Displacement, Emplacement, and Migration

Migration is one of the most prominent cultural, socio-political, and economic questions of our time. Whether internal or cross-border, whether voluntary or forced, migration occurs for a variety of factors that are influenced by and rooted in regional and national, local and global interrelations, social and technological networks, organisations and institutions. In speaking about migration, one cannot ignore the possible intensification of migrants feeling displaced and their effort to re-embed their lives in host localities. The concept of displacement evokes images of being cut off from social and physical worlds that one calls home, which generates differentiated accounts of dispossession, disruption, and dislocation. The feeling of being cut off pushes migrants to open up and advance the notion of place-making or emplacement. Everyday place-making or emplacement is material and effective, resulting in migrants leaving traces in the places they cross. Emplacement, therefore, is a place-making practice where migrants repeatedly tell stories about their former homes, maintain connections to imaginary or real places of belonging, and reorganise the new homes into common categories.
“Displacement, Emplacement, and Migration: An Interdisciplinary Collection of Essays” examines the impact of the interlocking relationship between displacement, emplacement, and migration. Contributors bring the perspectives of history, art, politics, films, and literature to bear on discussions of belonging, home, dislocation, and identity politics for individuals and groups in the current migration studies landscape.