Paper short abstract:

Protracted displacement is often understood as a static situation and the dynamics of the protractedness overlooked. This paper seek to theorise the time perspective of protracted displacement by applying the temporality of agency and understandings of relationships between past, present and future.

Paper long abstract:

A key challenge for formulating solutions for protracted displacement is the fact that the group originally displaced has changed considerably after 10, 20 or even more years of displacement. Groups have grown larger, new generations have been added, new connections have been made between people from different places. Still, however, many solutions are based on the original situation when the group was displaced. Housing is provided on the basis of the family (and the size of the family) that was displaced in the first place, return solutions considers only the very village and house that people displaced from etc. Protracted displacement is thus often considered a static state of being. And for many people this is what it feels like. People feel stuck in a present where they do not want to be - they are waiting for a future they cannot reach and which is often located in the past. However, even in this permanent impermanence, the everyday time continues to flow through routinized practices and survival strategies. In order to understand the dynamics of protracted displacement, I introduce in this paper a time perspective on protracted displacement. Taking as a starting point the temporality of agency and the understandings of relationships between past, present and future I conceptualise the time-space of protracted displacement.

Paper short abstract:

This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork with Iraqis in Cairo, examines the implications of uncertain exile for temporality and well-being. Drawing on Iraqi refugees’ narratives, I consider how uncertain conditions, and refugees’ efforts to cope, re-configure concepts of time and life trajectory.

Paper long abstract:

For Iraqi refugees in Egypt, life in exile is construed as uncertain, unstable and temporary. In this paper, based on ethnographic research on Iraqi refugees' experiences of instability in Egypt, I consider the effects of conditions in the country of first asylum for refugees' conceptions of time and the future. Drawing on data from participant observation, interviews with refugees and service providers, refugee testimonies as well as archival research, I describe Iraqi refugees' uncertain conditions in Egypt and explore how these conditions affect refugees' perceptions of temporality. Second, I discuss implications of these conditions for refugees' well-being, and consider ways in which refugees seek to resolve conditions of instability. This paper argues that the experience of being in an unstable state of asylum, in conjunction with refugees' efforts to cope with uncertainty, has implications for the health and well-being of refugees that relate to experiences of war trauma and persecution, but which are not directly attributable to them. Instead, refugees' suffering, and their efforts to address this suffering, is best understood in terms of refugees' narratives, which include both expressions of suffering related to conditions of insecurity and instability as well as moral claims about their rights to re-establish their lives. These narratives illustrate the ways in which concepts of time and trajectory are reconfigured in contexts of uncertain urban exile.

Paper short abstract:

Some Tibetan, Afghan and Burmese refugees live in Delhi for the past 21 years. How do they manage in dealing with waiting, living with uncertainty?

Paper long abstract:

The first Tibetans arrived in India in 1959, the first Afghans in 1979 and the first Burmese in 1988. A few years later some of them were in Delhi, seeking asylum.

From this time onwards, some of them live in the capital city of India, waiting either to go back, to settle down with proper rights to do so or to go further (to the West).

I propose to examine how refugees deal with waiting (a change of the political situation in their country of origin, the determination of their status, an appointment to get resettled) and live with this uncertainty. For the one who lead political activities, what strategies do they develop to maintain their struggle alive for so many years? What choices do they make in order to prepare for their future and to shape the options proposed to them? How do they manage to project themselves, even temporarily, in a country that keeps them in a transit state, which is at the very core of their status?

These questions will be answered with ethnographic data collected in Delhi between 2001 and 2006 among refugees and through an internship at the UNHCR Delhi.

Paper short abstract:

Displacement creates uncertainty and upheaval, it also invites a response and action from forced migrants. At stake is every aspect of peoples’ lives including identity, subsistence and authority. Using an intersectional analysis, the paper examines how refugees manage dilemmas relating to change, opportunity and loss in exile.

Paper long abstract:

Displacement inevitably creates uncertainty and upheaval, it also invites a response and action from forced migrants at a number of levels simultaneously. When exile becomes protracted, the question of how best to manage uncertainty and strategize for the present and future, is compounded. Not only is it likely that forced migrants' individual and collective expectations and aspirations will change over time, but it also quickly becomes clear that experiences will vary considerably within and between 'communities' or groups. At stake is every aspect of peoples' lives including personal and collective social and other identities, livelihood and subsistence activities, and leadership and authority structures.

Based on ethnographic research with conflict generated Sudanese Acholi refugee populations in Uganda over more than a decade, this paper explores the way in which dramatic changes in personal circumstances led to a number of dilemmas relating to the management of social transformation for members of this refugee group. It argues that while displacement brought change and uncertainty to all, for different individuals this was experienced negatively in terms of losses of various kinds, or positively in terms of new opportunities, aspirations and activities. Questions of gender and generation proved predictably important in this respect, but did not alone provide a sufficient explanation as to why some people were more successful than others in (re)-establishing life projects and pursuing goals. An intersectional analysis is therefore employed to reflect on the diverse and intersecting characteristics which appear to be influential in these respects.

Paper short abstract:

Displacement dispossessed Bosnian refugees. Recovery includes the resumption of materially-qualified life, what I term repossession. Repossession is achieved through dynamic interplay between the affective influence of new material absences and presences, and the reflexive construction of new rhetorical stances regarding materialism.

Paper long abstract:

"I only brought my name with me." So says Semira, former refugee from Prijedor, current British citizen. "I can't have knives in my house because of what happened," confides Šemsa. Whether taken, destroyed or disavowed, absent objects have powerful affective presences for these women. Loss, injury, and despair are felt and framed through past and present dispossessions. Reflecting on ethnographic research undertaken in 2010-2011 amongst Bosnian former refugees residing in Britain, I conceive of dispossession as fundamental to the individual and social experience of displacement. And yet, the story of this displacement does not end with loss, injury, despair and dispossession. Semira brought only her name, but she has since bought the cot in the living room that her grandson rests in. Šemsa cannot have knives in her house, but she has two new kittens who would otherwise be banished to the gardens and streets in Bosnia. In this paper, I pluck what I term 'repossession' from amongst the myriad strategies and practices that constitute the labour of life-resumption after refugee displacement. Repossession is achieved through dynamic interplay between the affective influence of new material absences and presences, and the reflexive construction of new rhetorical stances regarding materialism. Just as it has been observed that when a refugee becomes a citizen and a diaspora member, bare life becomes politically-qualified (Agamben 1995, 1998), so repossession realizes materially-qualified life. I examine how the attainment of materially-qualified life through repossession inflects both personal recovery and the construction and consolidation of a Bosnian diaspora.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the connections between precariousness of human lives and social transformations in the context of conflict-induced displacement in South Sudan.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I examine the connections between precariousness of human lives and social transformations in the context of conflict-induced displacement. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among displaced South Sudanese Nuer in Egypt and Kenya and following trajectories of refugee return to Western Upper Nile in South Sudan, I analyse tensions among the 'returnee' and stayee young women and men in post-war South Sudan. These tensions revolve around changing social norms related to gender and generational orders and they are mirrored in different aspirations and life-making projects employed by returnees and stayees. I argue that to understand the type of gendered and generational displacement uncertaintities brought about by the 1983-2005 war in South Sudan one needs to contextualise them within the wider historical context of social transformations and displacements in Sudans. Using the concept of precarious lives (Judith Butler) I critically examine Lubkemann's argument of the effects that displacement has as a process on other mainstream processes of social transformation. I argue that while displacement and forced migration are part of wider historical processes that affect social transformations, the type of precariousness and uncertainties that war-induced displacement brings often reconfigures gender and generational relations in abrupt, dramatic and contradictory ways. While for some displacement and post-war return opened up possibilities of positive change and empowerment in terms of improving their social status, others suffered loss and further subjugation. I analyse these diverse changes in collective and individual aspirations, social and self identities, life/place-making practices and projects in the context of nation-building in South Sudan.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the lives and livelihoods strategies of Somali women in Johannesburg, and argues that the fragmented, uncertain, and unsupportive socio-political context of South Africa creates a new sense of "buufis" (longing to go abroad) amongst this group of forced migrants.

Paper long abstract:

Forced migration is a traumatic and uncertain process: for women who flee structured societies where gender and family norms are carefully scripted, migration offers both new opportunities to break free of traditional restrictions, but also poses new challenges in how societies are regulated and social norms governed. This paper draws on original empirical evidence to understand the effects of displacement and settlement on Somali women's lives and livelihoods. It argues that although settlement in Johannesburg provides women with new political and economic resources, it also weakens social norms, particularly those relating to marriage, divorce and maintenance, that women traditionally relied on to ensure stability and support for themselves and their children.

Paper short abstract:

Internal displacement in Colombia is an ongoing phenomenon that has dramatically changes more than 3 million lifes. This article focuses, through interviews and life histories, on the pain of loss and the process of reconstruction of identities of the displaced families.

Paper long abstract:

There are around 3 million people who have been forcefully displaced from their homes as a direct or indirect consequence of the armed conflict in Colombia. Threats, human rights violations, forced recruitment and armed confrontations have pushed millions of people, into moving to major cities in search for opportunities or state help which often isn't received or isn't enough. In Bogotà, as the city that receives the most of both displaced and economic migrants, they don't encounter any type of basic service so they are forced to relocate illegally and manually construct temporary shelters that have become shanty towns on the outskirts of Bogotà.

In the ethnographic research that I have developed in these marginal neighbourhoods around Bogotá through interviews and life stories "real" time vanishes into an emotional succession of events, idealized lost paradises, unknown future paths and impossible dreams of return. The displaced people talk about an irreparable break in their cultural and socio-economical way of life.

Despite of the deep loss suffered by these people, their migration is changing the shape of major cities, the role and participation level of women in the urban life, the rural-urban relation all over the country,…and could determine in a non-distant future the possibility of a real change in Colombian society.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which uncertainty has become a constitutive element of a subjectivity defined as “refugeeness”. By presenting the “mood of precariousness” invading the everyday lives of refugees in Turkey it will question the ways in which uncertainty also serves as a governing mechanism

Paper long abstract:

There is no doubt that forced migration has many causes, occurs in different contexts, acts upon diverse peoples and lands them in different predicaments, which shape their displacement experience and identity processes. However idiosyncratic one's experiences of events leading to or proceeding forced displacement might be, though, labels have structuring consequences in real life. Globalized discursive and institutional mechanisms have led to the production of a universalized and standardized "refugee" identity that has come to be characterized as a condition of homelessness, statelessness and loss of identity, which in turn serve as the main frames of reference for those displaced in making sense of their daily lives, suffering and predicament (Soguk 1999; Malkki 1995). In this paper, based on fieldwork conducted in Turkey, I argue that uncertainty is also a constitutive element of a subjectivity defined as "refugeeness." The detailed legal and institutional mechanisms set in place to determine refugee status, combined with the highly peculiar and restrictive asylum policies of the Turkish state justified by "security" concerns, situate refugees in an extremely ambiguous predicament and equally serve as a constant reminder of the uncertainty of their status. This "mood of precariousness" invading the everyday lives of refugees in Turkey, has a powerful governing effect. Refugees arriving in Turkey are contained and de-mobilized through uncertainty and indefinite waiting, which in turn, can serve as a psychological deterrence mechanism against seeking 'legal' asylum. As such, this paper also seeks to explore the ways in which uncertainty serves as a governing mechanism.

Paper short abstract:

This three-year ethnographic study investigates Bosnian ethnic and religious identity maintenance in a post-migration setting following the uncertainty of displacement following the Balkans war.

Paper long abstract:

ABSTRACT: After experiencing the uncertainty of forced migration following the 1991-95 Balkans war, Bosnians of Muslim, Croatian, and Serbian heritage have re-constructed community life and redefined themselves as a diasporic group in New England. This three-year, comparative ethnographic study of 42 refugees living in New England investigates how ethnic groups divided by war overcome differences and rebuild both ethnic and pan-ethnic communities following resettlement. The findings reveal variant outcomes in the levels of interethnic cooperation and religious identity maintenance between the Boston, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut Bosnian communities. Demographic variables, such as ethnic composition, education, skill sets, and rural/urban origins, are found to impact the way each community has defined itself in a post-migration setting. This discussion also addresses secular Islam and illuminates the opportunities and challenges of being a European Muslim in the United States following the events of September 11, 2001.

Paper short abstract:

South Sudan became an independent state on 9 July 2011. The moment of opportunity that independence represents is marred by a climate of continued insecurity. This paper analyses the challenges and opportunities facing youth in South Sudan in their efforts to overcome the current climate of uncertainty resulting from a legacy of war and displacement.

Paper long abstract:

On 9 July 2011, the Republic of South Sudan became the world's 196th independent nation. The country has made significant progress since the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that marked the official end of a protracted war that resulted in the displacement of over 4 million people. The moment of opportunity that independence represents is, however, marred by a climate of continued insecurity and tribal clashes often related to uncertainty over landholdings. Additional challenges are posed by the massive return of refugees and internally displaced persons, whose arrival in already deprived areas puts further strain on the limited local resources. Inter-generational conflict is not uncommon, as the exilic experiences - including access to formal education and income generating activities - of many younger returnees have created expectations of a "modern" way of life perceived as largely incompatible with traditional agro-pastoralist livelihoods and social relations. Based on fieldwork conducted in South Sudan in 2009 and 2011, the proposed paper presents an analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing young people in South Sudan in their efforts to overcome the current climate of uncertainty resulting from a legacy of war and displacement, and contribute to the sustainability of their newly independent nation.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the contested reconstruction of Nahr el Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp destroyed by the Lebanese Army in 2007, its effect on those displaced and the re-conceptualisation of “refugees” as a security threat. The paper is based on intermittent field research in the camp from 2007 until the present.

Paper long abstract:

The Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are produced by specific modes of governance that has made camp-based refugees the country's poorest and most marginalised group. These are not traditional environments, but artificial ones seeking to contain, in the words of the Michel Agier, "the most...undesirable populations of the planet". Agier's critique takes its theoretical cue from the philosophers Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault, especially the notions "space of exception" and "biopolitics" which is used here to theorize the reconstruction of the Nahr el Bared refugee camp in Tripoli, North Lebanon. In 2007, the camp was destroyed by the Lebanese Army and the about 30,000 refugees displaced in the largest battle in post-civil war Lebanon. The ruins of the Nahr el Bared camp are now a "hyperghetto" where the residents suffer from strict surveillance and segregation in what could be called a "permanent state of emergency". Rebuilding the camp has been delayed by complex ownership issues to land and property and the camp's reconstruction "securitised" by the Lebanese Army. At present, only about 1,000 of the about 5,500 displaced families have been able to return, the remainder are internally displaced, living temporarily in other camps or rented apartments. In Lebanon four refugee camps have been destroyed never to be rebuilt, telltale signs that ruined camps remain just that; ruins. To understand why, this paper analyses the contested reconstruction of Nahr el Bared, its effect on those displaced and the re-conceptualisation of "refugees" as a security threat.