Religious identity and forced migration : a study on Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh and Canada, 1971–2020

In the thesis, I aim to understand the potential association between religious identity and forced migration, focusing on the Rohingya refugee crisis that originated in Myanmar. The thesis explicitly investigates the relations between the religious identities of the refugees, perpetrators, and host communities and the forced migration of Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh and Canada from 1971 to 2020. It inductively hypothesizes that there is an association between religious identity and forced migration and argues that Rohingya refugees are primarily religious refugees. The specific role of religious identity in their expulsion from Myanmar and refuge in Bangladesh and Canada remains a gap in the existing literature, which the thesis addresses. It offers an anthropological, particularly ethnohistorical, and intersectional conceptual approach to address this topic by evaluating alternative claims from both emic and etic actors. The thesis contributes to understanding the religious aspect of forced migration and the comparative experiences of refugees in two countries that differ in their political, economic, and sociocultural statuses. It discovers that the actors’ religious identities played a significant role in the Rohingyas’ forced migration from Myanmar and refuge in Bangladesh. However, political assurance and socioeconomic security outweighed religious differences when the Rohingyas decided to resettle in Canada.