Scholars and policymakers rarely examine the liminal spaces at the fringes of the refugee discourse, or those ill-defined transitional zones between the three ‘stages’ of displacement, linearly defined for institutional convenience as flight, exile, and ‘durable solution’. Those researchers that do find their task challenging and their audience limited. Very little data exists on ‘failed’ asylum seekers after deportation for example, or self-settled refugees that forgo affiliation with humanitarian assistance organizations, or refugees that survive on border crossings, often and ‘irregularly’ passing back and forth as a survival strategy to avoid dangers that do not so clearly adhere to geopolitical boundaries.
What about those refugees that voluntarily eschew the confines of camps, the depravity of their dignity, and the worthlessness that comes with unending structural dependence, and instead go underground or return ‘home’, prepared instead to face the consequences or die? Very little is written of them, or life in a twenty-year-long resettlement queue. Continue reading “Wood Houses” →
