Submit Your Abstracts: Critical Geographic Perspectives on the State of Forced Migration in Africa

african geographical review

The African Geographical Review is now accepting abstracts for a special issue titled “Out of Place, Into Extremis: Critical Geographic Perspectives on the State of Forced Migration in Africa.” Abstracts are due October 30, 2013.

From Progressive Geographies:

This special issue of African Geographical Review seeks to provide a comprehensive, contemporary compendium of perspectives on forced migration across the African continent. This initiative draws from critical geographical analytical frameworks to elucidate the experiences, dilemmas, trends and interventions in the experience of internally displaced persons, refugees and refugee returnees from every sector of the continent. This special issue is conceived of as an analytical and empirical resource for which those scholars across disciplines, refugee advocates and humanitarian professionals may utilize to further apprehend the great complexities of the human geographies of survival forcibly displaced persons engender in their quest to locate spaces of refuge. Indeed, as Feminist Critical Geographer Jennifer Hyndman noted so presciently over a decade ago, the very acts of mobility/immobility, border crossings and the pursuit of humanitarian supports amidst grave circumstances, is both immensely spatialized and politicized.

Displaced persons endure complex ecological, political, sociological and material factors which shape the making of new geographies of everyday life amidst often dreadful conditions. This special issue intends to center geographic thought and analysis in the critical assessment of policy and practice concerning refugee and IDP policy-making, humanitarian intervention, contexts of contested borders of selves and nations, local reception and the challenges of return and reintegration. The geographies of return and so-called reintegration encompass profoundly vital questions and problematics, across scales, whereas making place upon returning to a home perhaps only known long ago, if ever, often engenders new dislocations. The spectrum of the experiences of flight to return are inherently, dynamically and vitally geographical, and therefore, it is the goal of this special issue to comprehensively consider this wide range of human experiences and processes that displaced persons often creatively contend with in the face of sharply-scaled social, economic and political barriers, borders and bureaucracies.

For more info, including suggested themes, visit Progressive Geographies.

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