483
Biographical Perspectives on the Interrelation of Armed Conflicts, Migration, and Social Transformation
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC38 Biography and Society (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
Research on (forced) migration often focuses either on refugees’ experiences and positionalities in the societies of transit and arrival, or on political institutions and organizational frameworks of asylum and “bordering”. However, the complex interrelation between trajectories of escaping violence and social transformation in the context of war are rarely put in the center of (forced) migration research.
While collective violence such as (civil) war or armed conflict are major causes of (forced) migration and refugee movements, it should not merely be looked at as causing various forms of mobility. Instead, escaping from collective violence also means migrating within the framework of a dynamic process of social transformation. Especially the anthropology and (micro-)sociology of violence involve reconstructing the processes of transformation, the shattering and (re-)emergence of social order in the context of armed conflicts and collective violence. This approach requires paying attention to the socio-historical genesis of a conflict, its processuality, and shifting figurations between individuals and groupings.
This session will explore how biographical research can contribute to empirically linking questions from sociology of violence with questions from forced migration/refugee studies. We invite papers which use life (hi)stories to explore the interrelation between social transformation, collective violence and migratory trajectories. The following topics might be addressed:
- Changing constructions of belonging in the course of escape from armed conflict
- Transformations of refugees’ biographical trajectories and changing figurations between individuals and groupings in the context of collective violence
- Meanings and transformations of transnational networks in relation to social change induced by violent conflict