Beyond the Law: Power, Discretion, and Bureaucracy in the Management of Asylum Space in Thailand

Based on qualitative interviews conducted between 2008 and 2012 with Burmese forced migrants in Thailand, this study focuses on the practice of protection and management within long-stay refugee camps. Beyond official refugee status determination, the everyday interactions between authority-types and forced migrant subjects affirm or challenge notions of who gets to be considered a refugee and who is entitled to humanitarian protection. This article considers authorities as 'street-level bureaucrats', who rely on institutional power and resources as they wield discretion to interpret camp policy and Thai law in ways that reflect perceptions of Burmese migrants as criminal and deviant. At the same time, this study shows that forced migrants develop strategies to survive this context and assert their claims to rights and their own notion of what it means to be a refugee; pointing to ways protection can be enhanced in such protracted situations.