Bakwit reflects the voices of millions of victims of armed conflicts in Southeast Asia, across Burma to the Mekong delta, and from Aceh to Papua. The book depicts suffering and inner strength of people who are not only displaced but also dispossessed in their own land. Yet, repeated official and academic explanations that refugees are helpless people are in fact a post-colonial development myth as the book vividly illustrates. Bakwit narrates the ability of displaced people to reassert their collective identity and to recreate their community in a meaningful way. Jowel Canuday's analysis is a welcome contribution to the understudied issues on forced migration in Southeast Asia and beyonds.