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Call for Papers for a Panel ‘Home Coming’ or new displacement: Politics of
place, identity and belonging in the context of “return” migration
Conference: Conference of the African Studies Association in Germany, "Embattled Spaces, Contested Places", University of Cologne, 30.05 - 02.06.2012
http://www.vad-ev.de/2012/

Deadline for Paper Proposals: 31.12.2011 - please consult the conference website for the instruction of the submission of paper proposals. 


If you require further information, please contact the panel organisers directly: 


Ulrike Schultz, Adventist University, Friedensau, Germany, [log in to unmask]
Katarzyna Grabska, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland, [log in to unmask]

(http://www.vad-ev.de/2012/index.php/de/panels2012/conenvir-negspat/126-panel102012) 

Panel Abstract:

Within
the context of displacement and forced migration, displaced persons are often
perceived as being ‘out of national order of things’ (Malkki 1997), as uprooted
and having lost their ‘belonging’, ‘identity’ and ‘culture’. Such assumptions
about people and place point out to ‘rootedness in a place’ as the ‘natural
condition’, and hence, in the policy discourses, ‘returning home’ is often
perceived as the best solution for displaced populations. Movement and
migration are thus seen as states of exception, rather than part of a lifecycle.
Within such contexts, displaced persons are confronted not only with different
forms of belonging but also with highly politicized collective identity
formation whereby they are often ‘forced’ to determine where they belong. Thereby
belonging in the sense of collective identities is usually connected to a
physical place. In the context of flight and displacement “home” is often
constructed as a place where people ‘belong’ to and where they should go
eventually back. Politics of place also forces people to “return” to places
which are constructed as their “homes”, that are often perceived as static. Furthermore
referring to a lost home as a place where the displaced can be finally “in
place” (Anthias 2006) is often used in a context where specific minority groups
are denied full citizenships rights. By fixing culture and identity, politics
of place helps them on the one side to organize and feel a sense of belonging
which has been often often jeopardized by traumatic experiences.
Such assumptions ignore
the wider politics of ‘place’ and ‘home’ and the dynamic processes of creating
a ‘sense of place’ (Basso 1998). While displaced persons undergo social
transformations during their migratory trajectories, so do places and ‘homes’
that they leave behind. Whereas ‘returning home’ can be a solution for some to
a long experience of flight and feeling out of place it can also be experienced
as a new displacement.  Moreover,
feminist analyses have also helped to deconstruct the idea of ‘home’ as a safe
place, pointing out to the oppressive power relations that might keep certain
groups and people (especially women) in subordinate positions within the space
of ‘home’. Lastly, these assumptions ignore the culturally generative agency of those who
deploy a range of mobility strategies to assess and cope with crisis and loss
generated during displacement. 
 
This panel proposes to
critically investigate the notions of ‘place’ and ‘home’ as constructed,
experienced and lived in the process of displacement and emplacement. We
welcome papers that investigate critically the politics of place and the static
notions of ‘home’. We are interested in contributions that discuss, analyse,
and compare how African people experience place in the context of so-called ‘return
migration’. We are looking for papers theorizing the process of ‘home- coming’
and ‘returning’ and the ways these processes are linked to different forms of actively
creating, negotiating and transforming hybrid identities.  We are
especially interested in contributions that, following the ideas of Stephen
Lubkemann (2010): 
a) examine how agents interact in and with
historically constituted and specific political, economic, physical and social
fields, 
b) analyse the effects on actors of the mobility of
significant social others--and thus takes the reconfiguration of social
relations, identities and ‘belongings’, opportunity structures, and power as
its central problem; and 
c) thus ultimately recognize the social
constitution of both the physical and social components of “lifespaces” against
which a sense of emplacement is rendered meaningful to social agents.

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