Book Launch: Borders and Margins: Cambodian Migration to Thailand

Maryann Bylander and Emmanuel Maillard

About the book

In public discourse, migrant workers are often portrayed in sensational and one-sided ways:  as either “heroes of development” or “vulnerable, exploited workers".  Such depictions obscure the reality of migration as most migrants experience it — full of ambivalence. As one young Cambodian migrant put it, going to Thailand is “half easy, half difficult; half exciting, half terrible.”

In Borders and Margins, Maryann Bylander and Emmanuel Maillard offer a complex and nuanced portrait of Cambodian migration to Thailand, through photographs from migrant sending communities in Siem Reap, clandestine border crossings, and migrant worksites in Thailand.  Photographs are supplemented with text describing the everyday lives of migrant workers, and the project is informed by sociological research on both sides of the border.

Limited copies of the book will be on sale.

Find out more about the book

About the authors

Emmanuel Maillard is a photographer currently based in Yangon.  He has spent more than six years living and working in Southeast Asia. His work focuses on exile, displacement, migration, and nomadic lives.  Borders and Margins is his first book.

Maryann Bylander is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Migration, Mobility and Development at SOAS. Prior to joining SOAS she worked in the NGO sector in Cambodia for four years, and taught at The University of Texas and Pannasastra University. Her research focuses on migration and development; migration theory; environmentally-motivated migrations; rural livelihoods; remittances; debt; microfinance; and gender.

Borders and Margins supports, and is supported by Friends International.

Organiser: Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies

Contact email: ch37@soas.ac.uk