Sustainability and Social Justice

Home and forced migration

Document Type

Book Chapter

Abstract

This chapter examines the meaning of home and its evolution in the interdisciplinary field of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies over the last seven decades. From an initial phase in which home was implicitly rather than explicitly studied, we now witness burgeoning literature on home. Connecting scholarship and geo-political realities, we identify the three main phases of this transformation. From the 'classic' notion of home that overlaps with the nation-state in Phase I, through the critique of the 'refugee cycle' scholars explored the multiple meanings of home in Phase II. Home was viewed as multi-scalar, diverse and translocal. In Phase III, scholars document processes of belonging and estrangements and the proliferation of contingent, fragmented and precarious home(s) that have unsettled the meaning of home. We suggest a contrapuntal, mobile, rhythmic understanding of home in displacement that brings to the fore ambiguities, complexities, and the messiness of home for forced migrants.

Publication Title

Handbook on Home and Migration

Publication Date

6-15-2023

First Page

42

Last Page

54

ISBN

9781800882775

DOI

10.4337/9781800882775.00011

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