Paper short abstract:

In a global conjuncture marked by accumulation by dispossession, many categorized as migrants and those 'natives' facing precarity share a position of displacement. When does displacement lead to the recognition of commonalities, shared aspirations for social justice, and new solidarities?

Paper long abstract:

This paper introduces the panel by querying the links between displacement, dispossession and political subjectivities. Political leaders and as well as many anthropologist assume a basic divide of identity, culture, or subjectivities between migrants and those categorized as natives. Doing so, they reinforce the binaries concretized by methodological nationalist orientations that naturalize state borders and citizenship categories. These binaries of difference obscure past and present underlying processes of global capital accumulation. A closer examination of these processes reminds us of the ways in which various forms of appropriation of labor, land, resources, and homes are interrelated. Currently, the contradictions of newly intensified processes of accumulation by dispossession intensify these connections as this relationship of capital leads to the displacement of increasing numbers of people around the world. Accumulation through dispossession displaces people through the mechanisms of war, violence, the appropriation of customary rights and the eviction of the poor through urban regeneration. Many holding formal citizenship rights share displacement and the related processes of criminalization, racialization, and dehumanization with those forced to flee their homes and cross international border These global transformation call for new displacement studies. Emerging questions include when and where does displacement lead to the recognition of commonalities, shared aspirations for social justice, and new solidarities? In what ways does our research on transnational lives, citizenship, and belonging facilitate or preclude us from being able to explore connections, relationalities, and sociabiities that can fuel global struggles for social justice?