Coping practices and gender relations: Rohingya refugee forced migrations from Myanmar to India

Abstract

Rohingya experiences of displacement and refuge are heavily gendered. Sexual and gender-based violence have been used as weapons against Rohingya women, men, girls and boys in Myanmar for decades. Trafficking and exploitation are rife on the flight out of the country, and host states such as India present their own gendered challenges to family survival and individual coping. In this paper, we examine how some of those violent and disruptive experiences have affected gender roles for individuals and families as they have fled Myanmar (often more than once) and sought refuge in India via Bangladesh. We present new insight into the dynamic subjectivity of Rohingya women as we show how, contrary to dominant depictions of passive victimhood, many have lead family migration across borders, taken up NGO/community leadership roles, or made the best ‘home’ possible within the limitations of the host context. This is because personal and family agency is sensitive to transitional opportunities and threats—i.e., gender norms of home and host contexts, interactions with host communities, and trust relations with NGOs, to name a few. Crucially, these social practices and experiences are not static or linear; they span generations and sprawling geographies.

Keywords:

• Rohingya
• gender
• refugee women
• agency
• India
• transitionality

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks our Rohingya participants in Hyderabad and Mewat who shared their time and experiences with us in the midst of difficult times. Special thanks also to Anubhav Dutt Tiwari and Neha Kanwar for dedicated field research, to Punam Yadav and Maureen Fordham for guidance on literature and methodology, and to the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the British Academy as part of the project, ‘Rohingya Journeys of Violence and Resilience in Bangladesh and its Neighbours: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives’ (Award Reference: SDP2\100094), supported under the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund. Ethics approval given by O.P. Jindal Global University Research and Ethics Review Board, 15/05/2019, and UCL Research Ethics Committee, 15843/001.

Notes on contributors

Jessica Field

Dr Jessica Field is an interdisciplinary humanities scholar interested in humanitarian history, policy and practice. Dr Field currently focuses on Indian humanitarianism and has published research on humanitarian assistance, refugee self-reliance, and the politics of disaster governance in India. Dr Field is a Lecturer in Humanitarian Studies at University College London, UK, an Adjunct Associate Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University in India.

Aishwarya Pandit

Dr Aishwarya Pandit is a historian interested in the politics of Uttar Pradesh after Partition, with a particular focus on centre-province relations. Dr Pandit has examined the question of waqf and property in UP after Partition, focussing on new laws drafted by the state and their impact on Muslim society and politics. Dr Pandit is an Associate Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University in India.

Minakshi Rajdev

Ms Minakshi Rajdev is an Assistant Professor of History at Satyawati College, University of Delhi, and a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Ms Rajdev’s thesis explores the identity and status of Mirasis in modern Gujarat since the 1850s, and her research methods combine Historical Ethnography, Historical Ethnomusicology and History.