Abstract

This chapter reviews the literature on gender and forced migration, situating this discussion in critical humanitarianism and debates on human security versus state security. While acknowledging existing scholarship on refugee women, the chapter highlights the need to study the spatial domains—home, work and the public sphere—in which displaced women’s identities are shaped. The chapter also signals the paucity of research on internally displaced people (IDP), including women. The chapter uses the case of Kachin internal displacement at the China–Myanmar border to illustrate the distinct challenges that IDP women face, reflected in their invisibility in the wider literature on forced migration. Since 2011 civil war has precipitated internal displacement in northern Myanmar. Such displaced people are not recognized by the 1951 Refugee Convention as “refugees” since they have not successfully crossed an international border. Denial of refugee identity and protection accentuates the vulnerability of IDP women as wives, mothers and citizens.