ABSTRACT
This chapter offers metaphors for postwar reconstruction exemplifying how such efforts unfold. Resettlement occupies the middle ground in a multiscalar approach, somewhere between the total geography of a sovereign nation-state and the intimate space of a home. The noun ‘settlement’ can be interpreted in two ways: as an agreement related to conflict resolution or a location where a group of people establish a community. The globalisation of resettlement and shelter provision presents an interesting contradiction across economies of scale. Postwar resettlement programmes focus on a war-devastated population long neglected in national development agendas. The chapter examines how housing provision activates emplacement ontologies and how housing materialities form part of the vocabulary of postwar reparation or colonisation as the case may be. It focuses on projects advanced by India as an extraterritorial relief provider. The design of a total village community points to an important tension between individuation and community identification within resettlement practice.
