Bangkok and the Urban Governance of Displacement

Bangkok has emerged as a nodal urban site through which contemporary forms of migration and forced displacement are governed, extended, and normalized. Rather than functioning simply as a destination for migrants and refugees, the city operates as an active mediator that absorbs displaced populations while deferring durable legal recognition, political belonging, and secure protection. Drawing on critical urban theory, feminist political economy, and migration studies, the chapter analyzes how displacement in Bangkok is managed through regulatory ambiguity, temporariness, and selective incorporation rather than resolved through integration or rights-based frameworks. Economic inclusion through labor markets coexists with political exclusion, producing conditions in which migrants and refugees remain permanently present yet provisionally governed. Particular attention is given to gendered labor in domestic work, care, hospitality, and informal sectors, where migrant women sustain urban life and social reproduction while remaining legally marginal and socially invisible. The concept of temporally stretched displacement is introduced to capture the protracted and indeterminate condition generated by renewable permits, deferred asylum procedures, and prolonged waiting. By situating displacement within everyday urban governance rather than exceptional sites such as camps or borders, the chapter reframes Bangkok as a fractured urban space in which mobility is regulated through time, labor, and legal uncertainty, highlighting the growing role of cities in contemporary displacement governance.