International migrants are subject to a lot of violence. The international community finds this violence unconscionable and excessive, but has a limited understanding of how migrants can be protected from harm. Part of the problem is that research has consistently focused on how states and international organizations can protect migrant victims, instead of examining how migrants help to establish protection for themselves. 

This project will contribute to efforts to understand and enhance migrant protection by studying how Myanmar migrants relate to migrant regularization schemes spanning Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia. Tracing migrant trajectories along four migrant corridors from the beginning of their journeys to their end, we explore why migrants sometimes seek regularization, why at other times they seek ways of protecting themselves against the state, and how this seemingly ambivalent behavior shapes broader migrant protection regimes.

Collaboration between Sweden and the Netherlands

Forging a collaboration between two research projects that have thus far looked separately at the micro- (Franck) and macro- (Vigneswaran) dimensions of migrant protection, this project will generate new data, conceptual insights and practical knowledge to help us better understand how the everyday efforts of migrants determine the impact and effectiveness of international efforts to protect them from harm.