Panel 2: Displacement and Resettlement in Southeast Asia: Everyday Practices and Perspectives

Convenors: Liana Chua (Brunel/Cambridge, liana.chua@cantab.net) and Becky Elmhirst (University of Brighton, R.J.Elmhirst@brighton.ac.uk)

Panel abstract

This panel centres on the small-scale workings, effects and experiences of displacement in the lives of Southeast Asian populations. While population mobility is nothing new to the region, displacement - both forced and voluntary - has played an especially prominent role in the political, socio-economic and cultural developments of the last half-century.Whilst many recent analyses have considered the intensification of displacement by focusing on wider processes of commodification and dispossession across the region, this panel considers the everyday experiences of displacement and resettlement, focusing on the ways in which both are made through the often mundane practices of those involved. Contributors are invited to examine the everyday, quotidian dimensions of specific case studies of displacement and/or resettlement – including (but not restricted to) development-induced displacement (e.g. infrastructure or estate crop development), displacement following extreme environmental events and conflict-induced movement.Papers will explore how displacement is experienced and conceptualised on the ground, by the very people involved in it. We also ask how the fine-grained study of kinship, religion, gender and other micro-level concerns can contribute to the comparative study of displacement, politics, statehood and development in Southeast Asia.

Instructions for interested participants: please contact the convenor in the first instance