26 Papers, cards, and perilous encounters with the state interviewing, listening, and interpreting also participates in the production of those narratives. As Phil Salmon notes (quoted in Riessman 2008:31): The audience, whether physically present or not, exerts a crucial influence on what can and cannot be said, how things should be expressed, what can be taken for granted, what needs explaining, and so on. We now recognize that the personal account, in research interviews, which has traditionally been seen as the expression of a single subjectivity, is in fact always a co-construction. This notion offers a way in which to acknowledge the role of the researcher and others in the construction of narratives and use it as a mode of inquiry. It was useful for my research in two ways. First, I was aware that my own positionality often influenced the data I was collecting. I was known to many of the participants as someone who had authored work on Rohingya in the past using the term ‘genocide.’7 Further, I was often known before I entered the room as the wife of a Burmese Buddhist activist who had a prominent voice, including on Rohingya issues, in both Burmese and international circles. Despite my efforts, it was difficult to cast aside these identities in the process of my research. Second, during the data collection period at the urging of Rohingya participants and activists, I retold some of the narratives to a public audience in print form and in advocacy forums to try to influence opinions and highlight neglected issues that were of concern to Rohingya participants relating to citizenship in Myanmar. These articles and presentations were primarily driven by my own ethical need to give something back to the research participants. In the process of retelling to public audiences for particular purposes, I was active in co-constructing the narratives (Salmon and Riessman 2008). In this way, my discussions, conversations, and participation in advocacy forums constituted part of the research. Narratives, as Tamboukou (2008) explains, do not represent external realities but rather are productive. They are not simply determined by the social world but also shaped it. Research methods Operation Nagamin that reached Rakhine State in 1978 and caused the first major expulsion under the Myanmar military regime of approximately 250,000 Rohingya (Linquist 1979) was most often identified by many Rohingya participants as the start of the production of their statelessness in Myanmar. Furthermore, large-scale expulsions took place in 1991–2, 2012, and 2016–7 (Brinham 2017; Crisp 2018). Additionally, many Rohingya fled systems of persecution in between the major incidents of mass violence. Each of these periods of forced migrations has had differing patterns of onward migration from Myanmar and Bangladesh involving changing routes over land and across the seas (UNHCR 2016, 2017). In order to explore Rohingya