The reasons they go are many. They go in search of better jobs. They go following husbands, boyfriends or brothers. Sometimes they go because there is simply no reason to stay.
The estimated number of Cambodians working in Thailand ranges from 250,000 to 500,000. Except for the headlines when things go wrong – a forester shot dead here, a fisherman kidnapped there – their stories are mostly anonymous: untold struggles no different to the millions of tough-luck stories the world over.
“The majority are undocumented, lacking legal status and the rights that come along with it,” reads the introduction of Borders And Margins, a new book by sociologist Maryann Bylander and photographer Emmanuel Maillard. “They work in difficult and low-paid jobs in the construction, fishing, agriculture and service sectors… In their words, migration means a life that is half joyful and half trying, half empowered and half marginalised, half improved and half wanting.”
The book and accompanying photo exhibition represent years of research. In tight prose and subtle photography, it captures a rare, intimate narrative of the in-between lives of Cambodians on the move. Bylander and Maillard will hold a book launch at Meta House on December 15. The exhibition opens that night and runs until the end of December.
As a group, Cambodian migrants represent a burgeoning force, both in numbers and associated economic power. While exact figures are impossible to calculate, officials estimate that the number of Cambodians crossing the border for work has grown from about 100,000 a decade ago to two or three times that today. Some estimates put the number as high as half a million. Overseas workers remit more than $300 million annually, but because migrants tend to operate in the underground economy, they are easily exploited by unscrupulous employers and ignored by governments on both sides of the border.
During their study, Bylander and Maillard connected with dozens of migrants: at home, on the border, in the big city. What they found, when they found conversations at all, were discussions based on inaccurate assumptions or coloured by discourse untethered from realities on the ground.
“The main issue is that migration is often seen as being either wholly good or wholly problematic: exploitative versus empowering; promoting development versus being a development threat,” says Bylander. “Just like most things, the truth is really in the grey area in between. Migration from Cambodia isn’t primarily about trafficking, nor is it about Cambodians happily ‘seeking out modernity’. It’s neither that bleak nor that rosy. Instead, it’s about people actively seeking to better their lives in the face of a limited set of options.”
People from rural areas are often escaping a lack of opportunity. There is little money in the provinces. In many places the environment has been ravaged. But heading over the border, even when the pay cheques are bigger, is seldom a panacea to economic hardships at home. “Work abroad makes their lives better,” Bylander says, “but doesn’t fundamentally change the conditions that motivated their migrations in the first place.”
It’s a complicated issue. And if there are effective solutions to the migration challenge they are not readily apparent. Nearly everyone Bylander and Maillard spoke with said they would stay if they could, but with few ways to generate income, heading across the border was “the best among a very limited set of options”.
WHO: Photographer Emmanuel Maillard and sociologist Maryann Bylander
WHAT: Borders And Margins photography and audio exhibit plus book launch
WHEN: 6pm December 15
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Boulevard
WHY: Migration is a complicated issue