ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the broad ways in which transnational practices by refugees, migrants, and supportive citizens could be said to prefigure Refugia. Many diaspora groups have created transnational bodies that could serve as partial models of governance for Refugia. In some cases, transnational elections have been held that sustain viable transnational institutions. Proto-Refugia also exists in the realm of culture, seen in the transnational mobility of art, music, dance, poetry, language, festivals, and sport. For example, Music Action International works with refugees and other traumatized people to transform their lives through shared musical experiences. The importance of ethnically based networks in urban and other neighbourhoods where refugees and other migrants gather and create communities has long been understood. Research has underlined the importance of social bonds outside migrants’ particular ethnic groups for the kind of economic and social cohesion that Refugia would need to foster.
