Abstract
Despite refusing to sign the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, Thailand is internationally regarded as one of the most generous refugee transit countries in the world. Scholars of migration however have often overlooked holistic explanations for the way the Thai state has addressed refugee issues and implications of its policies and practices. This paper argues that labelling is the key practice that the Thai state has adopted to unmake and remake millions of refugee and asylum seekers who have entered Thai territory. The Thai state accomplishes this through the creation of new labels for forcibly displaced persons that sit between “refugee” and “illegal migrant.” These new categories allow the state to grant temporary refuge and humanitarian assistance to displaced people while abstaining from fully committing to international legal obligations. This practice minimizes international condemnation and pressure on Thailand as well as circumvents potential conflicts with neighboring countries which are predominantly the refugee’s countries of origin. However, labelling has also contributed to the embodiment of ambiguous bureaucratic practices in the areas of refugee treatments and refugee rights in the Thai refugee regime that have made lived experiences and livelihoods of refugees in Thailand more challenging.
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