11 - Spaces of displacement Flashcards
Importance of movement to history
- Important aspect of species - capacity for movement + adaptability to a very wide range of environments
- Movement creates displacement - as we move, we displaced things + took things with us
- Most important - displaced the other humanid sub-species
Pastoralists as a driving force of history - in Europe/Asia
Third approach to the production of resources for survival - hunter/gatherer, agriculture + pastoralism
- People use large grasslands called steppes to raise + herd large numbers of livestock, they move with across the landscape (in a way similar to natural animal migration)
Movement at its core
Pastoral cultures - examples
the Mongols, Huns + the Khazars
* Key part of culture - mastery of horse riding + archery
* This made them almost unbeatable opponents on battlefields
* Episodes of expansion of these groups - cause massive change
Pastoralist western expansion
Out of Asian steppes - Russia - Europe
Displaced huge numbers of people (nations would not fight, and abandon)
Cascading effect - pushing people further + further west
Forced people like Goths, Visigoths, Vandals further west
Competed amongst themselves for territory, but also against existing hegemony - the Romans
Pressure on Rome - so great that it was sacked in the 900s
Pastoralist eastern expansion
Genghis Khan - unified Mongol tribes - created an immensely powerful army
Invaded east + south - India, China,
Influence of this pressure:
* Massive fortifications - the Great Wall
* Centralised military bureaucracy
* Massive moments of population away from violence
Displacement - contemporary
- Forced movement in the face of threat - always been a major aspect of our existence as a species
- What changed is the scale + amount of populated land
- UNHCR - May 2024 - approximately 120M displaced people
- War + conflict is primary driver - but climate change + natural disaster is a very real and growing threat
Refugee camps
- Individual/family based solutions - or improvising shelter in small groups
- BUT the longer a situation causing displacement exists, more the need for an organised solution
- Refugee camps are one of these
- Spontaneous, planned or frequently both
- UN are the lead agency in most places in the world
- Estimated 6.6M people living in refugee campes
Refugee camps - primary issues
- Lack of planning
- Speed of population growth
- Location
- Lack of infrastructure
- Governance + security
- Pressure on the local community
- Vulnerability and sustainability
Refugee camps
Lack of planning
- The nature of displacement makes it extremely difficult to plan camps
- Speed, lack of locational choice + information, corruption, danger all mitigate being able to plan
- Efforts at planning often occur after its been created
Refugee camps
Speed of growth
Kutupalong camp
* Largest in the world, Bangladesh
* originally a series of disconnected camps housing people fleeing violence in Myanmar
* July 2017 - 3.4K people
* September 2017 - 7K people
* By 2020 more than 500K people
* Current is almost 1M
Causing absolute environmental catastrophe
Refugee camps
Location
- Displaced people do not normally get to chose where they live
- Very few nation states have available land - compromises are made
- The places are generally undesirable, prone to hazards, and have no infrastructure
Refugee camps
Lack of infrastructure
- Displaced people almost always arrive in refugee camps with nothing other than what they can physically carry
- Shelter, food, + water must be provided
Governance + security
- The nature of what brings people to refugee camps - violence
- People have often participated or been victims of extreme violence
- Plus the extreme conditions and close proximity to a number of different groups of people
- Overlapping and contradicting jurisdictions involving foreign aid, local and natural governments, intenal camp politics + culture and in many cases the continuing operation of armed groups (involved in the cause of the displacement in the first place)
- Lawlessness/vigilante-style justice is common
- Extremely unsafe for women and children
Pressure on local community
- Displacement is fequently the cause of conflict
- Always causes friction with the local population - especially in the case of large numbers of people
- Generally speaking, the local people will be impoverished (due to undesirable location) - competition for already scarce resources
- Governments frequently don’t consider this
Vulnerability
- Combination of all factors - very vulnerable places
Prone to - Internal + external violence
- Natural distaster
- Fires
- Hostile neighbours
- Disease
- Similar conditions in newly industrialised cities
- Intended to be used for short periods - many of camps exist for decades, leaving inhabitants with very little in term of future prospectsk
