Women Uprooted: Authenticity and Transgression in Biographies of Displacement

Abstract

The global events and issues of recent history have resulted in new social problems that are, by and large, framed in new categories of knowledge and discursive frameworks. These constructions transcend already established disciplines, such as sociology, political science, anthropology or philosophy, and incorporate others, such as geography, urban studies, cultural studies and women studies. In this compound, while notions of democracy, justice, citizenship, civil society, and political economy still play an important role, there is the added emphasis on issues of power and hegemony, and symbolic economy expressed through representational forms of all kinds. International migration is one such global event. As it is increasing in various forms and quantities, we realize this kind of displacement is not merely a demographic issue, or an issue of policy making, or simply a matter of quantities. Migrations across the world have created marginal populations within host societies whereby issues of difference, pluralism and representation have come to question the established analytical frameworks of disciplines like sociology, ethnography and anthropology and have introduced new forms of writings known as postcolonial works.