Chapter 5: Displacement and Asylum

Interviews with:

Oliver Bakewell, Cathrine Brun, Stef Jansen, Maja Korac, Helen Taylor.

Leaving and going back ‘home’ are ordinary actions most people perform in their everyday lives. We cannot, however, take for granted that leaving home, and especially ‘going back home’ are options open for everybody. The experiences of millions of displaced people, within and across borders, who rather than ‘leaving homes’ are forced to ‘leave their homes’, make the connection between people, places and home much more complicated. This is not only because being forced to leave a place one calls home ‘hurts’ (Loizos, 2008), but also because for many of those living in conditions of displacement return is no longer an option and remaking a home could take generations (Hammond, 2004b).