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Introduction: Representation and Displacement
Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB eva-lotta.hedman@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Independent Researcher Graeme.rodgers@displacementanalysis.com
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The concern with representation and displacement runs deep in refugee studies. It also cuts in different directions, ranging from perspectives focused on the legal reliability of refugee claims, for example, to the politics or aesthetics of claiming refugees as humanitarian subjects. Of course, such concerns also resonate with a wider post-structuralist condition characterized by an acute awareness of the inherent problem of representing others.
This special issue highlights how representations of displacement routinely shape processes and outcomes of displacement, with particular focus on localized and often highly politicized contexts. As the papers show, the social production and reproduction of diverse forms of such representation may signify the consolidation of new political communities, or uncover and stoke up existing latent political tensions related to gender,