Domesticity and Displacement
This is an installment in PLATFORM’s ongoing series on migration. Click here and here to read the two most recent installments.
In 2009, when my family left our home in Myanmar for a refugee camp in Thailand, we thought we would live there for one or two years before we would be relocated to “the third country.” In the camp, the future home place where refugees are resettled is the “the third country;” Myanmar was the first and Thailand was the second. Only a few days after our arrival, we met people who had been living in the camp for twelve years, and some for fifteen years. Some were even born in the camp. The camp has markets, schools, a hospital, and other amenities found in all sizeable villages in Myanmar. However, the camp was not a normal village—here we were surrounded by barbed wire; here, there were no paddy fields, no farmland. Instead, every month we stood in lines at warehouses to secure our rations for food, shelter, and fuel.
Refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border were initially established in 1984 as temporary shelters for those fleeing armed conflict, political persecution, and violence in Myanmar. Currently, there are approximately 110,000 refugees from Myanmar residing in the nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border (Figure 1), according to The Border Consortium—the NGO facilitating the distribution of food, shelter, and non-food supports to the refugee camps. Many displaced people from Myanmar have lived in the camps for generations under policies that deny them permanence. The Royal Thai Government prohibits refugees from constructing permanent buildings; only “impermanent” plant-based materials such as bamboo, leaf thatch, and eucalyptus poles are allowed. My experience of living in the camp has prompted my desire to understand this contradictory landscape in which an official narrative of transience contradicts the lived reality of long-term settlement. Every day, refugees must navigate the precarity of temporary status within spaces that have become, in practice, home—a home that is constantly repaired, replaced, and rebuilt.
Figure 1. Nine refugee camps along the east of Thai-Myanmar border overlayed on areas of deforestation (2001-2021) and protected areas. Map drawn by T.S. Hnin.
Due to the types of materials used to build and rebuild homes in the camps, refugees have also been blamed for deforestation in Thailand, even though studies (including those from the World Rainforest Movement) reveal that these accusations are often misplaced. Many of the displaced are Indigenous peoples—such as the Karen, Kareni, and Shan—who practice traditional, sustainable forest stewardship. Their land-based knowledge maintains ecological balance and avoids overharvesting.
As someone who lived in refugee camp but now studies the ecology of plant-based materials in the discipline of landscape architecture, I seek to unpack how life cycles, relationships, and systems surrounding camp building materials can help us think through the impermanence and stewardship required to maintain these structures. Landscape architecture can play a vital role in reimagining refugee settlements not as crises zones but as adaptable, regenerative systems and places. By aligning plant growth cycles with shelter repair needs, intercropping food plants in adjacent forests, and integrating regenerative and multi-scaled planning, I advocate for a shift in perspective towards “refugees” and “camps.” Regardless of the duration of one’s stay, this is one way to acknowledge the dignity, safety, and sustainability of people’s homes in camps.
Domesticity and Reworking of Spaces
Amid the enforced impermanence of refugee settlements along the Thai-Myanmar border, families find ways to transform their shelters into homes through small, meaningful adaptations. Unlike the standardized UNHCR-issued tents seen in many emergency camps worldwide, which, as Andrew Herscher argues, restrict refugees’ capacity to build, shelters in Thai border camps are built by residents themselves. Homes in the Thailand refugee camps often bear the mark of individual craft and care. Refugees build and rebuild together, cultivating a strong sense of community. Reflecting their resilience, dignity, and desire for stability, some spend time weaving beautiful patterns of bamboo sheets for their walls, some create micro-garden spaces in front of their homes, and others decorate the railings with various patterns of bamboo slats or salvaged wooden pieces creating a sense of familiarity and rootedness amid displacement (Figures 2 and 3).
Figure 2. A house with a hexagonal window and woven bamboo walls. Nu Po Refugee Camp, Thailand. 2025. Photograph by S. Lin.
Figure 3. A house with rows of flowerpots adorning a semi-enclosed front porch. Nu Po Refugee Camp, Thailand. 2025. Photograph by S. Lin.
With limited resources, residents innovate various strategies to continually repair their houses. During the rainy season, the house materials are repeatedly drenched and then dried, causing the thatched roof leaves to become brittle and the bamboo degraded. A thatch roof lasts up to two years, and repairs are required after the first year. Floors must be constantly patched. Instead of rebuilding an entire section of both floors and walls, weakened or deteriorated sheets of bamboo are replaced one by one as they reach the end of their life span. We knew it was time to repair our home when rainwater leaked through the thatch roof on a stormy night or someone’s foot fell through the bamboo floor. Our micro repairs included shifting the thatched roof leaves around, shoving new leaves in between old ones, or patching holes with plastic sheets. My uncles replaced the split-bamboo sheets that became weakened or broken with new ones throughout the year.
At the end of their life cycles, these materials continue to serve new purposes for families. Refugees, faced with scarcity, have developed sustainable habits that extend the usefulness of plant-based materials. Old thatch leaves, once removed from roofs, are often composted to enrich home garden plots or burned, with the resulting ash reused as natural fertilizer. Bamboo poles and wooden beams left over from reconstruction find new life as firewood for cooking. When materials remain in good condition, they are creatively repurposed into furniture, fences, or simple household tools. These practices demonstrate a cyclical approach to materials, which is both ecological and deeply embedded in the logic of domestic survival.
As refugees are not allowed to leave the camp or partake in employment outside the camps per RTG’s policies, they are greatly reliant on international aid. Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention on Refugees, and refugees and asylum seekers are deemed illegal migrants when outside the camp, at risk of arrest and deportation. Since 1989, Thailand has imposed a “total forest ban,” while the Wildlife Conservation and Protection Act imposes land use restrictions around the camps. These regulations rooted in both national forest protection laws and the desire to maintain the camps’ temporary legal status, mean refugees are not allowed to harvest forest products or hunt. Yearly, the Border Consortium assesses the existing housing needs of camp inhabitants to determine how much material should be made available. And yearly, due to budget constraints, they could not allocate what is needed.
The scarcity of building materials in refugee camps has unintentionally fostered a resilient and adaptive network of material exchange among residents. Rather than viewing this shortage solely as an obstacle, it is important to recognize how communities creatively navigate and respond to limited resources through collective strategies of mutual support. In many camps, when a household manages to go through the year with only minor structural repairs, they often lend their surplus rationed materials to neighbors or relatives who are in more urgent need of rebuilding or undertaking major repairs (Figures 4 and 5). Alongside lending and borrowing, a barter system is commonly used to meet urgent construction or domestic needs. Whenever my family repaired or rebuilt our house, we could source the extra materials from our neighbors who decided not to go through with the repair for the year. Usually, a set number of bamboo poles or leaf-thatch sheets would be exchanged for bottles of cooking oil, bags of charcoal, or other essential goods. These exchanges were typically negotiated verbally and governed by an abiding trust.
“My experience of living in the camp has prompted my desire to understand this contradictory landscape in which an official narrative of transience contradicts the lived reality of long-term settlement.”
Figure 4. Surplus plant-based building materials (Leaf thatch, bamboos and eucalyptus poles) stored under the elevated floors of the houses. Nu Po Refugee Camp, Thailand. 2025. Photograph by S. Lin.
Figure 5. Surplus plant-based building materials (Leaf thatch, bamboos and eucalyptus poles) stored under the elevated floors of the houses. Nu Po Refugee Camp, Thailand. 2025. Photograph by S. Lin.
On the other hand, people living in camps must at times resort to unofficial means to obtain supplies. Many residents circumvent bans on concrete or metal by informally sourcing or repurposing construction components—such as corrugated metal roofing sheets or concrete blocks for foundations—that are brought across borders, shared, and traded within the camp. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the use of metal roofing by refugee families (Figures 6 and 7). While it lasts longer than the leaf thatch, it is not only costly but has poor insulation, creating an environment that is too hot in summer and too cold in winter. Metal also creates a deafening noise on rainy days. During my final year of high school in the camp, the classroom was located on the second story of a bamboo structure that was relatively new, topped with a metal roof. During heavy rainstorms, the roar of rain pelting metal would drown out the teachers’ voices and classes would stop. At the end of the school year, approaching the summer months, the radiating heat from the metal roof was sweltering, especially with no electric fan or air-conditioner to cool us down.
Figure 6. Despite the regulations, due to scarcity of thatch and the endless cycle of repair, there is an increase in the usage of metal roofing which is costly and has poor insulation. Nu Po Refugee Camp, Thailand. 2025. Photograph by S. Lin.
Figure 7. Despite the regulations, due to scarcity of thatch and the endless cycle of repair, there is an increase in the usage of metal roofing which is costly and has poor insulation. Nu Po Refugee Camp, Thailand. 2025. Photograph by S. Lin.
“Landscape architecture can play a vital role in reimagining refugee settlements not as crises zones but as adaptable, regenerative systems and places.”
Rethinking the Future of Refugee Settlements
Facing reduced aid, restrictive policies, and constant material degradation, alternative approaches to prolong the life span of the camp-house is necessary. Modest interventions or transformations could dramatically improve daily life. For example, a natural preservation treatment for bamboo and the incorporation of hybrid construction methods that blend traditional materials with selectively used durable elements could extend structural longevity without violating policy constraints.
Refugee-led agroforestry initiatives or communal-scale or household-scale cultivation of bamboo, eucalyptus and gurjan trees (Dipterocarpus turbinatus; source of leaf thatch) could empower residents to sustainably manage their own building resources while also contributing to reforestation and biodiversity. Bamboo and eucalyptus are generally fast-growing, while gurjan trees takes five to ten years to reach maturity. A closed-loop material system can be attainable through a better understanding of the growth patterns and choreographing between the optimal harvesting period of the materials and the decay-repair-cycle of a home. While I do not expand upon this here, growing food is also a critical need in the camp. Intercropping fast-growing building plants with edible fruit trees or vegetable gardens in the camp or buffer zones will create a regenerative source of materials and foster food security for the communities. Based on my experiences, this seems achievable. Both houses we lived in the camp had backyard gardens. My mom and uncles attended agricultural vocational training by an NGO called ZOA where they were provided with seeds for a variety of vegetables. In the first home garden, we grew morning glory, lettuce, spinach, eggplant, carrot, coriander, long beans, green beans, tomato, mustard green, conima leaf, okra, kale, guard, pumpkin, chayote, and different varieties of chili. The second backyard garden had all of these seasonal vegetables with the addition of fruit trees, such as papaya, jackfruit, and avocado. We even had a trellis of betel leaf and a patch of strawberries during the cold season. The camp used to distribute seeds and equipment, and incorporating initiatives for building materials would be a logical expansion of past practices.
Integrating these regenerative design principles throughout and around the camp premises would help reconcile humanitarian and environmental goals with governmental concerns and regulations. A household-scale kitchen garden with bamboo screening will provide a family with seasonal fruits and vegetables, including bamboo shoot from young bamboo trees, privacy and enough materials to cover yearly repair work.
Similar principles could be configured to cater a larger community need. A “section” in a refugee camp means an administrative sub-group with a community committee. There can be a more holistic approach to the existing material-sharing culture in the camp, by allocating community gardens for each section of the camp, creating material treatment workshops and warehouse spaces to share the resources in rotating schedule or need-based manners. Lastly, a buffer zone could be created around the camp perimeter for afforestation efforts. Within the buffer zones, forest gardens with interplanting of slow-growing trees (i.e. gurjan, mango, longan, etc.,) and fast-growing fruit trees (i.e. banana, papaya, guava, etc.), can be introduced for the benefit of both the camp residents and neighboring wildlife. These strategies in multi-scaled and site-sensitive land use planning could help the camp residents attain a sense of security and relief, without introducing durable materials like concrete, brick, and dimensional lumber.
In order to materialize these strategies, a fundamental shift is needed—from perceiving refugees as passive recipients of aid or even exploiters of fragile natural landscapes, to recognizing them as active stewards of their environments with valuable ecological knowledge. This reframing would challenge the dominant narrative that often casts refugee camps as temporary and ecologically burdensome spaces. Instead, it will encourage policymakers, aid organizations, and host governments to see these camps as dynamic, evolving habitats capable of resilience and adaptation. By acknowledging the ingenuity and traditional ecological knowledge of displaced communities, particularly their familiarity with local plant-based materials and vernacular building techniques, a new pathway can emerge for more sustainable and culturally grounded approaches to shelter. Positioning refugee settlements as potential hubs of ecological stewardship would not only support environmental restoration in areas where degradation has occurred but also empower refugees to participate meaningfully in shaping their built environments.
Citation
T. S.Hnin, “Domesticity and Displacement,” PLATFORM, October 6, 2025.
