Date of Graduation

Spring 5-23-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Migration Studies

College/School

College of Arts and Sciences

Department/Program

Migration Studies

First Advisor

Tika Lamsal

Second Advisor

Kathleen Cole

Abstract

Bhutan has gained international recognition for its philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which promotes holistic development through principles of well-being, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and good governance. Yet this celebrated image conceals a darker history: the systematic expulsion of the Lhotsampa, the Nepali-speaking ethnic minority of southern Bhutan. This study critically explores the contradiction between Bhutan's international image as a model of happiness and the lived experiences of Lhotsampa refugees who were displaced during the early 1990s.

Using a qualitative phenomenological research design, the study draws upon in-depth semi-structured interviews with six resettled Bhutanese Lhotsampa refugees living in the United States. Three participants were born in Bhutan and were forcibly displaced in the early 1990s who spent more than two decades in refugee camps in Nepal before resettlement. The other three were born stateless in those same camps to refugee parents and were resettled through the UNHCR third-country program. This generational range allowed to compare embodied memories of homeland and loss against an inherited, second-generation experience of statelessness and erasure.

Four major themes emerged from the research analysis. First, all participants rejected GNH as ever representing their well-being, describing it instead as ideological cover that gave Bhutan's exclusionary policies international legitimacy. Second, the systemic discrimination through citizenship laws, cultural assimilation policies functioned as instruments of structural removal of Lhotsampas. Third, participants described identity, belonging, and inter-generational trauma as central and unresolved, with camp-born participants inheriting their parents' grief and statelessness even without personal memories of Bhutan. Fourth, participants articulated a shared demand for international accountability and a desire for Bhutan's monarchy to acknowledge the forced nature of the expulsion.

The findings suggest that while GNH has functioned effectively as an international branding strategy, participants perceived a significant disconnect between its stated principles and the historical treatment of the Lhotsampa community. Their narratives describe how exclusionary citizenship policies, cultural homogenization, and forced migration undermined the universal ideals of happiness, inclusion, and good governance that GNH purports to represent. Rather than rejecting the philosophical principles of GNH itself, this study argues that its implementation has failed to encompass all communities within Bhutan equally.

By centering the lived experiences of displaced Lhotsampa refugees, this research contributes to scholarship on forced migration, statelessness, human rights, and nation branding. It highlights the importance of critically evaluating internationally celebrated development models alongside the experiences of marginalized populations and calls for greater recognition, accountability, and inclusive approaches to national well-being. The continued statelessness of thousands of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and the unresolved status of Lhotsampa political prisoners in Bhutan demonstrate that resettlement, while a humanitarian achievement, has not resolved the underlying injustice. This study contributes a refugee-centered, testimony-based corrective to dominant narratives of Bhutan as an exemplar of happiness-driven governance.

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