ABSTRACT
Arguments are advanced for introducing a new term, i.e. involuntary dislocation, in order to capture the uniqueness of the phenomena when people reluctantly abandon their home spaces due to various forms of upheavals, thus delineating a new field of study, different from ‘refugee studies’, ‘forced migration’, ‘migration studies’, etc. Emphasising human experience and agency, this term is an extension of the crucial differentiation between the event and the experience of the event, which also enables the distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ forms of dislocation, i.e. the experience of being dislodged from ‘feeling at home’ in one’s home as different from the actual geographical movement away from one’s home spaces. The rationale for choosing the adjective ‘involuntary’ and the noun ‘dislocation’ is discussed in detail, and six ‘segments’ of the involuntary dislocation process are identified. This discussion provides an original way of conceptualising involuntary dislocation which is truly holistic. Following discussion of the traditional classifications of migration, six categories of upheavals leading to involuntary dislocation are discerned and discussed: political, criminality, climatic, environmental, socio-economic, and psychosocial marginalisation-psychological exile.
