense of home is forged through floating intimate ties that allow them to secure their lives in Thailand and remake their homes elsewhere if needed. Though constructed as a ‘national security threat’ and perceived as unwelcome guests by the government, second-generation Rohingya act as residents and become residents at the margins of the nation-state where its sovereignty over territory and people remains challenged. I will demonstrate this specifically in Thailand's so-called deep South. In the end, I claim that second-generation Rohingya's routes of home along the thresholds of the nation-state beg the question of whether they can still legitimately be viewed only as 'temporary guests.’