Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Refugees, Agency and Social Transformation
Philomena Essed, Georg Frerks and Joke Schrijvers

PART I: 'REFUGEEHOOD': CLAIMING SPACES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Chapter 1. Refugeehood, Loss and Social Change: Eritrean Refugees and Returnees
Gaim Kibreab

Chapter 2. Repatriation: Angolan Refugees or Migrating Villagers?
Oliver Bakewell

Chapter 3. Space and Movement in the Sri Lankan Conflict
Oivind Fuglerud

Chapter 4. Contested Refugee Status: Human Rights, Ethics and Social Responsibilities
Philomena Essed and Rianne Wesenbeek

PART II: REDEFINING IDENTITIES AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Chapter 5. A Life Project out of Turmoil: Displacement and Gender in Colombia
Donny Meertens

Chapter 6. Permanent Refugees: Female Camp Inhabitants in Bihar
Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff

Chapter 7. New Opportunities: Angry Young Men in a Tanzanian Refugee Camp
Simon Turner

Chapter 8. Identities and the Sense of Belonging: Iranian Women Activists in Exile
Halleh Ghorashi

PART III: DISCOURAGING POLICIES; EMPOWERING AGENCY

Chapter 9. A Community Empowered? The Bosnia Project in the U.K.
Lynnette Kelly

Chapter 10. Refugee-generated Return: the Case of Guatemala
Anita Rapone and Charles Simpson

Chapter 11. Between Victim and Agent: Women's Ambivalent Empowerment in Displacement
Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake

PART IV: CHALLENGING DICHOTOMIES: RELIEF VERSUS DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 12. Refugees between Relief and Development
Georg Frerks

Chapter 13. Rethinking the Relation between Relief and Development: 'Villagisation' in Rwanda
Dorothea Hilhorst and Mathijs van Leeuwen

Chapter 14. Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid: Supporting Internal Refugees in Sri Lanka
Joke Schrijvers

Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index

The refusal or reception of refugees has had serious implications for the social policies and social realities of numerous countries in east and west. Exploring experiences, interpretations and practices of 'refugees,' 'the internally displaced' and 'returnees' in or emerging from societies in violent conflict, this volume challenges prevailing orthodoxies and encourages new developments in refugee studies. It also addresses the ethics and politics of interventions by professionals and policy makers, using case studies of refugees from or in South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the Americas. These illustrate the dynamic nature of situations where refugees, policy- makers and practitioners interact in trying to construct new livelihoods in transforming societies.

Without a proper understanding of this dynamic nature, so the volume argues overall, it is not possible to develop successful strategies for the accommodation and integration of refugees.

Joke Schrijvers is a Social Anthropologist, Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, University of Amsterdam.