Anthropologists of forced migration have advanced unique perspectives exploring identity and community as they relate to space. With its critique of naturalized conceptions of rootedness, boundedness, and territorialization, anti-sedentarism stands as an important conceptual development emanating from this work. And while expressions such as ‘sedentary bias’ and ‘sedentarist thinking’ are found throughout this body of literature, anti-sedentarism per se has not received a proper treatment of its disciplinary underpinnings and relevance to the anthropology of mobilities. This review article identifies some of the genealogical traces of anti-sedentarism, discussing it through anthropological contributions in both the cultural and mobility turns. Informed by the work of anthropologists of forced migration, the shape of anti-sedentarism takes form, followed by a critical discussion on key debates related to this concept. A selection and review of migrant and refugee ethnographies produced during the mobility turn (from the 1990s onward) is then used to explore the extent which anti-sedentarism has translated to the empirical work of anthropologists and ethnographers engaging with displacement, dispossession, and deterritorialization.
CITATION STYLE
Parent, N. (2022). ANTI-SEDENTARISM AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF FORCED MIGRATION. Suomen Antropologi, 46(2), 10–29. https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.v46I2.110269
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.