Paper short abstract:

The paper has a two-fold objective of documenting and evaluating the lived experiences of Afghan transnationals residing in Delhi and Kolkata, and using that to corral a phenomenological perspective on displacement in which displacement is understood as a mode of being-in-place.

Paper long abstract:

A formative experience of the 21st century, displacement, which generally describes a forced movement away from one’s home/land, is a fundamental reality of our times. However, despite being a waking reality for millions across the world, the existing literature has largely been interested in knowing ‘what goes on while one is displaced’ or ‘what it means to be displaced’. To know what goes on or what it means to be displaced, however, is not the same as understanding what it is like to be displaced and how this displacement is experienced. Interested in addressing such phenomenological inquiries, my paper will reflect on the socio-spatial negotiations of the Afghan transnationals as they dwell in displacement in the Indian cities of New Delhi and Kolkata.

In so doing, the intent of my paper is to show that displacement, which is otherwise reduced to being the antithesis of placement and a passive event, is an active condition inhering constant, continuous negotiations. In fact, my paper parts ways with the prevalent notion of displacement, which sees it either as a loss of place or approaches it as a vanguard of mobility, to argue that it must (also) be seen as a mode of being-in-place that has bearing one's idenitity and their experiences in/of the everyday.