Forced Displacement: catastrophe and identity in the Humanitarian Era (Spanish State 1979 -present)
Author: Ruiz-Estramil, Ivana Belén , IVANABELEN17@yahoo.es
Department: Sociology II
University: University of the Basque Country, Spain
Supervisor: Gabriel Gatti
Year of completion: In progress
Language of dissertation: Spanish
Keywords:
Forced Displacement
, Identity
, Humanitarian Era
, catastrophe
Areas of Research:
Theory
, Law
, Migration
Abstract
I am developing research aims to study how life and identity in those who have undergone a process of forced displacement and currently residing in the Spanish State are reconfigured. The interest of this project is based on observing the vital impact that a process of forced displacement, and the biographical narrative is constructed around this phenomenon. Analytical dimensions of work are forms of identity devices catastrophe and Humanitarian Era. Humanitarian Era is the frame of reference of the project, which will serve both individuals who have gone through this process, as the institutional expertise and solidarity networks which manage appliance. Work is therefore sensitive to these two dimensions, within which the process of forced displacement is formed.
The structure follows the work is articulated around three key axes that run these two analytical dimensions. In a first, the humanitarian moral, delving into the different elements that have been the legitimizing support of humanitarian law. A second axis is the study of the construction of the "other" and the simultaneous construction process of "self" thereby paying attention to the legal regulations (protocols, laws, regulations, agreements, etc.) and coverage the phenomenon of forced displacement in the media. With these first two blocks are intended to bring arguments to a hypothesis that underlies all development work and is related to colonial and postcolonial issues that may be exacerbated by humanitarian practice as it is conceived today. A final axis aims to focus on the ways that the individual has to incorporate all that experience, the impact of the new contexts and the construction of a new type of identity under these coordinates of disintegration.
Also highlight the dual challenge facing us, first a theoretical challenge for wanting approach from sociology to the space outside the conventional frameworks of construction of modern identities, such as crossing the forcibly displaced, and another methodological challenge, therefore having to get into the limits of language, mainly in the field of life experiences, such as having to combine the language of law and international agencies, with other actors such as NGOs, governments or the very people who have lived the process, different registers and different ways of approaching the fact approached from different perspectives.
