From Finding to Making <i>Jari</i> : The Return of Burmese Political Refugees From South Korea

ABSTRACT The Korean word jari means a place, but also a seat, social position or space, according to the context. In interviews with Burmese refugees returning from South Korea (hereinafter Korea) to Myanmar, this word was used to express the challenges of return after nearly 20 years. Mostly men in their 40s−50s, they initially arrived in Korea as migrant workers and were later recognised as refugees for their political activities against the military government. When returning to Myanmar from the 2010s after the NLD (National League for Democracy) resumed power, it was difficult to find a jari in politics, not having ‘earned their right’ by suffering with activists who remained in Myanmar. Since they engaged in diasporic political activities instead of working, they did not return with money expected by families of migrant workers. Instead, they made alternative jari in education, community organisation or social enterprises through their transnational social networks and their social, political and economic remittances from Korea. This paper is based on qualitative research in Korea and Myanmar in 2018 using life‐story interviews, participant observations and researcher reflexivity. This paper used jari , a political, relational, emotional and dynamic conceptualisation of place to present the refugees' ideas of place when they returned. An alternative to state‐centric views of refugee repatriation, their relationship to a jari was the basis of the process in building livelihoods and belonging on return.