Conceptualizing Education within a Thai Refugee Camp Based on a ‘for Them’ and a ‘by Them’ Paradigm

Abstract

This study reveals the marginalized narratives in refugee education discourses by highlighting local perspectives on how education is formed, maintained, and conceptualized inside a refugee camp. Adopting a qualitative research approach, the data was collected during the author’s 5 months full-time stay between 2019 and 2020 inside the Mae La refugee camp, located on the Thai-Myanmar border. Focusing on the voices of various educational stakeholders from the community of Mae La, it expands the existing discourses of refugee education that have long been objectifying the refugee learners as beneficiaries, to encompass local perspectives that conceptualize the refugees as active participants. For scholars and practitioners in the field of refugee education, this study claims that education is not only provided and managed ‘for’ refugees, but ‘by’ refugees, where education plays a central role of enabling refugees to pursue nationhood and recognition, resulting various tensions and power dynamics.