This article reflects on how offline and online everyday life coexists for encamped, young Karen living in protracted displacement. As part of the special issue ‘Cultures of (im)mobile entanglements’, edited by Earvin Cabalquinto and Koen Leurs, I centre the voices of young Karen living in Mae La refugee camp in Thailand and unpack how personal and social relationships are built and maintained physically in the camp, as well as in digitally mediated spaces. I focus on the tensions of (im)mobility and how life and presence were mediated before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. I emphasise the influence of culture, society, and infrastructure on my participants’ living trajectories and find how social media expands their lived reality far beyond the confinement of the camp.
AgambenG (2005) State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2.
AryuwatR (2021) The camp and refugee agency: Repatriations on the Thailand-Myanmar border. In: WatersTSouthA (eds) Moving around Myanmar: Migration in, From and Back to Burma. Chiang Mai: Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD), Chiang Mai University, Thailand, pp. 13–30.
3.
BarronS (2004) Between Worlds: Twenty Years on the Border. Bangkok: Burmese Border Consortium.
4.
BaymNK (2015) Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
5.
ChayanV (2016) Policy alternatives for the refugees in temporary shelters along the Thai-Burma border. European Policy Brief hal-03744604. https://hal.science/hal-03744604/
6.
ChayanVAmpornJ (2011) Transcending State Boundaries: Contesting Development, Social Suffering, and Negotiation. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Chiang Mai University, Regional Centre for Social Sciences and Sustainable Development.
7.
ChunA (2008) The postcolonial alien in us all: Identity in the global division of intellectual labor. Positions: Asia Critique16(3): 689–710.
8.
DePuyWWegerJFosterK, et al. (2022) Environmental governance: Broadening ontological spaces for a more livable world. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space5(2): 947–975.
9.
DeuzeM (2011) Media life. Media, culture and society33(1): 137–148.
10.
FilipskiMJRosenbachGTiburcioE, et al. (2021) Refugees who mean business: Economic activities in and around the Rohingya settlements in Bangladesh. Journal of Refugee Studies34(1): 1202–1242.
11.
FinkC (2004) Living for funerals: Karen teenagers and romantic love. In: Delang, C.O. (ed.) Living at the Edge of Thai Society. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.108–129.
12.
Gómez CruzEThornhamH (2015) Selfies beyond self-representation: The (theoretical) f(r)ictions of a practice. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture7(1): 28073.
13.
GreeneA (2020) Mobiles and ‘making do’: Exploring the affective, digital practices of refugee women waiting in Greece. European Journal of Cultural Studies23(5): 731–748.
14.
Harrell-BondBVoutiraE (2007) In search of ‘invisible’ actors: Barriers to access in refugee research. Journal of Refugee Studies20(2): 281–298.
15.
HillC (2022a) Poetic resistance: Karen long-distance nationalism, rap music, and YouTube. International Journal of Cultural Studies 25(1): 30–50.
16.
HillC (2022b) Karen women (re)constructing the self through rap: Crossing boundaries and navigating lived spaces. Music and Arts in Action8(1): 14–31.
17.
HillC (2022c) Mediating Encamped Identities and Belongings: An Ethnography of Everyday Karen Life in Mae La Refugee Camp. PhD thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London.
18.
JackV (2017) ‘There’s no media for refugees’: Information and communication in camps on the Thai-Burma border. Pacific Journalism Review: Te Koakoa23(2): 127–143.
19.
JeffersonATurnerSJensenS (2019) Introduction: On stuckness and sites of confinement. Ethnos 84(1): 1–13.
20.
JenkinsH (2009) Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
21.
JenkinsHItoMboydd (2015) Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
22.
JirapornL (2020a) Covid-19, health borders, and the purity of the Thai nation. Heinrich Böll Stiftung9 October. Available at: https://th.boell.org/en/2020/10/08/covid-19-health-borders-and-purity-thai-nation (accessed 2 February 2023).
23.
JirapornL (2020b) Re-imagining the Refugee Camp: Sovereignty and Time-space Formation along the Thailand-Burma Borderland. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam.
24.
LibalKHardingSPopescuM, et al. (2021) Human rights of forced migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic: An opportunity for mobilisation and solidarity. Journal of Human Rights and Social Work6(2): 148–160.
25.
LiteratI (2017) Refugee selfies and the (self-) representation of disenfranchised social groups. Media Fields Journal12: 1–9.
26.
MadianouM (2021) Polymedia life. Pragmatics and Society12(5): 857–864.
NaiyanaTWaritsaraRArnold-FernándezE (2021) Advancing refugee rights in non-signatory states: The role of civil society in Thailand, Forced Migration Review 67. Available at: https://www.fmreview.org/issue67/thanawattho-rungthong-arnoldfernandez (accessed 2 February 2023).
30.
OliviusE (2017) Sites of repression and resistance: Political space in refugee camps in Thailand. Critical Asian Studies49(3): 289–307.
31.
RangklaP (2014) Karen ethno-nationalism and the wrist-tying ceremony along the Thai–Burmese border. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies45(1): 74–89.
