Belong: Geographies of Displacement, Refuge and Longing
In this talk, I probe a simple but important question about belonging, especially when one is violently uprooted and displaced. Based on a series of research projects that I have carried out with refugees in Tucson over the last six years, I explore contestations of belonging and exclusion to understand how different individuals have navigated, negotiated and produced social space since they were displaced from their homes and uprooted from their homelands. Accordingly, I ask: What does it mean to belong to a place, and how does our belonging inform our sense of self? What if one’s sense of place was marred with violence and tragedy? What does it mean to be “home” when one has inhabited multiple places? The theoretical concepts that I explore in seeking answers to these questions are grounded in deeply human stories as a way to contextualize abstract concepts in lived contexts. I engage these abstract themes with the voices of people whose lives were violently upended by forces beyond their control to better understand the affective and lived experience of displacement and resettlement.
Date: 8 March 2023, 16:00 (Wednesday, 8th week, Hilary 2023)
Venue: Dyson Perrins Building, off South Parks Road OX1 3QY
Venue Details: Desert Room (1st floor School of Geography)
Speaker: Orhon Myadar (University of Arizona)
Organising department: School of Geography and the Environment
Organiser: Ariell Ahearn (School of Geography and the Environment)
Organiser contact email address: ariell.ahearn@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Part of: SoGE Economy and Society Cluster Events
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Ariell Ahearn Ligham