transnational mobility occurs, as well as its impact on camp
families. While not a political economy study, Navigating at
the Margins aims to provide analysis and recommendations
to improve the well-being of Rohingya on both sides of the
Myanmar-Bangladesh border and throughout the region.
unavailable to researchers and demographers. Despite the
legacy of family counting, Rohingya were deliberately not
enumerated in the 2014 census. This was Myanmar’s first
census in 30 years and would have provided more insight
into Rohingya population demographics.9
Humanitarian and policy actors have undertaken periodic
population assessments and a registration exercise in the
camps, which have focused on the composition of camp
households. In contrast, this study contributes insights into
overall family composition, including both camp residents
and their relatives not living in the camps. Because much of
Rohingya people’s movement across borders is extralegal
and illicit, it is difficult to determine the extent to which
families have become separated and to understand the
social and emotional effects of this separation.
The lack of available data about the Rohingya population
also makes it difficult to calculate the severity of recent
conflict and displacement—not just in regard to population
shifts and the number of lives lost, but also in terms of
lost assets and the impact on household economy. The
extent of the displaced Rohingya community’s losses of
assets, livelihoods, and intact family units may never be
satisfactorily calculated. However, better insights can be
distilled by documenting camp residents’ own experiences
with these themes.
In addition to the impediments created by restrictions
on media access and travel to northern Rakhine State,
the lack of public access to baseline population data
makes it difficult to measure with precision the drastic
shifts that have recently occurred within the Rohingya
population. For decades, the government of Myanmar has
maintained family lists in order to count and track the
country’s population, but this information remains largely
By collecting details from camp families about the journeys
of their relatives elsewhere, as well as their current
socioeconomic conditions and livelihoods, this study fills in
some of these gaps by shedding light on Rohingya people’s
transnational mobility and its impacts. The Asia Foundation
and the Centre for Peace and Justice intend these findings
to support policymaking and programming to create
sustainable political solutions to the Rohingya crisis.
As displacement becomes protracted, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh strive
to improve their living conditions in the face of an uncertain future. Here, a
woman applies earthen plaster to make the walls of her shelter more durable.
10