Abstract
Through the analysis of rich empirical data, Hovil explores how refugees create—or fail to create—spaces for belonging within the specific place in which they are living after their lives have been dislocated by conflict and displacement. She explores some of the multiple constituent components to belonging, from (amongst others) the ability to access land or other resources crucial to livelihoods, to the ability ‘to borrow salt from your neighbours’. Specifically, she differentiates between local integration as a policy-implemented solution to ending exile, and the multiple ways in which refugees create local forms of belonging despite the policy context. The case studies—which include Burundian refugees living in Tanzania and Congolese internally displaced persons struggling to belong in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo—illuminate her argument.
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Hovil, L. (2016). Living Through Exile: Belonging to the Local. In: Refugees, Conflict and the Search for Belonging. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33563-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33563-6_4
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