Children's Experience and Practice of Belonging: The Realities of Integration among De Facto Stateless Vietnamese Children in Cambodia

Abstract:Vietnamese populations currently residing in Cambodia can be broadly divided into two categories: long-term settlers who have lived in Cambodia for generations and more recent economic migrants. This article focuses on the former group, as it is their children and their children's children who are at high risk of statelessness, unlike the latter who are mostly citizens of Vietnam. Without birth certificates, these children live precarious lives in Cambodia, often in the shadows of ethnic discrimination, poverty, and violence. By using various qualitative research methods, and by emphasizing children's perspectives, the author puts forth the argument that theorizations of integration and assimilation developed in the migration literature are useful for understanding the context in which de facto stateless children in Cambodia negotiate "place belonging."