Displacing Territory explores the core concepts of territory and belonging—and humanizes refugees in the process.
 
Based on fieldwork with Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Jordan, Displacing Territory explores how the lived realities of refugees are deeply affected by their imaginings of what constitutes territory and their sense of belonging to different places and territories. Karen Culcasi shows how these individual conceptualizations about territory don’t always fit the Western-centric division of the world into states and territories, thus revealing alternative or subordinated forms and scales of territory. She also argues that disproportionate attention to “refugee crises” in the Global North has diverted focus from other parts of the world that bear the responsibility of protecting the majority of the world’s refugees. By focusing on Jordan, a Global South state that hosts the world’s second-largest number of refugees per capita, this book provides insights to consider alternate ways to handle the situation of refugees elsewhere. In the process, Culcasi brings the reader into refugees’ diverse realities through their own words, inherently arguing against the tendency of many people in the Global North to see refugees as aberrant, burdensome, or threatening.
 

Karen Culcasi is associate professor of geography at West Virginia University.

List of Figures
Introduction
Chapter 1: Displacing the Study of Territory
Chapter 2: The International Refugee Regime, Durable Solutions, and Territory
Chapter 3: Territory and Displacement in Jordan
Chapter 4: Pre-imperial and Anti-imperial Territories
Chapter 5: Hybrid Territories
Chapter 6: The State-Territory Nexus
Chapter 7: Refugee Camp Territories
Conclusions
Acknowledgments 
Notes 
Bibliography
Index