The Trade-Offs of Legal Status: Safe Migration, Documentation, and Debt in Southeast Asia

Maryann Bylander, associate professor of sociology, explores the costs, risks, and unfreedoms produced alongside migrant regularization in Southeast Asia. Based on multisited ethnography, and informed by a decade of experience researching migrant communities in Cambodia, the book describes the experiences of Cambodians confronting Thailand’s intensifying documentation regime.University of Hawaii Press, 2024. 258 pages.