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Journal of Refugee Studies 2008 21(4):454-475; doi:10.1093/jrs/fen043
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© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Journal of Refugee Studies issue: Special Issue: Invisible Displacements [View the issue table of contents]

Involuntary Immobility: On a Theoretical Invisibility in Forced Migration Studies

Stephen C. Lubkemann

Anthropology and International Affairs, George Washington University, 2110 G Street, NW, Washington DC 20052, USA

Stephen.Lubkemann{at}gwu.edu

This study of two seemingly counter-intuitive phenomena—‘involuntary immobility’ and ‘socially fortuitous wartime migration’—seeks to reveal important limitations in the theoretical framing of the interdisciplinary field of forced migration/refugee studies. In the Mozambican context, I demonstrate that the forms of disruption and disempowerment usually attributed to wartime movement were more often produced by involuntary immobility than by migration per se; even while wartime migration paradoxically resulted in forms of empowerment for at least some social actors. I argue that the implicit conflation of migration with displacement that currently serves as the definitional point of departure in forced migration/refugee studies, not only renders invisible an entire category of people who suffer a form of ‘displacement in place’ through involuntary immobilization, but also distorts our analysis of the experience of wartime migrants themselves.

Key Words: involuntary immobility • displacement in place • transnational polygyny • Mozambique

MS received March 1, 2008 ; revised MS received September 1, 2008
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