Displaced

A collection of oral histories that reveal the loss of cultural continuity, identity, shifts in family responsibilities, gender roles and fractured relationships between generations that are just some of the challenges people face as they attempt to rebuild lives and communities.

*Winner of the Cecil B. Currey Book Award from the Association of Third World Studies*

'This is a very timely and extremely important book which puts local people first in addressing the costs of international development across two continents: Africa and Asia. The immediacy of displacement and the resettlement experience is the framework with which the authors and those interviewed reveal the tragedy of dispossession as well as the spirit of resilience and recovery. For several decades policy makers, practitioners, and academics alike have called for a refocus on 'people' in development. This book does just that by giving voice to those affected by development-induced displacement. I predict that this will become a major work in the field of development studies.' Dawn Chatty, professor in Anthropology and Forced Migration, Refugee Studies Centre, Department of International Development, University of Oxford

'This is an exciting, outstanding, and welcome addition to the literature on displacement and forced migration as a result of development and resettlement. The depth and breadth of personal narrative covered here provides an emphasis on the actual voices of the displaced, as well as the diverse experiences of those affected by large projects, thereby increasing the sense of their agency.' Pablo Bose, assistant professor, Department of Geography, University of Vermont

'No matter where the rivers are dammed or the mines dug, the outcome of such initiatives in all cases is invariably the impoverishment of project area people. This volume, based on interviews with the affected people conducted in half a dozen countries in Asia and Africa, gives them a unique opportunity to tell the world in their own words what it means to be displaced, and abandoned to face the challenges of rebuilding the lives without any semblance of resettlement assistance. For policymakers, in particular, this book should be a compulsory reading, because policies made so far without taking the ground realities into account have often turned out to be nothing but an exercise in futility. An important contribution to the discussion on methodological issues in resettlement research.' Hari Mohan Mathur, visiting professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi

'This powerful book conveys through vivid oral testimony the direct human cost of displacement, whether to make way for state dams or for commercial mining, forcing out people from their homes and land, scattering their kin, and shattering their economies and cultures.' Paul Thompson, emeritus professor in Sociology, University of Essex

'This is a timely and eloquent wake-up call from the voices of the unseen and unheard casualties displaced by development. With vivid realism, these voices bring alive the terrible trauma and human costs so prevalent with displacement and forced resettlement. Let us hope that the lessons in this book provoke and inspire more humane and just approaches with the increasing millions who will be displaced in coming years.' Robert Chambers, research associate, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex

OLIVIA BENNETT is a writer, editor and researcher in development information and publishing. She developed and ran the oral testimony programme of activities at Panos London, UK, and continues to advise on oral testimony in the development context.

CHRISTOPHER MCDOWELL is Reader in International Politics at City University, London, UK. A political anthropologist specializing in population displacement, he has undertaken consultancy and advisory work on resettlement issues for UN agencies, governments, banks, and NGOs.