ABSTRACT
The second chapter focuses on the postcolonial method of forced migration studies. It argues that any approach that considers situations of forced migration as exceptional to the liberal democratic life does not take into consideration the postcolonial reality of partitions, borders, developmental displacements, historical continuities in migration structure, camp-like existence of people in the colonies, etc. The mode of studying forced population flows is a matter of context, and context and method overlap in this case. Context makes a method necessary, while through a distinct method the context emerges. In the refugee studies literature, and in the general literature on forced migration, the refugee condition or the condition of forced migration is considered exceptional, following Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben. In this idea of exception there is a tremendous force of generalisation. It is based on the binary of exceptionality and banality. The chapter points out that the discussion on the phenomenon of forced migration along the line of exceptionality faces several methodological problems, such as the problem posed by the ruling concepts in this field, that of multiple units of analysis or the problem of linking forced migration studies to its context. The chapter suggests that we shall have to repeatedly visit the question of historical intelligibility of the present age of migration. This indeed will be the basis of our claim that ours is the postcolonial age of migration.
