Susan Banki studies the political, institutional, and social contexts that explain the roots of and solutions to human rights violations and social justice abuses. In particular, she is interested in the ways that questions of sovereignty, transnationalism, and citizenship/membership have shaped our responses to conflict and injustice, particularly examining institutions such as the international refugee regime, diasporas, and the humanitarian system. Susan's focus is in the Asia-Pacific region, where she has conducted extensive field research in Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh and Japan on refugee/migrant protection, statelessness and border control. Her current projects include: the work of diasporas in responding to acute crises at home; humanitarian responses to complex displacement contexts; and the role of creative arts in transnational activism.
Deportees/Criminal Deportees
Ethnic Discrimination Or Persecution
Forced Conscription
Government/State Actor Persecution
Climate-Related Issues
Prison Conditions
Religious Discrimination Or Persecution
Statelessness & Lack of Nationality Documentation
Coercive Population Control
Written regularly, in both academic and popular press, about Bhutanese and Burmese diasporas. Served as a COI for Bhutan and wrote several affadavits.
- Banki, S., Adhikari, I. (2024). Aligned and shifting identities in distant diasporas: a multigenerational examination. South Asian Diaspora. [More Information]
- Banki, S. (2024). Bhutan’s Democratic Growing Pains. Current History, 123(852), 147-152. [More Information]
- Banki, S. (2024). Migrant Artists and Migrating Art from Myanmar: Expanding Activism. Journal of Intercultural Studies. [More Information]
- Banki, S. (2024). Porosity on the Thailand-Myanmar border: before and after Myanmar’s 2021 coup. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. [More Information]
- Banki, S., Pasha, S. (2023). Refracting Rights from the Margins: Re-shifting, re- scripting, re-inventing. Australian Journal of Human Rights, 29(3), 447-452. [More Information]
- Banki, S. (2023). Refugee Mobilization in the Nepal-India Borderlands: Porosity as Opportunity. Journal of Refugee Studies, online. [More Information]
- Banki, S. (2020). Myanmar: the country that 'has it all'. Journal of Southeast Asian Human Rights, 4(1), 128-139. [More Information]
- Banki, S., Ghimire, B., Khanal, H. (2019). Displaced but not Disempowered: Bhutanese Refugees and Grassroots Activism. Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 43(2), 37-56.
Ethnic Karen and Rohingya in Burma