ABSTRACT
This chapter offers multi-perspectivity and a nuanced understanding of the meaning of return, the issue that comes to be the most troubling and the most enduring consequence of having been evicted. In the event of violence-trigged displacement, the return to family homes becomes an issue of a political, legal, economic, and of a moral nature. The issue of return remains one of the most conflicting and painful issues for the displaced KP families, with strong disconnect between the officials, members of the host communities, the family advocates, the families that yearn to return, and the families that are repelled by that very idea. Just as the families use their own calculus to support either their longing to return or their reluctance to return, the officials, guided by their positions, engage in separate calculations, debating whether to send the families back to where they may be exposed to more harm or to sustain them on subsidies, thus delaying this contentious issue. Thus, while bringing to clarity the meaning of return, this chapter exposes the dilemma of return not only for those displaced but also on the attempts of the policy makers to encourage the KP families to return.
