Howard Adelman

In a protracted displacement situation, refugees are sequestered in camps without right of mobility or employment; their lives remain on hold and stagnate in a state of limbo for a long period. This book reviews the situation and results of research and policies that have left refugees as a forgotten group in protracted situations. The work features case studies by experts who conducted field work examining long-term protracted refugee situations in Nepal, Thailand and Bangladesh, the protracted internally displaced (IDP) situation in Sri Lanka, and the refugee and IDP situation in Afghanistan. Also discussed is an emerging protracted refugee and IDP problem in Iraq. The volume concludes with an analysis of the lessons learned and the applications for policy, and incorporates a valuable bibliography detailing research in this hugely important area. This is a critical resource for academics and policy makers concerned with migration and governance issues.

No Place to Call Home

Protracted Displacement in Asia

Elazar Barkan

Refugee displacement is a global phenomenon, uprooting hundreds of millions of individuals over the last century. Yet until the 1980s, repatriation, or the right of return, was not a focus of refugee policy, and though it might enjoy a privileged position in today's debates, repatriation remains an elusive outcome for many victims of ethnic conflict. According to Howard Adelman and Elazar Barkan, the roots of this disconnect lie in the modern transformation of repatriation into a universal right, which undermines political solutions to refugee crises. Surveying cases of ethnic displacement throughout the twentieth century, Adelman and Barkan juxtapose the empirical lack of repatriation against the belief in the right of return as it has evolved since the 1940s, revealing its distortion of international efforts at conflict resolution, as well as its prolonging of ethnic and national conflict and aggravation of the fate of the displaced. They find that repatriation only takes place when identity, defined by ethnicity or religion, is not at the core of the displacing conflict, and when refugees do not make up a minority in their original country. Rather than perpetuate a ritual belief concerned with national aspirations, Adelman and Barkan call for rehabilitation policies that treat the suffering of the displaced, and they share ideas for policy that respect the different displacements and tensions between refugees' conflicting rights.

Howard Adelman

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