Refuge SPECIAL ISSUE Making Homes in Limbo? Vol 31 • No 1 • 2015 Refuge Canada’s Periodical on Refugees La revue canadienne sur les réfugiés Vol. 31, No. 1 Centre for Refugee Studies, Room 845, Kaneff Tower, York University 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 Phone: 416-736-5843 Fax: 416-736-5688 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.yorku.ca/refuge Editor-in-Chief Christina Clark-Kazak Guest Editors Cathrine Brun and Anita Fábos Managing Editor Nausheen Quayyum Book Review Editor Dianna Shandy Editorial Advisory Board Sharryn Aiken, Queen’s University Laura Bisaillon, University of Toronto Scarborough Megan Bradley, McGill University François Crépeau, McGill University Jeff Crisp, Refugees International Judith Kumin, University of New Hampshire, Manchester Susan McGrath, York University Volker Türk, UNHCR Madine Vanderplaat, Saint Mary's University Founded in 1981, Refuge is an interdisciplinary journal published by the Centre for Refugee Studies, York University. The journal aims to provide a forum for discussion and critical reflection on refugee and forced migration issues. Refuge invites contributions from researchers, practitioners, and policy makers with national, international, or comparative perspec- tives. Special, thematic issues address the broad scope of the journal’s mandate, featuring articles and reports, shorter commentaries, and book reviews. All submissions to Refuge are subject to double-blinded peer review. Articles are accepted in either English or French. Refuge is a non-profit, independent periodical funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and supported by the membership of the Canadian Association for Refugee Studies (CARFMS). The views expressed in Refuge do not necessarily reflect those of its funders or editors. Refuge is indexed and abstracted in the Index to Canadian Legal Literature, Pais International, Sociological Abstracts, the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, and Canadian Business and Current Affairs. In accordance with the journal's open access policy, the full text of articles published in Refuge is also available on-line through our website, www.yorku.ca/refuge. Typesetting and production services was provided by Becker Associates www.beckerassociates.ca—professional services for non-profits. ISSN (Online): 1920-7336 Volume 31 Refuge Number 1 Contents Articles Making Homes in Limbo? A Conceptual Framework . Cathrine Brun Anita Fábos 5 “Durable Solutions,” Transnationalism, and Homemaking among Croatian and Bosnian Former Refugees . Jasna Čapo 19 Already in America: Transnational Homemaking among Liberian Refugees . Micah M . Trapp 31 Home as a Critical Value: From Shelter to Home in Georgia . Cathrine Brun 43 Microbuses and Mobile Homemaking in Exile: Sudanese Visiting Strategies in Cairo . Anita Fábos 55 Making Homes in Limbo: Embodies Virtual “Homes” in Prolonged Conditions of Displacement . Giorgia Doná 67 Book Reviews Inhabiting Borders, Routes Home: Youth, Gender, Asylum . Sandra Gifford 75 The Ideal Refugees: Gender, Islam, and the Sahrawi Politics of Survival . Jacob Mundy 77 Belonging in Oceania: Movement, Place-making and Multiple Identifications Vol . 3 of Pacific Perspective: Studies of the European Society of Oceanis . David. Lipset 79 The Point of No Return: Refugees, Rights, and Repatriation . Daniel Beers 81 3 Volume 31 Refuge Number 1 Making Homes in Limbo? A Conceptual Framework1 Cathrine Brun and Anita Fábos2 Abstract Résumé This article aims to conceptualize home and homemaking L’un des buts de cet article est de conceptualiser l’idée for people in protracted displacement . The article serves de « domicile » ainsi que le processus d’établir un domi- three purposes: to present an overview of the area of cile pour personnes en situation de déplacement prolongé . inquiry; to develop an analytical framework for under- Il répond à trois objectifs : présenter un aperçu actuel et standing home and homemaking for forced migrants in récent du domaine en question, formuler un cadre ana- protracted displacement; and to introduce the special lytique pour comprendre ce qu’un « domicile » et l’établis- issue . It explores how protracted displacement has been sement d’un domicile peuvent représenter pour migrants defined—from policy definitions to people’s experiences of forcés en déplacement prolongé, et introduire ce numéro protractedness, including “waiting” and “the permanence spécial de Refuge consacré à l’idée du domicile dans of temporariness ”. The article identifies the ambivalence l’impermanence . Il s’engage à explorer les diverses façons embedded in experiences and practices of homemaking in dont le déplacement prolongé a été défini, en allant des long-term displacement, demonstrating how static notions politiques sur le déplacement jusqu’à l’expérience vécue of home and displacement might be unsettled . It achieves du prolongement et de l’impermanence, la condition this through examining relationships between mobility d’« attente » et ce qu’on a nommé « la permanence du and stasis, the material and symbolic, between the past, temporaire » . L’article souligne l’ambivalence qui fait par- present, and future, and multiple places and scales . The tie intégrale des expériences et pratiques visant à établir article proposes a conceptual framework—a triadic con- un domicile dans des situations de déplacement à long stellation of home—that enables an analysis of home in terme . Il démontre ainsi comment des notions figées de different contexts of protracted displacement . The frame- domicile et de déplacement pourraient être mises en mou- work helps to explore home both as an idea and a practice, vement, à travers une analyse des relations entre mobilité distinguishing among three elements: “home” as the day- et fixité, entre le matériel et le symbolique, entre le passé, to-day practices of homemaking, “Home” as representing le présent et l’avenir, ainsi qu’une multiplicité de lieux et values, traditions, memories, and feelings of home, and the d’échelles . L’article propose comme cadre conceptuel une broader political and historical contexts in which “HOME” triple constellation des notions de domicile qui permet de is understood in the current global order and embedded in les étudier dans des contextes variés de déplacement pro- institutions . In conclusion, the article argues that a fem- longé . C’est effectivement un cadre qui ouvre la voie à une inist and dynamic understanding of home-Home-HOME exploration du concept « domicile », tant dans sa dimen- provides a more holistic perspective of making home in pro- sion théorique que pratique, en trois volets : « domicile » en tracted displacement that promotes a more extensive and lettres minuscules, c’est-à-dire l’aspect quotidien pratique more sophisticated academic work, policies, and practices . que constitue l’acte d’établir un domicile ; « Domicile » 5 Volume 31 Refuge Number 1 avec un « d » majuscule, représentant les valeurs, traditions, humanitarian and policy approaches to shelter and mean- souvenirs, et sentiments qu’évoque un domicile ; et enfin ingful inclusion. « DOMICILE » en lettres majuscules, signifiant le contexte In our introduction to this special issue of Refuge, we politique et historique général à travers lequel le concept de develop a conceptual framework of making homes in domicile est intégré par l’hiérarchie du pouvoir de la mon- protracted situations of displacement. By challenging the dialisation contemporaine, et incarné par les institutions . common idea that long-displaced people are necessarily in limbo, we weave a critique of the policy context of pro- Pour conclure, l’article avance qu’une approche féministe tracted displacement in a globalizing world into our frame- et dynamique constituée de ces trois volets « domicile- work, and present a concept of “constellations of home” for Domicile-DOMICILE » offre une perspective plus complète mapping the complex and multiple understandings of home du processus d’établir un domicile dans des situations de embedded in homemaking in protracted situations of dis- déplacement prolongé, et conséquemment donne lieu à des placement. We give examples of practices that illustrate the recherches universitaires, ainsi qu’à des politiques et des intersection of local meaning-making with national and applications pratiques, plus avancées et sophistiquées dans supra-national notions of home. ce domaine . This article has three main sections. We first explore the relationship between home and forced migration. We then Introduction turn to the notion of “protracted displacement,” its mag- nitude, and implications of protractedness in a globalized his issue is a small attempt to take on a big dilemma: world, before reflecting on people’s experiences of living how—and why—do people who are living in ongoing with protracted displacement. Finally, we place our concep- displacement make homes. The dilemma is more than tual framework of making home in protracted displacement Ta problem of refugee policies ill-suited to the contempor- within a feminist politics of place. ary politics of “protracted refugee situations” (PRS)—a term that initially referred to people who spend years, possibly Home and Forced Migration decades, in encampments and detention centres, but which “In some sense, the narrative of leaving home produces too we expand to include those forced migrants who go into many homes and hence no Home, too many places in which “hiding” in urban areas, who are “in transit” from one place,