5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

This panel seeks to bring together scholars interested in exploring the intersection between displacement, inhabitation and dignity in peripheral spaces. As more and more people are displaced and peripheralized through structural and/or episodic violence, and as housing and homes become increasingly precarious, the issue of dignity becomes more salient. Displacement and peripheralization become processes through which the dignities of people and communities are reshaped. Equally, through the provision and (self) production of housing, shelter, and other forms of inhabitation, dignity is reclaimed. In this panel, we are particularly interested in thinking about the question of dignity in the intimate space of dwelling and inhabitation and aim to explore how dignity can be placed at the core of this work and against multiple manifestations of displacement.

The panel seeks papers that explore the provision of housing and shelter – including the sites where they are located, the material nature of the housing, the processes by which these are produced for displaced and peripheralized communities and how these act as forms of bordering between communities. Is dignity considered when housing and shelter are produced for those who are displaced and peripheralized? And if so how, through what knowledge, assumptions and criteria? How do those who are displaced and peripheralized resist acts of othering and the imposition of undignified spaces? How do they reclaim their dignity through processes of inhabitation and homemaking?