Informal Settlements and Migrant Challenges in Yangon

This article explores the challenges and survival strategies of poor informal migrants in Hlaing Thayar township, which has the largest concentration of informal settlements in Yangon. Based on interviews with informal settlers, local leaders, and city authorities in early 2017, I show that the informal settlers rely on loose networks of relatives and on local ward and religious leaders to cope with the challenges they face. However, this does not lead to any stable form of self-organization. Constant threats of evictions and securitization by city authorities are creating high levels of mobility and feelings of insecurity, which also cause social disputes and lack of social cohesion. Simultaneously, the informal settlements sustain an informal economy and informal forms of governance by local “big people” (lue kyi), including some government officials, who benefit from illegal land sales and from providing legal documents, like household registers and land papers to the informal migrants. A core argument of the article is that the securitization of newcomers and informal settlers by the government is perpetuating rather than curbing insecurity in Yangon’s informal settlements, which could, if not reversed, lead to deeper instability.