This short book discusses some of the urgent critical debates regarding intercultural education on displacement during turbulent times of violent and bitterly divisive conflicts, contentious border politics, ramped-up anti-migrant discourse, and repeated large-scale unsettling displacements internationally. It explores experiences of teaching in the midst of controversial refugee policies and deportation schemes – just some of many developments in the United Kingdom and elsewhere condemned strongly by several United Nations agencies. From diverse backgrounds and positionalities, the authors reflect on approaches to education that seek to deepen understandings of displacement experiences in an interconnected world as well as geopolitical responses, methodologies and representational practices.
The book argues that in university teaching on displacement, it is vital to ensure pedagogic space in and outside classrooms to carefully explore narratives on the illegality, injustices and impacts of displacements, anti-migrant initiatives and racial bordering practices. Simultaneously, it contends that creatively centring alternative epistemologies and values of care is critical for nourishing thinking on collective futures. The book draws on original research and teaching insights from a team of co-authors from Pakistan, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Italy, India, Canada, the UK and beyond – involved in teaching students from more than two dozen countries.
Reviews
Christina Clark-Kazak, Professor, School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa
‘A critical resource in the growing field of migration studies, Displacement, Borders and Unsettling Narratives inspires educators towards emancipatory, care-full pedagogical praxis. Grounded in diverse experiences from different positionalities, the ten co-authors eschew prescriptive how-tos. Rather, by engaging in reflective analysis of their own pedagogical approaches, they model different ways of knowing, doing, learning, and teaching in politicized and polarized contexts of displacement. Addressing the challenges of critically engaging with difficult topics through innovative, creative teaching methods, refreshing book is a must-read for instructors, administrators, and policymakers.’
Sharon Stein, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia:
‘This book issues an important and timely call to critically consider the role of higher education in an era of both intensifying displacement and anti-migrant violence. In doing so, it invites educators to confront the colonial root causes of migration and accept our responsibility to unsettle racist bordering processes and enable different futures.’
Alison Phipps, Professor, School of Education, University of Glasgow:
‘It’s one thing to talk analytically about displacement, borders and the jolting narratives that have pervaded the UK’s hostile environment with global ramifications for refugees and people seeking asylum. It is quite another to engage in activism within the academy and to try and demonstrate what responses, and resistance might look like when embodied. This collective work of scholarship offers a critical and reflective approach to the praxis of advocacy and activism for and with and by refugees on campus in the UK. It’s an important shift in decoloniality and does not presume to preach or theorise from afar, but to be actively seeking ways of instituting and being change. I whole-heartedly endorse this work and the approach taken by the scholars.’
Kamna Patel, Associate Professor, Faculty of the Built Environment, University of College London:
“The authors of this book have captured beautifully pedagogical practices that build anti-racist solidarity.”
Nasar Meer, Professor, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow:
“This book represents a deeply attentive and insightful intervention. Authored by critical thinkers at the forefront of generating original scholarship on bordering, and centring voices often pushed to the margins, the analysis and understanding it provides is invaluable. This is a profoundly important contribution and will be a reference point for many readers.”
MORE ABOUT THE BOOK
This output was enabled by a University of Edinburgh Principal’s Teaching Award which supported interviews and analysis on pedagogies and educational politics in relation to experiences of displacement, shaped variously by conflicts, wars, capitalist violence, climate disasters and COVID-related struggles. Combining reflexive analysis with a timely review of the state of the field, this book succinctly synthesizes and extends theoretical approaches to address shifting landscapes in education as they relate to displacement and border politics. Reflecting on examples of creative practices, its recommendations underscore the importance of continually learning about approaches to resisting colonial and racist bordering narratives, unsettling misleading rhetoric, and exploring what anti-colonial change might mean within and beyond classrooms.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Introduction: When Displacement Studies Meets ‘Hostile Environment’ Politics
1.1 Preamble: Displacement Meets ‘Hostile Environment’ Politics
1.2 Lines of Questioning and the Argument in this Book
Chapter 2. Displacement and Racial Bordering: What Next for Higher Education?
2.1 The University as What Kind of Space?
2.2 Interconnected Realms of Higher Education Politics and Debate
2.3 Navigating and (Re)Imagining Displacement and Border Politics
2.4 Positionality, Methodology and Approach
Chapter 3. Unsettling Narratives, Learning from Lived Experiences: Displacement, Borders and Explorations with Embodied Art and (Counter)Maps
3.1 Unsettling Narratives – Setting the Scene
3.2 Reflections on Migration, Colonialism and Political/Artistic Knowledge Creation
3.3 Reflections on Border Politics, Bordering Aesthetics and the Classroom
3.4 A Brief Synthesis of Pedagogic Possibilities
Chapter 4. Unsettling Narratives, Reflecting on Policy and Situated Intersectional Practice
4.1 A Brief Introduction: (Hegemonic) Policy Discourse and Situated Practices
4.2 Reflections on Teaching the Refugee Convention as a Contested Terrain
4.3 Reflections on Teaching Multilateral Amplifications of Displacement Injustice
4.4 Reflections on Intersectionality, Displacement and the Tutorial Learning Space
4.5 Synthesis thoughts on Asylum, Migration and Unsettling Policy Narratives in the Curricula
Chapter 5. Unsettling Narratives, Exploring Activism Networks: Learning in/from Counter-Hegemonic Worlds
5.1 Thinking Beyond the State-Centric Realm
5.2 Reflections on Migrant Activism, from Detention Centres to ‘Integration’ and Beyond
5.3 Reflections on Diaspora and Activism Networks
5.4 Reflections on Mobility Injustice, Colonial Displacements and Networks of Resistance
Chapter 6. Concluding Reflections on Unsettling Displacement Narratives in Higher Education
WHERE YOU CAN FIND THIS BOOK
Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Displacement-Borders-Unsettling-Narratives-Citizenship/dp/3031727665
Palgrave Macmillan/Springer: https://link.springer.com/book/9783031727665
MIT Press bookstore (US): https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9783031727665
Magers and Quinn Booksellers (US): https://www.magersandquinn.com/product/DISPLACEMENT-BORDERS–UNSETTL/27024536
Dussmann das KulturKaufhaus (Germany): https://www.kulturkaufhaus.de/en/detail/ISBN-9783031727665/Spiegel-Samuel-J./Displacement-Borders-and-Unsettling-Narratives
Kinokuniya Books (Japan): https://www.kinokuniya.co.jp/f/dsg-02-9783031727665
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University libraries will also be carrying online versions of the book
Displacement, Borders, and Unsettling Narratives 