A Long Journey Home: Losing and Remaking Home Following Displacement

Abstract (English)

This book examines the temporal and spatial dynamics between conflict, displacement, and home. The experiences of conflict and violence that make up the narratives of those forced to leave their communities create painful feelings of loss of a place called home and of living without a home that often last for years or even decades. At the same time, their experiences shape the multiple ways in which displaced people are creative and imaginative in their attempts to remake home on the move.

Based on extensive research over more than a decade with internally displaced people in Colombia, this book provides a critical account of how home is lost and remade by those who fled conflict and experienced serious human rights abuses.

By critically engaging with the narratives of men and women who fled after experiencing serious human rights violations, this book advances contemporary scholarly debates on the role of home for understanding meanings and experiences of displacement. By looking at whether, where and how the experience of being displaced can effectively come to an end, the book also contributes to contemporary anthropological debates on the temporality and spatiality of displacement. While the physical movement of displacement may come to an end when the ‘journey’ ends, the alleviation of the existential condition of being displaced may involve the reconstruction of the feeling of being at home.