Prolonged Displacement and the Suspended Future of the Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

The central argument of this dissertation is that the Rohingya refugees are trapped in a liminal state in Bangladesh, where the government persists in its repatriation-only policy despite Rohingyas’ fear of persecution that might await them in Myanmar. This prolonged displacement hinders their ability to imagine a future. Based on nine-months-long fieldwork, ethnographic material, and drawing on a large body of literature, including the anthropology of the state (Agamben, 1998; Ong, 2003; Sharma & Gupta, 2009; Turner, 2016), humanitarianism (Fassin, 2007a, 2007b, 2012; Lewis, 2019), refugee studies and displacement (Arendt, 1994; Farah, 2009, 2023; Gell, 1992; Hirsch, 1997; Lefebvre, 1991; Martin, 2015), and anthropology of the future (Massey, 2023; Ramsay, 2020; Bryant & Knight, 2019), this project questions the power of the state and humanitarian organizations, examining bureaucratic policies and regulations as refracting their power implemented through policies and programs that reproduce statelessness. I first argue that the Bangladeshi government’s repatriation policy is executed through bureaucratic measures, wherein the re-orientation of Rohingyas toward Myanmar’s culture is used to reinforce its policy that precludes other solutions. This policy has led to prolonged displacement and the warehousing of the refugees in camps, where Rohingyas navigate bureaucratic obstacles daily and attempt to make sense of their present, but with no real prospects for the future. Second, I argue that humanitarianism is highly politicized and not devoid of contradictions, inequalities, or structural limitations. Humanitarianism functions as a shadow state, with humanitarian agencies often acting as extensions of government policies where performance is emphasized over humanitarian assistance. A third focus is on the Bangladeshi host and Rohingya refugee relationships, and here I argue that tensions refract a nationalist agenda and governance. The relationships are also shaped by socioeconomic status and, to some extent, by the proximity or distance of residents from the camps. I conclude by arguing that although Arakan remains an anchor of Rohingya identity, prolonged statelessness and liminality have gradually turned it into an imagined place, unreachable for most. Unable to exercise their rights to alternative durable solutions, namely, integration or resettlement, the Rohingya future has been placed ‘on hold.’