When Bare Life is Bearable: The Life Projects of Rohingya and Hazara Refugees Living in Malaysia

Abstract

With anti-migrant populism and strict border regimes in many receiving countries, hundreds of thousands of refugees have been entangled in transit situations and face critically vulnerable conditions. While recent research on transit migration has explored “life projects,” including work, studies, and volunteering undertaken by refugees to make their lives more bearable in a context of protracted uncertainty, how refugees describe the country in which they are living and what facilitates their life projects there have remained less understood in a Southeast Asian context and in the Global South more generally. This article addresses this lacuna, drawing on interviews with Rohingya and Hazara refugees living in Malaysia. Rohingya and Hazara refugees described Malaysia as a safer place than their home countries, where they had endured violence and persecution. Examining key conditions underpinning the life projects of Hazara and Rohingya refugees, this article demonstrates that refugee lives are not completely on hold in transit situations, despite what dominant understandings of refugee lives often suggest. As it shows, while Rohingya and Hazara refugees are excluded from legal rights in Malaysia, the Malaysian state has not made them fully subject to laws and, instead, at times, has tacitly supported refugees. This situation has enabled refugees to pursue informal life projects, leading to a bearable bare life.

Keywords

bare life life projects Malaysia mobility regime refugees transit migration

Introduction

Due to persecution, conflict, violence, and other reasons, the world has seen an increasing number of refugees over the last two decades (IOM 2019; UNHCR 2021a). As of mid-2021, there were 26.6 million refugees globally, along with roughly 4.4 million people seeking international protection and awaiting assessment of their applications for refugee status (UNHCR 2021a). With anti-migrant populism, strict border regimes, and growing securitization in many receiving countries, hundreds of thousands of refugees are entangled in transit situations, often facing critically vulnerable conditions (Fontanari 2018). This widespread situation makes forced and transit migrations critical global issues. In line with a broader understanding shared by the international community (Long 2013), the term “refugee” is used here to refer to individuals fleeing their origin country due to war, persecution, or violence to seek international protection elsewhere. Beyond the term's legalistic notion, refugee here also represents those, including asylum-seekers, fleeing their origin country to seek international protection, regardless of whether their refugee status is legally recognized.

Several studies on transit migration have shown that refugees often face long waiting periods (Biehl 2015), enforced immobility (Hyndman and Giles 2011), protracted uncertainty, unpredictable status, and precarious lives in transit states (Hoffstaedter 2014; Biehl 2015; Suter 2017). According to Missbach and Phillips (2020, 19), transit states refer to countries through which migrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers, “try to pass on their way to another destination country.” Scholars and policy-makers have regarded many Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, as transit countries (Hussain 2017; Missbach and Hoffstaedter 2020; Shum 2021).

In Southeast Asia, some scholars have highlighted “the colors of exploitation” that refugees face during their journey from Myanmar to Malaysia (Wahab 2018), while others have made a case for “Troubled Transit,” or the “stuckedness” of refugees who are deeply embroiled in the complexities of living in a transit country (Missbach 2015). Despite adverse situations in transit countries, emerging research on transit migration has also identified the life projects that refugees undertake to adapt to precarious situations in transit countries, while striving to sustain their lives and livelihoods (Manjikian 2010; Mountz 2011; Sampson, Gifford and Taylor 2016). Life projects are defined here as a suite of economic and social activities, such as informal employment, study, volunteer work, and marriage, which are crucial for refugees “to make life in the present bearable and the future imaginable and viable” (Sampson, Gifford and Taylor 2016; Hoffstaedter 2019, 521). Within migration studies, refugees’ life projects remain under-researched, and little is known about the conditions that facilitate their life projects in the Global South, especially Southeast Asia. Most countries in this region are not parties to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, and their immigration laws do not differentiate between refugees and undocumented migrants (Hussain 2017; Wahab 2018; Shum 2021), leaving refugees with no legal rights and eventually resulting in “bare life” for them. Following Agamben (1998), refugees’ bare life indicates that they are not only denied legal rights by the host state but also subject to various forms of violence and state laws.

This article seeks to address three key questions about refugees’ experiences in transit countries: (1) How do Hazara and Rohingya refugees describe Malaysia and their lived conditions there?, (2) How does the Malaysian state construct (and support) refugees’ bare life?, and (3) What conditions facilitate refugees’ life projects in bare-life conditions where no legal protection is available? The article draws on interviews with Rohingya and Hazara¹ refugees living in Malaysia. In particular, it focuses on the diverse situations that Hazara and Rohingya refugees faced in their own countries, their migration journeys to Malaysia, and their living conditions and life projects in Malaysia. In doing so, this article seeks to broaden understandings of transit countries and the underlying conditions shaping refugees’ bare life and life projects, thereby bridging often-disparate discourses on transit migration, bare life, and refugees’ life projects (Basok et al. 2015; Missbach 2015; Sampson, Gifford and Taylor 2016; Suter 2017). The focus on Malaysia partly intervenes in the literature on transit migration, which is dominated by Eurocentric studies of countries that have signed the 1951 Refugee Convention and implemented it through national legislation (e.g., Biehl 2015; Brekke and Brochmann 2015; Orav 2015; Dimitriadi 2017; Suter 2017). Refugees’ experiences in Asian transit countries, however, which have not ratified the Refugee Convention, may provide a significant contrast to those in Europe. Thus, examination of such experiences can nuance and decenter dominant understandings of transit countries and refugees’ bare life and life projects.

Across its sections, this article makes two main contributions to the literature on transit migration and refugees’ life projects. The first is to enrich understandings of transit countries from the viewpoint of refugees. Scholars have described transit countries as “a through space” for migrants on their way to a destination country (Manjikian 2010; Collyer and de Haas 2012; Missbach and Phillips 2020). Although some scholars (Missbach 2015; Crawley and Jones 2021) have analyzed refugees’ journeys and lived conditions in transit contexts, refugees’ viewpoints on the countries they are journeying to and sometimes living in for extended time periods are often ignored. Thus, this article charts a new line of enquiry in the emerging literature on transit country, focusing on refugees’ viewpoints and lived realities to understand how different groups of refugees view the country in which they are living or transiting. While both Rohingya and Hazara refugees described Malaysia as a safer place and a shelter, the two groups did not agree on whether Malaysia was, in fact, a transit country. Despite scholars, international agencies like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the Malaysian government itself considering Malaysia a transit country (Tedong et al. 2018; Missbach and Hoffstaedter 2020), findings here suggest that Malaysia is simultaneously a transit and a destination country, depending on which group of refugees is considered.

This article's second contribution is to provide deeper understanding of bare life and life projects undertaken by refugees to make their life more bearable in Malaysia. Such insights nuance dominant portrayals of refugee situations in transit as “life in legal limbo” (Hoffstaedter 2019) or “life on hold” (Brekke and Brochmann 2015) — framings which ignore not only refugees’ agency to adapt to precarious situations but also how host states shape refugees’ bare life. As this article demonstrates, Rohingya and Hazara refugees lack legal rights under the Malaysian state and live largely bare life, while simultaneously being able to live safer and partake in life projects under certain conditions. Previous studies on transit migration have suggested that refugees can undertake various life projects and “lead meaningful lives and take on important roles,” even in positions of protracted uncertainty (Sampson, Gifford and Taylor 2016; Turner 2016; Huennekes 2018). This article adds to these literatures by identifying key conditions shaping both their bare life and their life projects. As it argues, Hazara and Rohingya refugees’ life projects were possible largely because of the tacit but vital support received from the Malaysian state, along with additional support from other actors, especially the UNHCR and refugee-focused non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Without such support, refugees’ agency alone may not have enabled them to stay safer and make a living, and their bare life would have been even more unbearable. As we will see, the Malaysian state provided tacit support to refugees to make their life more bearable through its soft-handed approach, reflected in Malaysia's leniency on Muslim refugees when it comes to enforcing rules and its non-interference with the operation of UNHCR and refugee-focused NGOs.

To capture these nuances, I propose the concept of bearable bare life. Bearable bare life is a form of bare life excluded from legal rights but not fully made subject to laws by state sovereign power. Here, the state adopts a soft-handed approach to refugees when it comes to enforcing laws; thus, refugees attempt to make their life more bearable by pursuing life projects. Despite the fact that Rohingya and Hazara refugees are “illegal” migrants in the eyes of the Malaysian state, the Malaysian state, as sovereign power, has not strictly enforced laws, although refugees are occasionally arrested and detained. Unlike Agamben's conceptualization of bare life, that is, the sovereign creation of bare life (Agamben 1998, 2005), bearable bare life is a co-production of both the host state and refugees themselves, although the state's role is vital in creating conditions for refugees to live safer and engage in life projects. Bearable bare life does not mean that life is completely safe and secure; rather, it means that life is endurable. To make bare life more bearable, non-state actors, including employers, local communities, and refugee-focused NGOs, play a complementary supportive role.

To develop these ideas, this article is structured as follows. The next section reviews the relevant literature on transit migration, focusing on conceptual understandings of transit migration, bare life, and refugees’ living conditions. The third section describes the context of refugees in Malaysia and the research methods adopted to generate empirical data. To understand the textures of refugees’ bearable bare life, the four sections that follow discuss key findings generated from analyzing the perspectives of refugees and their journeys to and lived conditions in Malaysia. The concluding section highlights key arguments advancing conceptual and empirical understandings of transit migration and refugees’ bearable bare life.

Transit, Bare Life, and Life Projects

Transit migration refers to “movements of people from a supposed country of origin through various countries en route until they arrive in a supposedly final destination country” (Collyer, Düvell and de Haas 2012, 412). While the literature on transit migration has been highly insightful for understanding migrants’ stopovers and their conditions in transit (Papadopoulou-Kourkoula 2008; Collyer, Düvell and de Haas 2012; Phillips and Missbach 2017), many studies are rightly critical of the concept of transit (Düvell 2012; Schapendonk et al. 2018; Crawley and Jones 2021). As Crawley and Jones (2021, 3227) put it, transit migration presupposes that migrants have a specific destination in mind when they leave their country, ignoring “dynamic and erratic reality of migrant journeys” (Collyer and de Haas 2012). Refugees may not always have a concrete destination and well-thought plans in mind as they move (Schapendonk 2017), as this article reveals in the case of Rohingyas.

While transit migration's analytical usefulness and appropriateness remain contested (Düvell 2012; Basok et al. 2015), the concept of transit is reconceptualized here as a “condition,” rather than merely a “through space” (Collyer and de Haas 2012, 479) or “stage” (Suter 2017, 228), to shed light on refugees’ lives and experiences in a transit country. Framing transit in this way allows us to understand refugees’ conditions and life projects in relation to the wider social and political context and mobility regimes. While studies have theorized “transit countries” (Collyer and de Haas 2012; Basok et al. 2015; Missbach and Phillips 2020), this article focuses on refugees’ views on Malaysia to understand the notion of “transit state” and unpack refugees’ bare life in a Southeast Asian context. Findings show that refugees’ bare life is produced by sovereign state power but remade by the host state itself and other actors, including local employers, resulting in a bearable bare life that is slightly different from an entirely state-constructed bare life.

Migration scholars from diverse fields (Rajaram and Grundy-Warr 2004; Hoffstaedter 2014; Turner 2016; Vogt 2018) have broadly characterized the living conditions of refugees in transit countries as precarious, echoing Agamben's “bare life” (Agamben 1998). Agamben argued that refugees are reduced by host states to bare life, as host or transit states deprive refugees of political rights without recognizing their agency (Lecadet 2016). In Malaysia, drawing on Agamben's idea of “bare life” (1998), Hoffstaedter (2014, 879) argues that “many [refugees] live a life in fear of being arrested and detained — a prison of another sort, largely created in their minds. Their existence is barely visible; they are truly hanging on to a bare life.” Refugees have tended to encounter poverty, exploitation, violence, and social exclusions in many transit countries (Missbach 2015; Vogt 2018). As Papadopoulou-Kourkoula (2008, 88) notes, “poverty, insufficient protection, unemployment and social exclusion are the main characteristics of life ‘in transit’, fostering a process of marginalization rather than integration.” The notion of “troubled transit,” developed in the bcontext of Indonesia (Missbach 2015), suggests a similar fate for refugees. Highlighting cases of refugee exploitation in Indonesia and Libya, Phillips and Missbach (2017, 139) argue that informal networks and micro-economies developed in transit “prey on” and exploit migrants. Vogt (2013, 1549) has described migrants’ transit through Mexico as an experience of “spatial liminality” that intensifies “processes of exclusion and violence”.

Bare life in transit is often shaped by uncertainty, waiting, and precarity. Hyndman and Giles (2011, 361), for example, argue that “waiting among refugees has become the rule, not the exception.” Stuck in transit, millions of refugees are waiting, just “passing time,” often bored, frustrated, and denied their rights by transit states (Hage 2009). Although the waiting of refugees in transit is supposed to be of short duration, there are few potentially durable resettlement solutions for the vast majority. Less than 1 percent of the 20.7 million refugees under the UNHCR's mandate at the end of 2020, for example, are ever resettled (UNHCR 2021b). Similarly, lack of integration in transit countries, as well as limited possibilities of repatriation, have led refugees to face extended waiting, stuckedness, and even the stark experience of “permanent temporariness” (Hage 2009, 97; Suter 2012; Biehl 2015). In such situations, refugees are destined to depend on the UNHCR, a host state, or humanitarian organizations because “they cannot help themselves” (Hyndman and Giles (2011, 367). However, as later sections show, while refugees in transit do depend on external support, they do not stay idle; rather, they make efforts to get by in transit to improve their life situations by undertaking different life projects, as in Malaysia, where some refugee communities have been waiting for decades (Hoffstaedter 2019). Their efforts in life projects, as we will see, were not sufficient to make a living in Malaysia. The host state and other non-state actors also played a vital role in helping refugees make their life safer and more bearable.

While existing literatures on refugees and transit migration have made a strong case for refugees’ precarious lives in transit, emerging research has also thrown a spotlight on refugees’ life projects. While acknowledging uncertainty and precarity in transit, Sampson, Gifford and Taylor (2016, 1135) show that refugees in Indonesia attempt to adapt to such situations by pursuing “significant life projects” such as gaining skills, maintaining personal well-being, establishing families, and integrating into the local community, resulting for many in “permanent, life-changing experiences.” Through the lens of life projects, this article examines such possibilities for refugees in the protracted transit context of Malaysia. Existing literatures on transit migration have identified different life projects of refugees in different transit countries (e.g., Missbach 2015; Sampson, Gifford and Taylor 2016; Turner 2016). This article enriches these literatures not only by exploring refugees’ precarious conditions and bare life but also by identifying key conditions that underpin their life projects. By doing so, it nuances understandings of refugees and the texture of their life projects in Southeast Asia.

The Malaysian Context and Research Methods

Although UNHCR figures are believed to underestimate the number of refugees and asylum-seekers (ERT 2014; Hussain 2017; Wahab 2018),² as late 2021, about 180,440 refugees and asylum-seekers had registered with the UNHCR in Malaysia, over 85 percent from Myanmar alone (UNHCR 2022). Other refugees in Malaysia come from countries including Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Iraq (Hoffstaedter 2017; Hussain 2017; UNHCR 2022). While some refugees arrived in Malaysia without a visa, others travelled to the country in a bid to seek asylum or on visitor or student visas (Nah 2012; Tedong et al. 2018). Notably, only 2 percent of the total refugee population in Malaysia was resettled in 2018 (Nungsari, Flanders and Chuah 2020).

The Rohingya and the Hazara, this article's focus, have been living in Malaysia for decades (Azis 2014; Nungsari, Flanders and Chuah 2020). As they face varied levels of persecution, violence, war, and/or conflict that forced them to flee their home countries (Fortify Rights 2015; Jayasuriya and Sunam 2016), they have been part of an international resettlement effort, but to little avail (Nungsari, Flanders and Chuah 2020; Shum 2021). While there were an estimated 35,000 Rohingyas in Malaysia in 2013 (Kassim 2015), that number jumped to around 103,300 at the end of December 2021, representing over half the registered refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia (UNHCR 2022). Although the Rohingya have been arriving in Malaysia since the 1970s (ERT 2014), recent occurrences of violence and persecution forced about 70,000 Rohingya in October 2016 (Wintour 2017), and close to 700,000 Rohingya between August and September 2017, to flee Myanmar (BBC 2018). There are also about 2,800 Afghans in Malaysia, mostly Hazaras, registered with UNHCR Malaysia, who have long faced violence, death threats, and persecution from the Taliban and the Afghan state (Dimitriadi 2017; UNHCR 2022). These two refugee communities were chosen for this research, as they represent distinct experiences based on their different class, ethnic, educational, and contextual backgrounds, which affect their migration trajectories and life projects.

As there are no “refugee camps” run by the UNHCR or other organizations in Malaysia (Hussain 2017), in contrast to many other transit or host countries (Turner 2016), the Rohingya and Hazara mostly live in rented low-cost housing and shanties in slum-like neighborhoods (Muniandy 2015; Nungsari, Flanders and Chuah 2020). During my visit to Malaysia in 2017, I observed that both groups sometimes lived in the same neighborhood, although they did not share houses or flats. While Hazaras generally lived in better quality houses or flats, many Rohingyas, given their acute poverty, resided in overcrowded flats (Muniandy 2015; Wahab 2018). Some Rohingyas working in construction live at what is called “kongsi,” make-shift shelters around construction sites provided by contractors for their workers (Nungsari, Flanders and Chuah 2020). Estimates suggest that around half the working Rohingya population engage in construction (Nungsari, Flanders and Chuah 2020).

This article draws on 43 interviews with Rohingya and Hazara refugees who arrived in Malaysia without visas or who arrived on visas but overstayed to seek international protection. Employing a purposive sampling technique to select respondents, with the assistance of community-based organizations, we approached Rohingyas and Hazaras living in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, areas that host a significant number of refugees (UNHCR 2022). Interviews were conducted with 26 Rohingyas and 17 Hazaras between September and November 2017. These semi-structured interviews involved asking participants about their lives back home, their migration journeys, and their life projects and daily experiences in Malaysia. Interviews, on average, lasted 55 min, were conducted in Burmese with the Rohingya and in Farsi with the Hazara, while Bahasa Melayu (Malay language) and English were also used with some Rohingyas and Hazaras, respectively, according to their preference. I, as author, have been involved in migration research in Malaysia since 2012 but lacked the requisite linguistic skills to conduct interviews with Rohingya and Hazara refugees. Thus, I collaborated with a local research partner with knowledge of refugees and research assistants with the required language skills to conduct interviews in the languages preferred by interviewees; some research assistants also helped with translating interviews into English. All interviewers gave informed consent, and interviews were recorded, with consent; interviewers took notes when consent was not given. Recorded interviews were translated into English, and the audio recordings were immediately discarded. After entering the translated interviews into NVivo software, coding was done to create major themes.

Interview participants included 33 males and 10 females, who ranged from 21 to 67 years of age, with most in their 20s and 30s. About two-thirds of Rohingya interviewees were married, while just over half the Hazaras were married. Regarding their education status, over half the Rohingya respondents were illiterate, and only 5 percent had obtained 12 years of formal schooling. One in five Hazara respondents, by contrast, had no formal education, and the same proportion had obtained 12 years of formal education. Hazaras were more likely to have better quality household assets in their home country than were Rohingyas. Almost all Hazaras interviewed owned a television and mobile phone in their home country, while almost no Rohingyas possessed their own television and mobile phone. More Hazara respondents (over one-third) had their own laptops or computers in their origin country than Rohingya (about 7 percent). About half the Hazara interviewees owned a car in their origin country, while no Rohingyas had a car.

Journeys of the Rohingya and Hazara to Malaysia: A Transit, Destination, or a Safer Place?

How did Hazara and Rohingya refugees describe Malaysia and their lived conditions there? Interviews suggested that prior to leaving their origin country, Rohingyas did not see Malaysia as a transit or a destination, nor did they actively plan to journey to Malaysia for refuge, despite some having friends in the country. Due to violence, torture, and killings perpetrated by the Myanmar state, Rohingyas we interviewed left Myanmar without concrete plans; rather, they felt the urgency to flee their home country to save their lives, boarding any boats they found near their villages. Excerpts from two representative interviews further explain such urgency. As a Rohingya woman said, “One by one, family members were killed. Other families were being killed. Houses got burned. We had to move from one village to another village to escape violence. In the end, we had no time but to board the boat and leave the country” (RM19). Another woman related,

It was the most important thing for us to immediately leave our country. Our life was being threatened. We didn't know where we were going. We didn't set the destination in our mind, nor did we choose to go to Malaysia. There were many people leaving the villages, so we just tagged along and got on the boat. (RF10)

Interviews also revealed that the Rohingyas reached Malaysia with the help of migrant smugglers, although they did not ask smugglers to take them to Malaysia. For many, the entire journey to Malaysia was controlled by “boat crews” from Myanmar to Thailand and by migrant smugglers from Thailand to Malaysia. It was only when Rohingya respondents were in the middle of the Andaman Sea that they knew, via the boat's crew, that they were en route to Thailand. They were taken to Thailand by boat and from Thailand to Malaysia by bus/van and on foot. Initially, Rohingya respondents thought that the boat crew were merely “helpful folks” who wanted to facilitate their journey from Myanmar and described the boat crew as instrumental in helping them escape from Myanmar in “the spirit of solidarity and Rohingya's brotherhood” (Wahab 2018, 14). However, that opinion of boat crews as ‘helpful folks’ did not last long once the boat entered the Andaman Sea and the crew started to beat them and demand fees, becoming abusive migrant smugglers and making the journey akin to human trafficking.

However, for Hazaras, Malaysia appeared as a transit country from the beginning. Unlike Rohingyas, Hazaras regarded Malaysia as a transit site prior to leaving their country and continued to do so while in Malaysia. Interviews, for example, revealed that most Hazaras first moved to India on a tourist visa and then flew from India to Malaysia on a student visa. A few Hazaras went to the United Arab Emirates on a working visa and then moved to Malaysia, travelling through Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. As many Hazara respondents indicated, for them, a student visa served as an immigration tool to enter Malaysia. One interviewee explained how a college representative received and helped him clear the immigration process upon his arrival at the airport in Malaysia:

I was told by the agent [in Afghanistan and India] that when I reach the airport [in Malaysia], there will be a Malay lady as a college representative to pick me up. And when I got to the airport, she turned up after three hours. She called my name, and she did everything for me at the immigration desk. (HM08)

In this way, Hazaras made use of tourist and student visas to reach Malaysia. Similarly, many Hazara respondents indicated that they went to Malaysia due to the UNHCR presence there, suggesting the country was a transit site for them. Since 1975, the Malaysian government has allowed the UNHCR to register refugees and asylum-seekers for resettlement to third countries (Azis 2014). In addition, Hazara respondents indicated that Malaysia's status as a Muslim nation, and the role of social networks in Afghanistan, led them to Malaysia, as illustrated by a Hazara respondent: “We also asked our neighbor and friends. They said it [Malaysia] is a safe country for us and a Muslim country. Also, because the UNHCR can help us get to another country” (HF02).

As this section has shown, Rohingyas did not consider Malaysia a transit site, but Hazaras did. How, though, did both groups view Malaysia after they started living in the country? Rohingya respondents described Malaysia in various ways, as a “safe place,” a “Negara Tumpang” (host country, closest meaning in English), or a “shelter” (menumpang). As a Rohingya woman shared, “I feel foreign here. But we are thankful because we are safe. We are grateful that we have been given the chance to stay here temporarily. Grateful for the Malaysian people for letting us take menumpang [shelter] here” (RF16). Another respondent concurred, “Malaysia is good, safe for me. I wanted peace. Although my country is Myanmar, it is my Negara Tumpang” (RF14). According to a translator of Bahasa Melayu to English and Malay, the term, Negara Tumpang, carries a deeper meaning, suggesting that Malaysia is not just a temporary abode and signaling Rohingya's special attachment to the country in the form of a host-guest relationship.

Like Rohingyas, Hazaras also considered Malaysia a safer place or shelter for them as they escaped life-threatening situations in Afghanistan, where they were threatened, attacked, or targeted by the Taliban. Typical of many others, a Hazara respondent explained the reason for his journey to Malaysia and how he felt in the country:

I was travelling to Kabul on the bus. The Taliban searched for everyone on the bus. They took me to the mosque and hit me a lot. And then in the evening, I was lucky that I could escape from there. Because of all that happened, I had to leave my country, and now I am here [in Malaysia] and feel very safe, although making a living here is challenging. (HM15)

Interviews indicate that Rohingyas and Hazaras’ depiction of Malaysia as a safer place was associated with the violence and threats they faced in their home countries and/or with the adverse experiences they faced during their journeys to Malaysia. Travelling from Myanmar to Thailand and then from Thailand to Malaysia, Rohingyas endured beatings, torture, food and water shortages, and death threats. They arrived in Malaysia “traumatized, sick and owing enormous debts to family, friends or smugglers” (Wake and Cheung 2016, 6). Interviews revealed that in the first leg of their journey (Myanmar to Thailand), many Rohingya respondents were beaten for two main reasons. First, when Rohingyas talked with one another or asked migrant smugglers for food and water, migrant smugglers beat and tortured them, as noted by a respondent: “If we talked with each other, we got beaten with a metal rod. The experience on the boat was horrific. For those with children, it was more difficult. There was not enough food. We were beaten badly when we asked for food and water” (RF12). Second, they were physically abused when they failed to pay migrant smugglers’ fees or when smugglers thought that they were not making efforts to arrange the fees. According to a Rohingya man, “If the boat crew saw that we were in a relaxed manner, we were deemed as not thinking about how to arrange the money [fees] and would, therefore, be tortured and beaten” (RM02).

For most Rohingyas, the journey's second leg involved staying in migrant traffickers’ camps in Thailand. Rohingyas who failed to pay migrant traffickers’ fees were detained for months, beaten, tortured, and forced to work in the camps. Interviews revealed a dreadful situation: “The camp was very dangerous. It was like a cemetery” (RM01). Interviews also indicated that many women were raped³ in the camps and that those who spoke out were beaten: “Ladies were raped. They were treated like toys. Some guys tried to help them, but they were beaten badly. We could not do anything; we just cried” (RM15). Wahab (2018, 14) has also documented cases where migrant smugglers forced young Rohingya women to marry Rohingya men in Thailand and Malaysia. Smugglers collected money from their prospective husbands to arrange marriage to cover smuggling fees.

This section explored the situations of Rohingya and Hazara refugees in their home countries, their perspectives on Malaysia, and their migration journeys. Two key messages emerged in this section. First, despite scholars, international agencies, and the Malaysian government itself considering Malaysia a transit country (Hoffstaedter 2017; Missbach and Hoffstaedter 2020), findings here suggest that Malaysia was largely a destination country for the Rohingyas. Second, given the life-threatening situations and experiences of violence that respondents faced in their origin countries, both refugee groups viewed Malaysia as a safer place. The next section discusses whether refugees’ feeling of safety translated into better living conditions and whether their lives were more bearable.

Constructing and Supporting Refugees’ Bare Life

The Malaysian state has created conditions of bare life for Hazara and Rohingya refugees, as Rohingya and Hazara refugees are not protected by laws in Malaysia but are subject to them. This is because in Malaysia, refugees are subject to the penalties specified in existing immigration laws that consider refugees and asylum-seekers “illegal” immigrants (Missbach and Hoffstaedter 2020, 68), even as Malaysia has no particular legislation to address refugee rights.

Interviews revealed that Hazara and Rohingya refugees lived in constant fear of being arrested and detained when they stepped outside their homes or workplaces. Many respondents said that they had been held in immigration detention in Malaysia, and almost every participant mentioned having experienced police harassment.⁴ Respondents suggested that whenever refugees encountered police officers, they needed to be prepared to bribe officers with RM 50–RM 500 to avoid arrest. Those caught while working were likely to be asked for a larger bribe. Many interviewees noted that the bribe amount was higher when immigration officials (not police) interrogated refugees. Rohingya and Hazara respondents expressed hatred of both police and immigration officials.

Here, the bare life of Rohingya and Hazara refugees was shaped by their subjection to laws without legal rights. The Malaysian state and its apparatus (e.g., immigration authority and police) arrested, detained, and sought bribes, without any legal consequences for these state officials. However, not all refugees were equally subject to laws, as the Malaysian state seemed to selectively apply laws to refugees, and those without UNHCR cards or those unable to pay bribes were more vulnerable to police arrest and detention (Wake and Cheung 2016; Truffer 2017).

While the Malaysian state shaped the bare life of Rohingya and Hazara refugees, it also supported refugees in many ways. First, without adherence to the Refugee Convention and without national refugee laws, Malaysia has long offered shelter to many refugee groups (Azis 2014, 839). Hoffstaedter (2017) notes that the Malaysian government often portrays itself as a transit country that periodically has provided sanctuary to refugees on humanitarian grounds. Scholars have suggested that Malaysia's flexibility in hosting refugees is rooted in its aspiration to be a progressive Islamic country (Hoffstaedter 2017) and in Islam's significant role in shaping Malaysia's foreign policy (Truffer 2017). In Southeast Asia, Malaysia is home to the largest number of refugees and asylum-seekers, the majority of whom are Muslim (Hussain 2017; UNHCR 2022). Muslim refugees from the Middle East and South Asia prefer Malaysia, due to its image as a progressive Islamic country (Wahab and Khairi 2019).

Second, the Malaysian government has permitted the UNHCR and refugee-focused NGOs to operate in the country. The UNHCR Malaysia has supported refugees with health and education services, counselling, as well as legal representation in court, helping refugees make their lives more bearable (Azis 2014). The UNHCR provides registration cards to refugees, which reduce their risk of arrest and detention in Malaysia (Truffer 2017; Wake and Cheung 2016). Third, Malaysian law enforcement agencies, including the police, have been lenient on UNHCR cardholders, who are often not arrested or imprisoned in detention centers (Hussain 2017). Similarly, interviews with Hazara and Rohingya refugees suggested that UNHCR cardholders were more likely to find work than non-cardholders, although the card was not equivalent to a work permit. Finally, another government support for refugees is through its non-interference with, or, at times, even direct support to, the work of refugee-focused NGOs. The Ministry of Health has permitted doctors and nurses to volunteer for the Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia, a local NGO providing health services for refugees (Hussain 2017). Refugee-focused NGOs in Malaysia deliver much-needed services to support refugees, including health, education, and employment services, demand work rights for refugees, and lobby the government to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention (Hussain 2017).

Not only the Malaysian state and NGOs but also ordinary Malaysians supported Rohingya and Hazara refugees to make their bare lives more bearable. Rohingya and Hazara respondents viewed ordinary Malaysians as friendly people and appreciated their attitude and support. Typical of many others, a Rohingya respondent spoke highly of Malaysian people's welcoming gestures: “I really respect this nation, and these people are friendly, really, really friendly, and they don't harm us, they respect us. We appreciate that, and we respect them a lot. They are welcoming” (RM04). A Hazara respondent said, “The Malaysian people, they are actually very nice people, they do not do or say anything crazy to us” (HM17). Drawing on his ethnographic work in Kuala Lumpur, Muniandy (2018) has also described how local communities supported Rohingyas. In his words, “Many working-class Malay communities in the city who live in urban kampungs (villages) provide a relatively protected and sheltered environment for the Rohingya to become part of, without having to go through formal or official resettlement procedures” (Muniandy, 2018, 10). In all these ways, the Malaysian state has produced bare life of Rohingya and Hazara refugees, while, at the same time, and with the help of NGOs and local Malaysians, offering some support for vulnerable refugees. The next section discusses how such support translates into refugees’ life projects to make their life more bearable in Malaysia.

Beyond Bare Life: Refugees’ Life Projects

This section describes various life projects undertaken by Rohingya and Hazara refugees to make their bare life more bearable and analyzes what conditions facilitated their life projects, including work, small businesses, studies, and volunteering. Interviews indicated that most Rohingya and Hazara respondents worked in Malaysia, although employment patterns varied between the two groups. More Rohingya respondents (90 percent) were working than Hazaras (52 percent). Some Hazaras, relatively well-off in their home countries, noted that they used their own savings, or money sent by family members, to maintain their livelihoods in Malaysia. Rohingya respondents, by contrast, suggested that their relatively poor status led them to be more open to working in low-paid informal jobs in cleaning, garbage collection, construction, and hospitality, which are often described as 3D (difficult, dangerous, and demeaning) jobs (Truffer 2017). Interviews also suggested that highly educated Hazaras did not get high-level jobs in Malaysia and were not interested in low-paid informal work.

The average monthly income of Rohingya and Hazara respondents was about RM 900 (roughly USD 213 @ 1 USD = 4.23 Malaysian Ringgit [RM], as of October 31, 2017). Although Rohingya and Hazara respondents were involved in low-paying, informal jobs in the restaurant/hospitality, agriculture, and services sectors, such work was the only source of livelihoods for most in Malaysia, as illustrated in the following interview with Rohingya: “I work at the wholesale fresh food market. I get about RM 30 a day. Also, because I work in the fresh food market, if there are extra vegetables and fish that are not sold, I can bring some home. I do not have any other source of income than this” (RM05). Another Rohingya respondent even saved some money and remitted it home. In his own words, “I collect recycling items such as plastic bottles and papers. In a month, I can make about RM 1,000. I send some RM 500 a month to my family [wife and a child] in Myanmar. Usually, it is enough to make a living, but sometimes when it is not enough, I borrow money from friends” (RM03). Regarding Rohingyas’ tendency to send remittances, Huennekes (2018, 367) has argued that this practice has helped them “maintain family ties across borders,” both financially and emotionally.

How were Rohingya and Hazara refugees able to access work when Malaysia does not provide any work rights to refugees? Studies have shown that the growing Malaysian economy continues to absorb cheap and flexible labor to undertake 3D work, which native workers are reluctant to do (Hussain 2017; World Bank 2019). Thus, employers in Malaysia tend to hire “undocumented” workers, including refugees (Azis 2014; Kaur 2014; World Bank 2019). Although this structural reason was important for refugees to gain access to work in Malaysia, it was not sufficient for their access to work. Malaysian employers’ goodwill toward refugees also seemed vital. As Wake and Cheung (2016, 26) note, some Malaysian employers prefer hiring refugees to native workers, some for charitable reasons but others for exploitative ones. In charitable terms, employers seemed sympathetic to refugees’ precarious situations, while in exploitative terms, employers can pay refugees lower wages and make them work longer hours, relative to native workers (ibid.). In addition, Rohingyas’ representation as pious Muslims in Malaysia has become an important asset for them in accessing employment (Wong and Tan 2012). Interviews with Rohingya and Hazara respondents highlighted the important role that social networks played in accessing jobs in Malaysia. Rohingya and Hazara respondents were assisted by friends (from the same country) and relatives to secure jobs, as some representative interview excerpts explain: “My husband's friend helped my sons get jobs. Now, my two sons are working in a restaurant as a waiter and as a cook” (HF03). A Rohingya respondent corroborated this trend: “My relative works in a shop, a food shop. He helped me and my husband to get work. My husband sweeps up the rubbish. I also help my relative in his shop and get a small salary” (RF13). Refugees who were fluent in Bahasa Melayu and English generally enjoyed more success at finding jobs than newcomers or those who could not speak Bahasa Melayu (Hussain 2017).

Interviews also indicated that refugees with a UNHCR card were more likely to find work than non-cardholders, even though the UNHCR card was not a work permit (Hussain 2017). At the same time, many respondents noted that bribes had been a safeguard for them against arrest and detention, allowing them to continue doing informal jobs for survival. More important was the Malaysian state's soft-handed approach toward Muslim refugees, reflected in soft enforcement of laws by the Malaysian police and immigration officials when refugees were not arrested or detained when caught while travelling or working. Without the Malaysian state's leniency on refugees, refugees may not have been able to work, regardless of social networks or UNHCR cards.

As part of their life projects, a few Rohingyas and Hazaras also ran their own enterprises with the support of local Malaysians. A Rohingya refugee who had lived in Malaysia for over 7 years operated a grocery shop, renting a trading license from a local Malay businessperson. He said, “I started this grocery with initial capital of RM 7,000. Some of it was my own savings, and some I borrowed from friends. I rented a license from a Malay businessman who lives nearby” (RM06). Interviews also revealed that some Rohingyas and Hazaras ran teashops and small restaurants. While some accessed microfinance managed by NGOs, most borrowed money through their social networks of families and friends (Wahab, 2017; Wahab and Khairi 2019). It appears that in addition to financial capability — including, at least, initial capital and business and Malay language skills — a migrant's relationship with the local Malay community and businesspersons was key to running an enterprise. In the case of Rohingyas, Kassim (2015) also found that those who successfully ran businesses included educated individuals who had married Malay women or had been in Malaysia for over a decade, building good relationships with local Malaysians. For refugees, marrying a Malaysian woman provided an important pathway to settlement in Malaysia, as the refugee husband could get a spouse visa to stay in Malaysia. The refugee husband could buy properties and get trading or business licenses through their wives or wives’ relatives, and their children could obtain Malaysian citizenship (Kassim 2015).

Although Malaysian public schools did not take refugee children, a few Hazara and Rohingya refugees were also able to obtain some kind of educational training and educate their children with the help of refugee-focused NGOs or self-help schools set up by refugee organizations. According to the UNHCR Malaysia, about 30 percent of primary school-aged refugee children were enrolled in schools in 2018 (UNHCR 2018). Interviews showed that the schools or community learning centers that their children attended were run or supported by UNHCR, NGOs, or faith-based organizations, including the Sahabat Support Center of Malaysian Social Research Institute (MSRI)⁵ and Rohingya Peace Institute (RPI). Nevertheless, most parents worried about their children's lack of access to education or access to poor quality education. While a few private schools providing quality education accepted refugee children, they were too expensive for most refugee families (Azis 2014). Interviews found a few better-off Hazaras studying at Nusantara, a language center, to learn English. As a Hazara respondent explained, “I do not have jobs. It's better studying than doing nothing while waiting for the UNHCR process” (HM05). However, no Rohingya respondents were studying, since they were relatively poor and struggled to make a daily living in Malaysia.

Interviews indicated that some Rohingya and Hazara respondents volunteered in community support centers which targeted refugees from particular countries or ethnic communities. Such community centers provided a range of services to their members, including English classes, skill development training, job information, and help in accessing jobs. For instance, the Afghan Community Center supported asylum-seekers and irregular migrants from Afghanistan. Some Rohingyas also volunteered in community support centers and schools. A Rohingya respondent, holding a Bachelor of Science degree, said, “I voluntarily teach at RPI, [a community-based school providing Rohingya refugee children free education]. I feel happy that I am serving my community with my knowledge in this land” (RM20). In this way, Rohingya and Hazara refugees pursued different life projects — working, studying, and volunteering — to get by in Malaysia. With these life projects, their lives were more bearable, but not necessarily secure or free from exploitation. It was precariously bearable, as the next section demonstrates.

Precarity in Life Projects

This section examines how the Malaysian state and other actors, including employers, made Hazara and Rohingya refugees’ already-bare life precarious. Rohingyas’ and Hazaras’ life projects were precarious, characterized by low wages, work insecurity, cheating, and fear of arrest and detention. As illustrated by one Rohingya respondent, “I work as a cleaner and earn about RM 700 a month. Monthly room rent is RM 300 and utilities RM 50. Not much is left for food and other expenses. But we sometimes receive food and other assistance from Ustadz”⁶ (RF14). Hazara respondents told stories about unpredictable incomes, which compelled them to rely on Ustadz and NGOs for survival. As a Hazara respondent shared, “My husband's pay is not the same — sometimes RM 25, sometimes RM 30. We use this money to buy food and snacks. The shelter helps us when they can. They provide food” (HF02). Respondents’ monthly income rarely met the minimum monthly wage of RM 1,100 set by the Government of Malaysia.⁷ However, their working lives comprised more than just wages. Given their participation in the informal economy, Rohingya and Hazara refugees were not entitled to social protection and other forms of employment benefits, including health insurance, protection from exploitation, and compensation in case of physical injury. Some Rohingyas noted that they did not even get paid for work: “After I arrived in Kuala Lumpur, I went to work in a palm oil plantation in Alor Setar. My job was to pluck the palm oil fruit. I worked there for about three months. But the boss did not pay my wages” (RM03). Hazara respondents shared similar stories. Consistent with these findings, Azis (2014) argues that Malaysia's immigrant labor market presents the Rohingya with a work opportunity, but participation in the job market “almost always involves extortion.”

Respondents who were poorly networked and lacked Malay language skills struggled even more to access work and often remained unemployed, even when they moved between cities in search of employment. As a Rohingya respondent recounted, “We were in Klang [Selangor] for about five-six months, but we had no job there. We heard from a friend that we could get a job here [in Kuala Lumpur], and so we came. But my husband still couldn't find any job. We have to depend on Ustadz” (RF16). During their travel in search of work, some were arrested by police or immigration officials, as another Rohingya respondent shared: “After reaching Malaysia, I stayed in Johor Bahru for about 13 months with someone I knew, but I couldn't get a job. Then I tried to go to Penang to meet friends and find a job; unfortunately, I was caught and sent to a detention center” (RM15).

Rohingya and Hazara respondents also shared their experiences of being suddenly fired from jobs. In some cases, employers fired them at their discretion while in other cases, employers sacked them after law enforcement agencies strictly applied immigration rules by raiding restaurants and companies. A Hazara respondent shared his experience of being fired due to his “illegal” status: “I had a job in Pavilion. In a shop. I was working with them for 10 months. Because of the immigration rules, the Pavilion management decided not to hire any foreigners lacking a work permit. Because I didn't have any such documents, I was fired from the job” (HM08). Interviews also indicated that those without any form of UNHCR cards or documents were more vulnerable to “hire and fire.”

Given their “illegal” status, lack of access to lawful work and to education for their children, and the slow UNHCR process, Rohingya and Hazara respondents showed their frustrations during interviews. As noted earlier, some described the UNHCR's important role in intervening on their behalf, especially in negotiating for release when they were taken to immigration detention facilities (see also Azis 2014). Yet many also raised serious concerns about the UNHCR processing time and outcomes, as explained by two representative interviews: “The UNHCR here [in Malaysia] is not working properly. You know, whatever is happening in UNHCR is by chance. So many families have real, serious problems, but they get rejected” (HM14). “The UN process takes a long time, like five or six years. Even two years is a long time for us. I never knew that the UNHCR process was going to be so slow… This system honestly to me is crap” (HM17).

Interviews revealed that Rohingya and Hazara respondents experienced cheating in several respects. First, migration agents, generally from their own ethnic groups, cheated vulnerable migrants who wished to obtain legal status in Malaysia by securing a student or work visa. Most were cheated when agents promised them a work visa but, instead, provided a student visa, as the following quote shows:

I wanted to get a visa that would allow me to work here. The agent who assisted me to come here introduced me to another agent. The new agent assured me that he would secure me a work visa, for which I paid some money. He kept delaying securing my visa, and finally he suggested to me that I would get a student visa, not a work visa. He cheated me. (HM08)

Second, some Rohingya and Hazara respondents were cheated in their efforts to run businesses in Malaysia. As a Hazara woman described, “My husband was not working. He was trying to start a business here in Malaysia. He was introduced to a Malaysian guy, who promised to help us start a business. My husband borrowed RM 40,000 from our relatives. But we were cheated! He ran off with this money” (HF04). The third form of cheating relates to accommodation: “We rented a house (2-bedroom apartment) for RM 800 a month. Later, we came to know that it was too expensive for this area” (RM05). Housing problems, however, were not limited to being charged exorbitant rents. Families without UNHCR cards faced difficulties in finding longer-term rental accommodation, and some respondents shared stories about the reluctance of potential landlords or real estate agencies to provide an apartment or house for them.

In the previous sections, we saw that Rohingya and Hazara refugees were able to make a bearable bare life in Malaysia through life projects. As this section showed, however, those life projects were embedded in precarity. Not only state officials but also some local employers, migration agents, and Malaysian people were involved in cheating and exploiting Rohingya and Hazara refugees by taking advantage of their “illegal” status. Such situations added a precarious layer to refugees’ bare life and vulnerabilities. Alongside such precarious situations, with the Malaysian state's soft-handed approach toward refugees, support from refugee-focused NGOs and refugees’ life projects, described earlier, refugees lived a (mostly) bearable bare life in Malaysia.

Conclusions

Drawing on empirical research with Rohingya and Hazara refugees in Malaysia, this article has examined refugees’ views of the country in which they were living, as well as their experiences there, to understand how the Malaysian state constructed and shaped refugees’ bare life and life projects. Here, I encapsulate the article's key arguments and contributions to the literatures on transit migration and refugees’ bare lives and life projects (Biehl 2015; Missbach 2015; Sampson, Gifford and Taylor 2016; Turner 2016).

While scholars, international agencies, and the Malaysian government have viewed Malaysia as a transit country (Tedong et al. 2018; Missbach and Hoffstaedter 2020), this article showed that Malaysia was seen as a transit country for Hazaras but a destination country for Rohingyas. Since Rohingyas fled Myanmar due to threats to their lives and livelihoods with no specific transit or destination in mind, Malaysia was not their initially imagined transit or destination. However, for Hazaras, Malaysia appeared to be a transit country, since they traveled to Malaysia with the intention of making an onward journey to a third country. Malaysia is, thus, both a transit and destination country, for different groups of refugees. Rohingyas’ view of Malaysia as a Negara Tumpang — that is, long-term host-guest relationship with the country — indicates that the country was more than a temporary shelter or a through space and challenges the negative portrayal of transit as “troubled” (Missbach 2015) or a site of “intense violence and exploitation” (Vogt 2018, 25). However, Rohingya and Hazara refugees were not completely safe in Malaysia; they just felt safer there, compared to their home countries.

The article has also nuanced an understanding of refugees’ bare life in Southeast Asia, where refugees lack legal protection. The existing research on transit migration suggests that refugees, particularly in transit, live a bare life (Rajaram and Grundy-Warr 2004; Hoffstaedter 2014). Hoffstaedter (2014, 879) argues that refugees in Malaysia “are truly hanging on to a bare life.” Findings here, however, revealed that refugees in Malaysia lacked rights and legal protection but that the Malaysian state did not fully enforce laws against refugees, despite occasional arrests and detentions. Thus, their lives were not completely reduced to Agamben's bare life. Their partial subjection to laws by the Malaysian state allowed refugees some space for pursuing life projects to make their life safer and more bearable. Moreover, some evidence showed the Malaysian state tacitly and indirectly supporting refugees and not interfering with the works of refugee-focused NGOs. Unlike the United States and European countries that have signed the 1951 refugee convention (Orav 2015), Malaysia helped refugees, despite not being legally obliged to do so.

To make their life more bearable, Rohingya and Hazara refugees took on life projects, including work, studies, and volunteering, that suggest that they were not completely “on hold” (Brekke and Brochmann 2015) or dependent on the UNHCR or support provided by local communities or faith-based organizations (Hyndman and Giles 2011). However, as this article has shown, Hazara and Rohingya refugees’ participation in life projects was not uniform and, rather, conditioned by their economic positions in origin countries, their educational status, and their social networks. In this regard, the article has identified five important conditions that shaped the possibilities of refugees’ life projects in Malaysia. First, despite the lack of legal refugee frameworks, Malaysia allowed the UNHCR to operate; thus, refugees were expected to live in the country to participate in the resettlement process to third countries. Refugees with UNHCR cards were more likely to find work and less likely to be arrested and detained. Second, bribing law-enforcement agencies (police and immigration authorities) created conditions for refugees to continue their employment in Malaysia, despite not being legally allowed to do so. While rent-seeking by Malaysian authorities in the form of bribes “adds a significant cost” to refugees (Nah 2012; Azis 2014; Hoffstaedter 2019, 541), bribery also helped refugees avoid arrest and detention, allowing them to continue their life projects and make their bare life more bearable.

Third is the Malaysian economy's segmented labor market, which is short of labor to undertake the informal, low-paid 3D work that native workers shun and that is often reserved for refugees and undocumented workers (see World Bank 2019). Wake and Cheung (2016) suggest that some Malaysian employers preferred to hire refugees, not just because they provided cheap and flexible labor, but also for charitable reasons, including to help refugees make a living. Fourth, co-ethnic social networks and/or networks built with the local Malay community appear to have aided refugees in pursuing their life projects in Malaysia, suggesting the significance of such social networks for making refugees’ life more bearable. Finally, the Malaysian state appeared tolerant of refugees, particularly Muslim refugees, which helped make their lives safer and more bearable. Earlier studies have highlighted the role of refugee agency in leading meaningful lives and undertaking important life projects while neglecting the state's role (Sampson, Gifford and Taylor 2016; Hussain 2017; Huennekes 2018). While acknowledging the importance of refugees’ agency in shaping life projects, this article suggests that the Malaysian state's soft-handed approach toward Hazara and Rohingya refugees played a crucial role in making their life projects feasible.

Rohingya and Hazara refugees’ life projects in Malaysia were, however, not fully secure and were embedded in precariousness characterized by a set of adverse conditions: low wages, wage theft, job insecurity, and cheating, as well as constant fear of arrest, detention, and deportation. They faced routine police harassment, demands for petty bribes, arrest, and detention. Consequently, their precarity ran deep, and their life remained bare. This finding runs contrary to a viewpoint that the Malaysian context provides a case for “Muslim solidarity,” with religion providing “sanctuary” for Muslim refugees (Hoffstaedter 2017, 287). Evidence here shows that this “sanctuary” came with everyday precarious experiences, extortion/bribes, and harassment by law enforcement agencies and exploitation at work. Thus, I argue that religious solidarity seemed to provide a shelter for Muslim refugees, but not a full escape from bare life and precarity.

To sum up, then, Hazara and Rohingya refugees were living a (mostly) bearable bare life in Malaysia. Despite many odds, Hazara and Rohingya refugees felt safer in Malaysia than back home. While they were excluded from legal rights in Malaysia, the Malaysian state did not fully make them subject to its laws. Instead, it occasionally provided tacit support to refugees. As a result, refugees were able to undertake life projects to live a bearable life, albeit while enduring precarious conditions. To put it simply, they lived a safer and more bearable bare life. The conceptual understanding of bearable bare life, developed here, is crucial for future research on international migration, particularly in contexts where refugees lack legal protection, to generate new knowledge about how the host state, along with other non-state actors, constructs and, at the same time, supports refugees’ bare life, even in legal limbo. While the existing literature on transit migration has discussed how the host state creates bare life in transit situations (Rajaram and Grundy-Warr 2004; Hoffstaedter 2014; Biehl 2015) and highlighted refugees’ efforts to pursue life projects and a meaningful life (Mountz 2011; Sampson, Gifford and Taylor 2016; Huennekes 2018), this article has illuminated a significant role of not only refugees themselves but also the host state for making refugees’ bare life safer and more bearable. The concept of bearable bare life, I argue, offers a useful conceptual lens for future research to understand the complexity of refugees’ lives while unpacking the role of the host state, refugees themselves, and non-state actors in shaping refugees’ precarity and life projects.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Notes

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