Paper short abstract:

Protracted displacement is often understood as a static situation and the dynamics of the protractedness overlooked. This paper seek to theorise the time perspective of protracted displacement by applying the temporality of agency and understandings of relationships between past, present and future.

Paper long abstract:

A key challenge for formulating solutions for protracted displacement is the fact that the group originally displaced has changed considerably after 10, 20 or even more years of displacement. Groups have grown larger, new generations have been added, new connections have been made between people from different places. Still, however, many solutions are based on the original situation when the group was displaced. Housing is provided on the basis of the family (and the size of the family) that was displaced in the first place, return solutions considers only the very village and house that people displaced from etc. Protracted displacement is thus often considered a static state of being. And for many people this is what it feels like. People feel stuck in a present where they do not want to be - they are waiting for a future they cannot reach and which is often located in the past. However, even in this permanent impermanence, the everyday time continues to flow through routinized practices and survival strategies. In order to understand the dynamics of protracted displacement, I introduce in this paper a time perspective on protracted displacement. Taking as a starting point the temporality of agency and the understandings of relationships between past, present and future I conceptualise the time-space of protracted displacement.