Patterns of Im/mobility, Conflict and Identity

Mainly looking at patterns of internal mobility such as 'traditional' or strategic mobilities and mobilities enforced by crisis, conflict or governmental programmes and regimes, this book aims to go beyond currently predominant issues of transnational migration.

Patterns of im/mobility, collective identity and conflict are highly entangled. The im/mobility of a social or cultural group has major impact on how identity narratives, a sense of belonging and relationships to 'others' are shaped, and vice versa. These dynamics are closely interlinked with mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion between groups and power structures that involve a broad variety of actors from local populations, to migrants, government institutions and other intermediaries.

Mainly looking at patterns of internal mobility such as 'traditional' or strategic mobilities and mobilities enforced by crisis, conflict or governmental programmes and regimes, this book aims to go beyond currently predominant issues of transnational migration. Dynamics of non/integration and belonging, caused by im/mobility, are analysed on a cultural and political level, which involves questions of representation, indigeneity/autochthony, political rights and access to land and other resources. With ethnographic case studies from Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Bangladesh, East Timor and Indonesia, this volume provides a comparative perspective on the multifold dimensions of im/mobility in contexts where changing mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion trigger or settle conflicts and social identities are constantly re/negotiated.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Social Identities.

Autorentext

Birgit Bräuchler is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Monash University, Melbourne. She is author of Cyberidentities at War (2013, Berghahn), The Cultural Dimension of Peace (2015, Palgrave), editor of Reconciling Indonesia (2009, Routledge), co-editor of Theorising Media and Practice (2010, Berghahn) and Theorising Media and Conflict (2020, Berghahn) and has published widely in peer-reviewed journals.

Inhalt

1. Patterns of im/mobility, conflict and the re/making of identity narratives 2. 'Hunger has brought us into this jungle': understanding mobility and immobility of Bengali immigrants in the Chittagong Hills of Bangladesh 3. Interpreting conflict and integration through the reciprocity lens: mobility and settlement in a historical perspective on the Sierra Leonean coast 4. The complementarity of divergent historical imaginations: narratives of mobility and alterity in contemporary Liberia 5. Changing patterns of mobility, citizenship and conflict in Indonesia 6. Im/mobile subjects: identity, conflict and emotion work among East Timorese Meto diaspora 7. In 'no man's land': the im/mobility of Serb NGO workers in Kosovo