Living liminally: Migrant children living in the Myanmar-Thailand border region

Abstract

This article focuses on the perils and potential opportunities for children living as forced migrants in the transnational borderland between Myanmar and Thailand. During decades of armed conflict and economic ruin, millions of children and families from Myanmar have been displaced internally or forced to emigrate to Thailand and China. For migrant Myanmar children living in Thailand, lack of identity documentation, social protection and education are prevalent. Often stateless and disconnected from their families, communities and cultures of origin and excluded from institutional affiliations, they live perched on the edge of society in a liminal state. Despite their vulnerability, however, the conditions of liminality may also instil unique orientations to the world as transmigrants, with skills that equip them to cope with a high degree of uncertainty and hardship and to adapt nimbly to future stresses and opportunities in a globalized world. This article proposes an innovative programme of research that challenges foundational theories of child development and views these children as actively engaged in meaning-making and as carriers of globalization.