Motherhood and social network: Response strategies of internally displaced Karen women in Taungoo district

This paper investigates the response strategies of displaced women, based on the oral testimonies of displaced Karen women. Contrary to conventional refugee literature, which treats displaced people as passive victims, we found that instead of feeling helpless when the men fled the relocation sites to escape the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military's abuse, women actively decided to stay back with their children and other women to maintain their social linkages, and survive in the underbelly of the SPDC by leveraging their femininity and their identity as mothers. We found that the women used the concept of motherhood as a negotiation tool to reduce the damage from their experiences of conflict and displacement. At the same time, ironically, the success of this strategy led the insurgents to include the women in their military strategies, putting them in a precarious situation between the fighting parties.