Drawing beyond silence: Exploring present realities and imagined futures of Karen encamped refugee youths

Abstract

Exploring the everyday lives of encamped refugees presents ethnographers with a delicate task. While semi-structured interviews and participant observations are valuable, they have limits. I argue that, as researchers, we must keep exploring alternative approaches to ensure we engage with our participants in ways that work best for them. I contend that participant drawing is not simply a complementary method to interviews but a form of knowledge-making that renders visible the emotional, spatial, and political dimensions of encamped life. Based in two refugee camps in Thailand, this study employed the method of drawing and participant analysis to closely unpack three case studies. Drawing is not only a valuable methodological intervention within ethnographic practice but is also an object of analysis in its own right. I explore how the drawing process and the final image generate, mediate, and contest meanings in contexts of protracted displacement among Karen youth.

Keywords

drawing as method visual research methods encampment Karen refugees confinement stuckness freedom resilience artistic expression protracted displacement future imaginings

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