Displacement and citizenship are intricately connected in the contemporary flows of forced migration, internal displacement due to conflict situations, and development-induced migration. A primary site on which claims to cultural citizenship are constructed is memory. This is particularly true for the regions this book focuses on: South Asia (India, Bangladesh), Latin America (Peru), Europe (Germany, Austria), and Africa (Reunion island, Namibia, Rwanda). Each of these societies has been marked by displacement, caused either by colonial policies of land capture, slavery, indentured labor, and partitions, as well as modern immigration.
This book seeks to explore the multiplicity of memories and experiences of belonging and exclusion. The collected volume draws from the wide fields of literature, humanities, and social sciences to reflect on the questions of displacement and citizenship from different vantage points.