Beyond Human Displacement(s)
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Linköping university - Department of Culture and Society (IKOS)
Master´s Thesis, 30 Credits – MA in Ethnic and Migration Studies (EMS)
ISRN: LiU-IKOS/EMS-A--21/04--SE
Beyond Human
Displacement(s)
- Spacetime Stories of Agency in Parable of the
Sower by Octavia Butler
Bianca Lange
Supervisor: Claudia TazreiterBEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
PREFACE
Entering this thesis subject; beyond human displacement(s), I try to do so with an open
mindspace and open heartspace for the importance of all living things to matter as a part of a
bigger whole. I want to expand the migration studies field to embrace also more-than-human
entities and explore what this could mean for future possibilities of living together in shared
worlds. My view is that worlds are shared by all living things, human and more-than-human
alike and that we need to start counting all of our relations and entanglements with each
other, even the unpleasant one. Being interrelated does not mean being kin or friends, it
means that we cannot pretend that we are separated from each other. The connections are
multidimensional and polytemporal from a new materialist ontology and agency, as we live,
we all do agency in different forms. So how does displacement look like coming from
migration studies if more-than-humans and humans, all living entities, do agency and how
does this affect displacement as having been a research field for humans exclusively? In this
thesis project I am in the position of an intra-acting component. I do not wish to stand on the
outside of this thesis looking in, rather I am already tangled up with the thesis subject itself.
My position cannot be separated from the text itself. At the same time being all tangled up
can be messy, that is rather the point, trying to separate entities into dichotomies such as
society and nature is not do-able. It can’t hold, coming from my perspective in this thesis,
since truly seeing all living entities as interconnected calls for messy entanglements where no
species is immune from the precariousness that comes from these connections. That does not
mean that there are no boundaries, boundaries can be made from within, and that is also
something that I will emphasize in my own positioning as a researcher, this is not hybridity in
process, it is rather partial connections of boundary-making. I, as a researcher, make
boundaries from within rather than in a dualistic mode of me and Other. This thesis is thereby
trying to move beyond traditional modes of research with a linear research structure with
clear boundaries between theory and methodology, these will be intertwined and entangled,
not without boundaries but with an effort to make boundaries from within. An
interdisciplinary approach will guide the research process of this thesis, since clear
boundaries between different disciplines will be crossed, in all its messy entangled
possibilities.
1BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
ABSTRACT
In this thesis project, the aim is to explore displacements beyond the familiar usage in
migration studies associated with ’human’ by using a new materialist/s understanding of
ontology and agency. This approach opens the possibility to move beyond the understanding
of displacements as referring only to human agency. The fictionalised story, Parable of the
Sower, is used in the thesis as the real-world ontological world-building storytelling and the
questions that flow from the aim of this thesis is used as a guiding navigator within the main
story to see what other stories emerges; The Earthseed Story, The More-Than-Human Stories
and The Human Stories. Displacement(s) beyond human agency from a new materialist
outlook show the complexity and challenges of being interconnected and codependent in a
world containing multiple stories that move in and out of spacetime refuturing. This occurs
both as dystopia and utopia, as agency is in-the-making and ongoing reshaping of
territorialization and deterritorialization making all-the-flesh moving boundaries of being
displaced and in-place in a belongings-non-belongings continuum. For future research,
multispecies displacement(s) is discussed as ongoing processes of both; dystopian and
utopian storytelling, and the possibilities for refuturing shared worlds.
Keywords: Migration studies, New materialism(s), Ontology, Agency, Displacement(s),
More-than-human, Parable of the Sower.
ACRONYMS
SF; Science Fiction, when Haraway (2016) uses this term she also embraces SF as having
world-building properties.
DID; Development Induced Displacement.
IDP; Internally Displaced Persons
2BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to especially thank my supervisor Claudia Tazreiter for guiding me so gracefully and
excellently throughout this thesis project, you really helped me manifest into text my vision
for this thesis. I want to also thank my mom for her social support. And finally my daughter,
for always keeping me in line with the most important parts of doing life together.
3BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
CONTENT
PREFACE 1
ABSTRACT 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3
CONTENT 4
1: INTRODUCTION 5
1.1: THE AIM OF THIS THESIS 7
2: SPACETIME-TRAVELING AGENCY: SOME THEORETICAL ONTOLOGICAL BACKGROUND STORIES
AND INTRA-ACTING RESEARCH 8
2.1: ONTOLOGY AND THIRD STORIES/GEOSTORIES 9
2.2: AGENCY IN AGENTIAL REALISM 11
2.3: INTRA-ACTING RESEARCH METHODS 12
2.4: DECOLONIAL CRITICISM OF NEW MATERIALISM(S) 13
3: DISPLACEMENT(S) : PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES 15
3.1: INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT 15
3.2: DEVELOPMENT-INDUCED DISPLACEMENT 17
3.3: CLIMATE-INDUCED DISPLACEMENT 21
3.4: DISPLACEMENT AS A MULTIFACETED EXPERIENCE OF TEMPORAL SPACIALITY 22
3.5: THE PRODUCTION OF NATURE: DISPLACEMENT OF NATURE 25
3.6: ANIMAL DISPLACEMENTS: CLIMATE CHANGE, THE HUMAN IMPACT AND ZOONOTIC
DISEASES 27
4: DISPLACING DISPLACEMENT(S): SOME DECOLONIAL STORIES ON SOVEREIGNTY 30
4.1: FLESH AND THE MORE-THAN-HUMAN 31
4.2: VIOLENCE AND LANGUAGE 32
4.3: AGENCY AND POWER 34
4.4: AFFECT AND CRISES 35
4.5: SECURITY AND SOIL 36
5: THE MAIN STORY: PARABLE OF THE SOWER 39
5.1: THE MAIN STORY IN SHORT 40
5.2: THE STORIES WITHIN THE MAIN STORY 41
5.3: THE EARTHSEED STORY 41
5.4: THE MORE-THAN-HUMAN STORIES 43
5.5: THE HUMAN STORIES 45
6: CONCLUSION: BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) 48
6.1: LIMITATIONS WITH INTRA-ACTING RESEARCH 50
6.2: POSSIBILITIES FOR FUTURE STORIES AND RESEARCH: MULTISPECIES DISPLACEMENT(S) 51
WORKS CITED 53
4BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
1: INTRODUCTION
To be alive at this moment in time very often feels like watching a bad movie, or several, of
capitalist systems preaching progress and modern solutions until there is no way back from
our own destruction. To live in a world where systematic oppression, human displacement
and species extinction is normal, causes an outcry for other possibilities , other stories or
alternative futures to hold on to. It is important what stories make worlds and what worlds
make stories as Haraway (2016) would say. It is important because it is related to ontology,
which system we chose to make the world, to make reality. New materialism(s) is leaving the
structuralist idea of dualism, the idea that places the human in the middle or makes a
separation between I/Other. Following new materialism(s) ontologies, the world system, and
all units are interconnected (Dolphijn and van der Tuin, 2021). In this sentiment agency is not
a fixed state, neither is it relating to power structures of dualism. In this sentiment, all living
matter do agency.
Displacement, as used in migration studies, is often used as describing human movement
from a place that is no longer liveable for several reasons such as the forces of development,
environmental disasters or human-made conflicts. In capitalist systems, embracing almost
every society in the current world(s) many people experience displacement, both as
cross-border experiences from war but also as internal displacement, displacement that occurs
within state borders such as internal conflicts, climate changes, both long-term and climate
disasters as well as displacement due to infrastructural development projects (Cohen, 2004;
Terminski, 2013; Kälin, 2010; Perls, 2020; IMDC, https://www.internal-displacement.org,).
Other scholars write about displacement as a process blocking people from the knowledge,
practices and the life- sustaining qualities of their land, without necessarily any physical
movement such as Mollett (2014) who uses the term displacement-in-place. With a different
emphasis, Nixon (2011) uses the term slow violence to refer to how this type of displacement
can be ongoing for generations before the violence starts to be visible in terms of people’s
everyday lives. These displacements not only affect the current space and time of being
displaced but also displaces possible futures (Mollett, 2014). I am interested in how
displacement can be understood from a new materialist outlook on ontology and agency, an
outlook that does not put humans at the center of the world, an exploration beyond only
5BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
human displacement as previously understood within migration studies. To explore
displacements beyond human agency I am turning to science fiction (SF) and its qualities for
imagining other worlds.
The well known SF book by Octavia Butler from 1993, Parable of the Sower describes a
dystopian future in America in 2024, where the infrastructures have almost been demolished
and the polarization between rich and poor are universal in difference. The main character
Lauren Olamina is living in a small community of families trying to stand against the poorest,
most desperate humans and animals outside their gates but end up having to flee her home
when it's ravaged and end up, as so many other displaced people, on the road looking for a
better future. This dystopian science fiction story will be the animated world of my study.
This means that the story of Parable of the Sower will be used as descriptive scenery of our
own world and spacetime realness for example climate changes, internal displacement(s) and
more-than-human- to human relations. Parable of the Sower will be used in the thesis for its
stories of descriptive sceneries of future possibilities on displacement(s) in regard to how new
materialism(s) does not separate into dichotomies those phenomenon such as human and
more-than-human or society and nature. In this thesis, therefore, Parable of the Sower will be
analysed by its world-building properties. In other words, the stories within Parable of the
Sower and their importance as world builders and discursive sentiments. In this way, the
real-time stories within Parable of the Sower become metaphors for irl events and it is not the
text for itself that will be explored but what these metaphorical stories have the possibility to
describe and make as ontological storytelling1.
This thesis does not follow a typical research structure2, this is a choice of trying to step
out of the epistemological dominance that traditional research structures often uphold,
alongside the dominance of bearing universal truth claims in the knowledge that they
produce. This thesis is trying to be a part together with the knowledge produced and the
researcher, me, is trying to be within these stories instead of on-top-of-them. The structure of
the thesis is as follows; in the first chapter the thesis-subject and aim is introduced. In the
second chapter the ontology base of new materialism(s) is introduced in relation to agency,
this chapter also presents an outline for intra-acting research and some decolonial criticism of
new materialism(s) in relation to Indigenous epistemologies. In the third chapter some
1
This thesis has no intention to do a deep literary analysis of Parable of the Sower. The intention here
is to sketch out stories for future possibilities of world-building where displacements can embrace
more-than-human entities within migration studies.
2
A typical research structure is, in this thesis, understood as a structure with clear and separated
boundaries between methodology, theory and analysis.
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previous research within migration studies on (human) displacements is discussed together
with some future possibilities for displacement being used as a concept beyond human
experiences and agency. In the fourth chapter displacement(s) as a concept is displaced itself
by some decolonial stories on sovereignty from a new materialist outlook on ontology, this
due to how agency is so closely tied to human exceptionalism. In the fifth chapter the main
story Parable of the Sower is visited as real time events and the stories within the story in
relation to the aim of this thesis are analyzed together with the ideas and criticism discussed
in the previous chapters three and four, on displacement(s). In the final chapter of this thesis,
the questions flowing from the aim of this thesis are concluded and some limitations with
intra-acting research are discussed together with some concluding suggestions for future
research.
1.1: THE AIM OF THIS THESIS
The aim of this thesis is to explore displacements beyond the familiar usage in migration
studies associated with ’human’ by using a new materialist/s understanding of ontology and
agency. This approach opens the possibility to move beyond the understanding of
displacements as referring only to human experience and agency.
The inter-related research questions that flow from this aim are:
1. How can we understand displacement beyond the human?
2. In what ways are different entities being displaced?
3. Who is considered an agent?
4. What are the relations between displaced agents/non-agents?
7BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
2: SPACETIME-TRAVELING AGENCY: SOME
THEORETICAL ONTOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
STORIES AND INTRA-ACTING RESEARCH
New materialism or New Materialism(s) is a term coined in the 1990s to describe a
theoretical turn away from the persistent dualisms in modern and humanist traditions whose
influences are present in much contemporary cultural theory (Dolphijn and van der Tuin,
2021). New materialism(s) are ontologies that share the following theoretical foundations:
a. anti-dualism, b. radical immanence, c. transversality and d. posthumanism (Schadler,
2019). Anti-dualism refers to how there cannot be dualistic separation of dichotomies such as
I/Other where the radical immanence refers to how things are within, such as, there is no
separation between outside/inside when we refer to a subject/phenomena. Transversality
refers to how categories or spaces intersect without hierarchical structure, for example how
nature can intersect into society. Posthumanism as part of new materialism(s) refers to a
break-up with former structural understandings of power hierarchies as fixed in position and
the binary dichotomies as anti-dualism but with the difference that new materialism leaves
the postmodern focus on language and culture and focuses instead on nature and materiality.
The aim with this thesis is to explore displacements beyond the human by using a new
materialist/s understanding of ontology and agency to be able to move beyond the
understanding of displacements as belonging only to human agency in migration studies. This
chapter will therefore focus on the ontological ideas within new materialism(s) and the ideas
on ontology together with stories by Haraway (2016) and Latour (2014) and the agential
realism of Barad (2003). This chapter is an outline of the theoretical background for the thesis
aims as well as the theoretical framing used. New materialism(s) makes no separation
between observer and observed and I will therefore not separate myself from the text but
rather with the emphasis on radical immanence and anti-dualism, I situate myself in the
research which will be further explained at the end of this chapter where I explain my ideas
for an intra-acting research model for this thesis.
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Zizek (2014) argues in his book Absolute Recoil: Towards a New Foundation of
Dialectical Materialism that new materialism(s) has only re-inscribed humanist values by
extending agency, vitality and social phenomena to non-humans and in this way new
materialist thinking still rests on traditional modern thinking. I do not agree, I believe that
new materialism(s) have the potentiality to give a more complex understanding of the world
and especially in this thesis where I want to explore beyond human agency in relation to
displacement(s), an approach which calls for other stories and ontologies to be able to move
beyond a dualistic “outside” system with I/Other or binary dichotomies of agency. New
Materialism(s) in this sentiment, makes us recognize phenomena as multi-system
entanglements where agency belongs to new locations and other entities/species (Coole and
Frost, 2010). Coole and Frost (2010) further points out how matter is not just mere matter but
active relations, matter is alive, literally.
2.1: ONTOLOGY AND THIRD STORIES/GEOSTORIES
Haraway (2016) describes a system of being/ontology of interconnectedness and
codependency with partial connections but not hybridity in her book Staying with the
Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. She argues that we need to stay with the trouble of
living and dying together and that it is precarious business to sit at the table together when
you can be eaten. Haraway (2016) compares two ontological systems, the sympoiesis system
and the autopoietic system. The former is “collectively- producing systems that do not have
self-defined spatial or temporal boundaries. Information and control are distributed among
components. The systems are evolutionary and have the potential for surprising change
(Dempster, 1998). The latter is “self-producing autonomous units with self defined spatial or
temporal boundaries that tend to be centrally controlled, homeostatic, and predictable.”
(Haraway,2016). In a sympoiesis system there are no more utopian dualisms but tentacular
thinking of oneness, no totalism of hybridity but partial connections , staying with the trouble
of precariousness, of being alive with other species/critters on Gaia. Haraway (2016:13)
argues that “ like all offspring of colonizing and imperial histories, I-we-have to relearn how
to conjugate worlds with partial connections and not universals and particulars”. This means
that we need to learn other stories, other ontologies to be able to move beyond the ontologies
of a white, western dualism of a universal modernity built on the stories of capitalism,
patriarchy and colonialism. Haraway (2016:11) presents in her book the Chthulucene, a place
9BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
of Terrapolis, a place shed of masculinist universals and their politics of inclusion, full of
significant otherness:
Terrapolis is open, worldly, indeterminate, and poly-temporal.
Terrapolis is a chimera of materials, languages, histories.
Terrapolis is for companion species, cum panis, with bread,
at table together- not- posthuman but “com-post”.
Terrapolis is an equation for guman, for humus, for soil, for ongoing risky
infection,
for epidemics of promising trouble, for permaculture.
Terrapolis is the SF game of response-ability.
It is important how we make worlds, such as that of the Chthulucene, ontology is as Haraway
(2016) points out, interconnected with storytelling and how we make stories, since stories
make ontologies and ontologies make stories. Haraway argues that we need to tell other
stories or third stories, as she calls them, where the former props, of the tragic one hero and
world-maker story told by Progress and its evil twin Modernity, become active agents.
Chtulucene is a suggested third story, a net bag for collecting what is crucial for staying with
the trouble.
Haraway (2016) also uses the concepts of geostories by Latour (2014) which holds the
same meaning as her thirdstories. Those who tell geostories are the “Earthbound'' according
to Latour (2014), they are the ones who transcend from the plots of modernity and the
dualistic division of society and nature. Latour (2014) believes that matter in itself is animate
which means that matter concentrates all the agencies since existence, or matter, is
synonymous with meaning. In this sense, stories are not just letters on paper they animate and
make worlds. Science Fiction is one genre that is, as Haraway (2016:13) points out, “still a
risky game of worldling and storying; it is staying with the trouble”. In other words, SF is
dealing with the relation ontology-storytelling. This means that the science fiction story
Parable of the Sower will be, in this thesis, an animation of world-making and will be
explored as real time events with the possibility for making ontology as well as it will be
explored by a new materialist outlook on ontology and agency, especially with emphasis on
the agential realism of Barad (2003) which will be visited next.
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2.2: AGENCY IN AGENTIAL REALISM
Barad (2003) has coined the term agential realism to deal with the matter of how matter
comes to matter. She targets the overemphasizing of language in posthumanism and its focus
on culture. Agential realism is; “phenomena [as] the ontological inseparability of agentially
intra-acting ‘components’” (Barad, 2003:815). Intra-acting is used since it does not presume
’relata’ such as ‘interaction’. That is, “phenomena are ontologically primitive
relations-relations without preexisting relata” (Barad, 2003:815). In this way, the observer
and the observed cannot be separated as the world is in-making through agential intra-actions
of components of phenomena and it is through this in-making agential process of worlding
relations that boundaries and properties become determinate and that particular embodied
concepts become meaningful (ibid). It is in this intra-acting world-making process of
components of phenomena where the intra-actions enact agential separability as
exteriority-within takes place. A process which is of fundamental importance “for in the
absence of a classical ontological condition of exteriority between observer and observed it
provides the condition for the possibility of objectivity” (Barad 2003:815). This further
means that human-non-human relations or nature-society relations have no preexisting
relations of agential intra-acting and thereby new boundaries and objectivity can be explored
in these agential relationships. Phenomena are produced through agential intra-actions of
multiple apparatuses of bodily production. Apparatuses are not static in world but
(re)configurations of the world by “specific practices/intra-actions/performances through
which exclusionary boundaries are enacted” (Barad 2003:816). The world is thereby a
dynamic process of intra-activity in the ongoing reconfigurations:
This ongoing flow of agency through which part of the world makes itself
differentially intelligible to another “part” of the world and through which local
casual structures, boundaries and properties are stabilized and destabilized does
not take place in space and time but in the making of spacetime itself (ibid: 817).
The universe is thereby agential intra-activity in its becoming where the ontological units are
phenomena and the primary semantic units are not words but material-discoursive practices
through which boundaries are made and it is this dynamism that is agency. Agency is not an
attribute but the ongoing reconfigurations of the world (Barad, 2003). This means that there is
no outside position and no human position pre-existing the intra-actions which is of great
11BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
interest for the aim of this thesis which is to explore displacements beyond human agency in
migration studies since it implies that agency belong to all living matter and that agency
cannot be separated or be treated as an attribute one has or has not since, by existing, the
boundaries of agency will be intra-acting and in-making ongoing processes.
2.3: INTRA-ACTING RESEARCH METHODS
In this last section I will describe how the ontology in new materialism(s) together with the
interconnectedness between ontology and stories in Haraway (2016) and Latour (2014) and
the agential realism in Barad (2003) will be used as a methodological starting point and at the
same time, a theoretical frame for this thesis. Starting with Haraway and Latour, the science
fiction book Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler is explored as a possible third story/
geostory in the thesis. That is, aside from the theoretical considerations, this story will be
used as an animation of our own world when exploring the aim of this thesis. The aim of this
thesis is to explore displacements beyond the familiar usage in migration studies associated
with ’human’ by using a new materialist/s understanding of ontology and agency. This
approach opens the possibility to move beyond the understanding of displacements as
referring only to human agency. When moving in the world of the SF book Parable of the
Sower, I will navigate by the inter-related research questions that flow from my aim and
research questions which are: How can we understand displacement beyond the human? In
what ways are different entities being displaced? Who is considered an agent ? What are the
relations between displaced agents/non-agents? These questions will be explored with the
help of the four theoretical foundations of a new materialist ontology introduced above
namely a. anti-dualism, b. radical immanence, c. transversality and d. posthumanism
(Schadler, 2019), as a guiding tool for representing a new materialists outlook on ontology
together with the idea of a sympoiesis system by Dempster (1998). Thirdly, agential realism
of Barad (2003) will be used to further explore the inter-related research questions of my aim
by specifically looking at agency from a new materialist outlook on ontology, where the
exteriority- within will be used. The exteriority-within establishes how boundaries are made
within phenomena as it works with an outside position which makes it possible to study an
object. The object is thereby within phenomena which is produced through agential
intra-actions of multiple apparatuses of bodily production (Barad, 2003). The meaning of
using this approach to agency is to be able to explore boundaries without a pre-understanding
12BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
of relations between human-more-than-human and nature-society. The emphasis on radical
immanence, in this thesis project, further places the researcher within the research, the
researcher cannot be taken away from the actual research process but is a part of the process
itself. The limitations found within this thesis project will be found in the concluding chapter
under the section Limitations with intra-acting research.
2.4: DECOLONIAL CRITICISM OF NEW MATERIALISM(S)
New Materialism(s) have many partial connections with Indigenous metaphysics or
Indigenous ontology. New materialist scholars are thus criticized for not giving attention and
consideration of these partial connections (Pugliese, 2020; De Line, 2018). In this section,
this criticism will be discussed to be able to “decolonize” new materialism(s), by starting a
conversation between them, for the coming journey of this thesis. Since this is a thesis
embracing a methodology of constant change and interconnections, the thesis chooses to stay
with this trouble to explore the possibilities as well as the limitations. In the lecture given by
Little Bear (2011) on the topic of collaboration between western science and Indigenous
science he outlines the basis in Indigenous science; that the world is in constant flux by
energy waves, that everything that lives are constituted by energy waves, that everything is
animate, which means all living materials are interconnected, and lastly the notion of renewal
applies. This ontological basis of Indigenous ontology/epistemology connects in many ways
with the ontological basis of new materialism(s) presented earlier. The connections are the
interconnectedness of all things, that everything is in flux, constant change. Meanwhile,
Indigenous epistemology `belongs` to a people, to a place that contains more than the basis
presented by Little Bear (2011). Indigenous epistemologies are many and contain myth,
storytelling, history, symbols and art specifically for that place as for example Aboriginal art
which cannot be detached from the place itself since the motive is the place and vice versa
(https://www.aboriginal-art-australia.com/aboriginal-art-library/the-story-of-aboriginal-art/ ).
This means, in this thesis, that to simplify Indigenous epistemology into an all-is-connected
belief system would be to not give the proper attention to the content in its proper context,
considering that I am not Indigenous. As for example Native American epistemology which
belongs to the Indigenous people that belong to the land where Parable of the Sower takes
place. The thesis therefore turns to new materialism(s) and the possibility for these various
forms of ideas to work together with decoloniality, since this research body does not belong
to a specific earth-place. De Line (2018) criticizes Haraway (2016) and the sympoiesis
13BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
system as a shared experience of all critters. De Line (2018) argues that the sympoiesis
system neglects self-determination for Indigenous people and that autopoiesis systems are
still necessary for Indigenous self-determination as they have clear boundaries between
entities. Ibid thus notes that it is important to have the processes of sympoiesis (making-with)
and autopoiesis (self-determination) in order for multiple differences to emerge, cycle,
regenerate and so on. It could be that not everyone is making kin in the Chthulucene, the
entanglements that Haraway (2016) describes in this sympoiesis system have the possibilities
to end in violence rather than kinship, especially those already politically marginalized.
Indigenous ontology as described by Little Bear have these qualities, of having a process of
both making-with and self-determination, according to De Line (2018). These bases on
Indigenous ontology by Little Bear (2011) will be recognized in relation to new
materialism(s) outlook on ontology and agency of this thesis, to give recognition of its rich
and highly relevant knowledge but at the same time not simplifying its content in relation to
its people, for what is possible in this space and time limited thesis project.
14BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
3: DISPLACEMENT(S) : PREVIOUS RESEARCH
AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES
In the previous research on displacement it is obvious that this is a complex field with a broad
understanding of what displacement means and how it plays out for those individuals, groups
or communities affected by displacement. Overall, displacement is often used as describing
human movement, or forced migration, from a place that is no longer liveable for several
reasons by forces of development, environmental disasters or human-made conflicts. In this
thesis, the aim is to explore displacements beyond the human in migration studies by using a
new materialist/s understanding of ontology and agency to be able to move beyond the
understanding of displacements as belonging only to human agency by using the SF book
Parable of the Sower as a story describing possible real time events. As the book focuses on
internal displacements, displacements within one country, that is the type of displacements
from previous research that is the focus here. The previous research will then connect
displacement to the overall aim of the thesis which is to explore displacement beyond human
agency, this will be done by connecting the production of nature as nature displacements(s)
and animal displacement(s). This is to propose a connection between displacement and
more-than-human agents.
3.1: INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT
The dominant classification for Internally-Displaced-Persons (IDP’s) distinguishes between
four root causes for the displacement; conflict-induced-displacement,
environmentally-induced-displacement, disaster-induced-displacement and
development-induced-displacement (Terminski, 2013). The term
conflict-induced-displacement was coined and slowly popularized during the nineties due to
the civil wars in many parts of the world in the last decade of the twentieth century which
brought a pressing new problem onto the international agenda (Terminski, 2013; Cohen,
2004).These were people who had been forced from their homes by conflict, communal
violence or egregious human rights violations, who were at risk within the borders of their
own country (Cohen, 2004). The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees did not
15BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
apply to internally displaced persons and the UNHCR could not assist them in the way they
would refugees, since they did not cross national borders and internally-displaced persons
were rather left in the hands of the governments who had displaced them in the first place
(Cohen, 2004). In 1998 a set of international standards were put in place by the UN
Commission on Human Rights to protect persons forcibly displaced in their own countries,
namely the Guiding Principles on International Displacement (UN Commission on Human
Rights, 1998 in Cohen, 2004; Terminski, 2013). The principles had no binding legislation like
a treaty but were gaining authority and were implemented as a new global standard. Those
internally displaced included into the principles were those displaced by floods, earthquakes,
famine, nuclear plant eruption, development-induced displacements as well as those
displaced by conflict and human rights violations (Cohen, 2004). The principles were
followed by the Great Lakes Pact in 2006 and the Kampala Convention in 2009 (Terminski,
2013). The civil war in Syria starting in 2011, has resulted in 6.2 million Syrians internally
displaced which is the largest number of conflict-induced displaced persons worldwide
(Linhe and Ruether, 2021). Still, conflict-induced-displacement is not the largest global cause
of IDPs, climate-induced-displacement is now the leading cause of displacement, followed by
development-induced-displacement (Terminski, 2013). According to Internal Displacement
Monitoring Centre (IDMC) 50.8 million people were internally displaced by the end of 2019,
whereoff close to 25 million people were displaced by disasters (environmental) and about
8.5 million people were internally displaced by conflicts and violence
(https://www.internal-displacement.org/ ). The issue with conflict-induced-displacement is
that it is hard to define exactly what is a conflict according to Terminski (2013) since
development-induced-displacement could be seen as a conflict between public development
interests and the people affected by the development project. The largest price of these
development conflicts are paid by those people being displaced, concludes Terminski (2013).
If there can be said to be a philosophical foundation behind the Guiding Principles of Internal
Displacement in 1998 it would be the concept of sovereignty as a form of responsibility in
combination with the responsibility of the international community to interfere when
governments fail in their responsibility (Cohen, 2004). Humans that become displaced have
international recognition of rights, as can be seen in the Guiding Principles on International
Displacement. These rights are based on the ontological assumption that humans are the
universal agents of geopolitical life. From a new materialist outlook on rights based on
anti-dualism, radical immanence, transversality and posthumanism, as described in the
previous chapter, non-humans such as animal species and nature also have agency and all
16BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
species, therefore should be embraced and protected by policies protecting the place or space
of livelihood. In the fields of development-induced displacement as well as
environmentally-induced displacement and disaster displacement, three types of internal
displacement that will be discussed below, development and climate change concepts and
phenomena are rarely connected to a larger ecopolitical system including more-than-human
life forms.
3.2: DEVELOPMENT-INDUCED DISPLACEMENT
In traditional ‘development’ contexts, forced relocation of people such as relocating and
resettling away from their homes, lands and livelihoods in order to make way for large-scale
development projects such as dams, reservoirs, power plants, roads, plantations, urban
renewal, oil, gas and mining projects is known as development-induced displacement (Ione,
2014). Development studies, as a research field, has traditionally had a non-critical approach
to development as a concept of economic growth or ’progress’. Development has been
understood within this field as the inevitable progress of capitalism as the long term solution
for poor people (Schuurman, 2000, Escobar, 1995). Development studies has also,
traditionally, seen the ’Third World’ or less developed countries and their inhabitants as one
universal entity and the nation state as the main agent in realizing progress as economic
growth (Schuurman, 2000). Development studies has traveled from the development dream
of the 1950’s to the ‘basic human needs’ discourse in the 1970’s,. Nonetheless, development
is still seen as the solution, though economic growth distribution needs to be fairer (Escobar,
1995). This discourse has shifted during the 1990’s due to development in capitalist systems
being understood as more and more connected with the increasing polarization between rich
and poor both locally and globally. This also relates to globalization as the new buzzword to
explain this critical view on development (Schuurman, 2000). The overview on development
studies as a research field points to how development has been, and still is, accepting the
status quo of a capitalist system as the basis for ontology, while from a new materialist point
of view, this system is questioned both in the claims of progress itself, and questions as to for
whom and with what right such progress takes place As well as questions about agency; in a
capitalist system(s) there is only room for the white, male, heterosexual, ableist, human as
agent, as Haraway (2016) notes, the rest is just props.
In this section an overview on development-induced displacement will be discussed.I will
review previous research to provide an overall insight to DID (Development-Induced
17BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
Displacement) as a research area since it is a form of internal displacement provoked by
development. Development in this sense can be understood differently. It is notable that little
global data on development-induced displacement is available, unlike for refugees and
internally displaced persons (IDP’s). Though, the World Bank Environmentally Department
estimates that roughly 10 million people are displaced each year due to dam construction,
urban development, transportation and infrastructure programs (Stanley, 2004 in Ione, 2014).
Some conservatives argue that twenty million people have been displaced worldwide, others
estimate that five times as many, over a hundred million have been displaced through
development projects (Ione, 2014). These displacements are the result of processes of
economic development (Vandergeest, Idahosa and Bose, 2007). Vandergeest (2003) points
out how development is a spatial activity which reorganizes in some form the meaning and
control of space and that this process is ongoing in all infrastructural development projects
such as roads, and not just the obvious such as dams.
Forced or involuntary movement of people by the state for development-related purposes is
a global phenomena according to Brand (2001) and the motivation of the state is either to be
able to control nomadic or semi-nomadic populations or to impose massive infrastructure
changes in the name of development, historically records show how these
development-induced displacements have had a deleterious to catastrophic impact for the
populations. Vandergeest, Idahosa and Bose (2007) are also noting that DID hits marginalized
groups, communities and individuals the hardest. In other words, development has shown to
have mixed effects on marginalized and poor people by in many cases further increasing their
marginalization and poverty and not, as traditionally manifested, being empowered by
capitalist development. There is a lack in research for development-induced displacement
focusing on the long-term effects of development projects (Randell, 2016). Some scholars
have found a positive socioeconomic outcome for displaced subjects as for example the dam
projects in Slovac and Chez Republic (Zagorsevska and Ciefova, 2019) and the Bole Monte
Dam in Brazilian Amazonas (Randell, 2016). Notably, many scholars focusing on just
resettlement for displaced subjects do not critically engage with development as in the case
with the dam projects and further mention that poor communities and communities of color
are the worst hit by DID but fail to engage more critically in this connection. Downing
(2002:3) points out in his study on mining-induced-displacement that the resettlement effects
are defined “as the loss of physical and non-physical assets, including homes, communities,
productive land, income-earning assets and sources, subsistence, resources, cultural sites,
social structures, networks and ties, cultural identity and mutual help mechanisms”. Some
18BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
groups have been prowned to be at a higher risk of development-induced-displacement,
especially indigenous people, women and the elderly argues Downing (2002). De (2020)
showed in her research the impact of development-induced displacement on Tribal
communities, with special reference to the women in Odisha, India and the tribe of Adivasi.
The study argues that Adivasi displacement is not just through land alienation by poor access
to land resources, but also through forest reservation, loss of dongar or swidden cultivation
land, faulty survey and resettlement process, natural disasters as well as ineffective land
reforms (De, 2020). The study shows a lack of any initiatives on the part of the government
to identify landless Adivasis or to help redistribute land to the landless (De, 2020). As a
consequence Adivasi women experienced an increased risk of violence, both domestic and
sexual. Similar results were found in the study on internally displaced Moro women of
Mindanao, Philippines by Sifris and Tanyag (2019). Vandergeest (2003) show how the land
tenure reform programmes in Lao have made the non-Lao ethnic groups, which make up
about 45% of the population, the most vulnerable to displacements in comparison to ethnic
Lao. As seen in these examples, DID hits unevenly and some pay a higher price than others
for the cause of development. According to Chatterjee (2014) displacement forms the
fundamental mechanisms of interstate or international migration, movement of refugees
across space by processes of migration, urbanization, urban development and slum clearance,
as Chatterjee (2014:4) argues:
[T]hese are not simply moves, or flows, or horizontal mobility of people across
space, these represent a territorialization of exploitation through the process of
de-territorialization of a people. The uprooting of de-territorialization is
exploitative, because it robs people of their right to home, livelihood, place, and
memory and allows others to accumulate space, place, profit, livelihood, and
memory.
This creates a contradiction as displacement uproots some but emplaces others at the same
time, something Chatterjee (2014) is exploring in her research on urban displacement in
Ahmedabad city, in India through the Sabamati River Front Development project. This
contradiction can be seen in how Hindus demand resettlement away from the Muslims which
shows how the underclass (castes in Hindu systems) sometimes fight against each other in
their alliance with capital, this misrecognition of the root cause of the problem; neoliberal
capitalism and its societal impact of inequality and class formation is more fully explored in
19BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
the works of Marx (1887); Gramsci (1991) and Polanyi (2001) .
Development-induced-displacement as a process that displaces some but emplaces others can
be found in Fynn Bruey’s (2019) study on homelessness in Seattle and how the city’s wealth
and growth have been at the expense of increased homelessness. The impact of neo-liberal
induced development has been planned and implemented, both in the case of Seattle, the case
of Ahmedabad city and the case of the Adivasis, but the question is, for whom are the
neo-liberal development projects undertaken? As De (2020:306) argues:
The shift to a neo-liberal economy and its inclusion into the global economic
order has broadened the scale of acquisition of land and escalated its speed. This
kind of displacement are planned and therefore anticipated.
Development-induced-displacement is essentially permanent because the land
required for development is usually huge in proportion and thus the magnitude of
displacement is bound to be gigantic.
The scholars in development-induced research can be divided into two main camps according
to Dwivedi (2002). The first one is scholars who see displacement as an inevitable
consequence of development, secondly, are the scholars who see displacement as a crisis in
development and who focus on its causes and a third approach, trying to mitigate the two.
The first approach can only be seen as a short term policy solution as it only does “damage
control”, the third one, the middle way, can be a longer policy strategy as it involves the
people occupying the land into negotiations about resettlement planning (Dwivedi, 2002) But
the long term policy goal, according to Dwivedi (2002) must be to separate development
from displacement by imagination and practice of development that respects people’s existing
life-worlds, values and rights and this standpoint is the future in displacement research. As
discussed above in this section on development-induced displacement the understanding and
reaction to development-induced displacement varies according to how development is
understood as a concept, and as a necessary and inevitable progressive tool of capitalist
economic policies that need fairer resettlement options for those impacted by these
developments. Or, do we need to question development and progress in themselves as means
of normalizing involuntary displacement(s)?
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3.3: CLIMATE-INDUCED DISPLACEMENT
Climate change is a recognised fact today, but how such change affects the living conditions
of living entities varies between scholars. In this section, climate-induced displacement(s)
will be reviewed and discussed to give an overall image of the main discourses on
climate-induced displacement(s), which embark on a more non-critical understanding of
climate change, the causes of climate change, while also emphasizing how displaced human
subjects and their legal status ought to be arbitrated. For example, climate change is a key
factor to be considered when discussing human displacements as Linhe and Reuter (2021)
show in their research on the Syrian civil war that climate factors such as local rainfall have a
strong connection to the increased violence initiated by both the Assad government and
rebels. The origins of the Syrian civil war is disputed, but is most often described by scholars
as a combination of three factors: the political awakening of the people; president Assad’s
repression of dissent; and deteriorating ecological conditions (ibid). Climate-induced
displacement is usually divided into environmentally-induced-displacement, which is
focusing on slow-term climate change such as rising sea levels, while disaster displacement
indicates sudden changes such as hurricanes, floods and forest fires (Terminski, 2013).
Climate-related disasters such as windstorms, heavy rainfall and flooding have become one
of the primary causes of (often short-term) displacement and this number is likely to increase
(Kälin, 2010). The impact of climate change on human displacement varies and thus, one
school of thought predicts that millions of people, even up to a billion will be displaced by
climate change (ibid). On the other side of the debate is the minimalist approach which
stresses that climate change is one of many causes for displacement and that it cannot be
determined which exact causes lead to climate-induced displacement, it might just be a few
affected (ibid). Findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change points to that the
main effects of global warming can be related to water stress (ibid). Some parts of the world
might experience a shortage in water such as the tropics, Middle Eastern and the
Mediterranean while others, such as Eastern Africa, China, the Indian sub-continent and the
northern latitudes will experience the opposite (ibid). Some areas of the world will thereby
have too little water while others will be flooded. According to Kälin (2010) there are five
scenarios that can help identify the character of the movement from climate change:
Sudden-onset disasters- these are sudden climate catastrophes such as floods or hurricanes or
even mudslides caused by heavy rains, in these cases most displaced people become IDPs;
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Slow-onset environmental degradation- which is those climate changes that will degrade over
time such as rising sea levels or increased salinisation of groundwater and soil. This does not
have to lead to physical displacement;.
Sinking small island states- which is a special case of the previous scenario whereas island
states might be totally extinct;
Areas as high-risk zones- referring to how governments might deem certain areas as too
dangerous for human occupation and thereby prohibit people from living there;
Unrest seriously disturbing public order, violence or even armed conflict- this scenario relates
to how the scarcity in water and other natural resources might lead to conflict especially in
already impoverished areas which cannot easily adapt.
Perls (2020) show how the United States has over a million of environmental disasters
displacements per year and points out that it is the poor communities and the communities of
color that are affected the hardest by climate change disasters such as hurricanes, fires and
flooding. An example is hurricane Katrina , three years after the storm 54% of Black
evacuees had returned in comparison to 82% of white evacuees. Disaster displacement is the
new normal according to Perls (2020) but without the proper state response in relation to
legal rights for the internally displaced subjects. Willett and Sears (2020) want to complicate
our understanding of environmental migration and displacement with the case study of
drought-related human movement in Kenya. They found that the drought was one of several
factors for leaving the rural area and that human movement from these factors took several
different outcomes. Further, Willett and Sears found that immobility is of critical concern in
the context of environmental change (ibid). Climate-induced displacement, in general, does
not engage in nature as an agent or how capitalist development as progress affects the climate
or nature overall. From a new materialist outlook on ontology and agency, nature and society
are not separated but interconnected which means that nature should be considered an agent
and that society and nature are interconnected in this agency. This calls for a more
multifaceted and complex understanding of displacement(s).
3.4: DISPLACEMENT AS A MULTIFACETED EXPERIENCE
OF TEMPORAL SPATIALITY
In this section displacement(s) will be discussed as a multifaceted experience of temporal
“spatiality” where displacement is discussed as a complex experience with interconnected
22BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
causality and effects that moves beyond the more traditional literature on displacement(s). A
limited body of scholarship has engaged with displacement as a process severing people from
the knowledge, practices and the life-sustaining qualities of their land (Vaz-Jones, 2018). In
other words, displacement does not have to mean physically moving as in contrast to the
previous focus on internal displacement, development-induced, or climate-induced
displacement. Mollett (2014) uses the term displacement-in-place, while Nixon (2011) uses
the term slow violence to describe displacement without moving. Together with scholars such
as Safransky (2016), Miller (2020) and Heymen and Ybarra (2021) displacement research has
started to connect racial capitalism, settler colonialism and nature as space together to show
the multifaceted complexity of layers of displacement throughout time and space. The
multifaceted complexity of displacement and how it can be viewed as interconnected by
several components will be discussed in this section. Rob Nixon’s (2011) slow violence, is
violence that happens gradually and over time, a delayed destruction that crosses both time
and space, a violence that typically is not viewed as violence at all. It is the poor, those
lacking resources who are the principal casualties of slow violence (ibid). Since this type of
displacement is not happening quickly with a dramatic turn where the violence becomes
visible, the stories might not gain the same interest. As Nixon (2011:3) puts it:
Stories of toxic buildup, massing greenhouse gases, and accelerated species loss
due to ravaged habitats are all cataclysmic, but they are scientifically convoluted
cataclysms in which casualties are postponed, often for generations.
Nixon (2011) then poses the question of how to dramatize the costs of uneven development
when their delayed effects are intimate but their genesis is far off in time? As an example
Nixon uses the novelist Sinha and his novel Animal’s People which is a story that can both
show local materiality while simultaneously show transnational forces by turning the
violence into a local beast. Mollett (2014) uses the term displacement-in-place to show the
postcolonial complexity of displacement due to the fact that much displacement does not
involve physical moving but rather displacement of cultural practices and livelihoods. These
displacements not only affect the current space and time of being displaced but also displaces
possible futures. Safransky (2016) rethinks land struggle in the postindustrial city of Detroit
when one White businessman wanted to buy “vacant” land in the middle of a mostly Black
population to create a huge city forest. This “vacant” land was not empty and was used by
23BEYOND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT(S) BIANCA LANGE 2021
many for urban farming, as resistance of neoliberal capitalism, a way to undo colonial spatial
orders (Safransky, 2016). As one urban farmer states:
For many Black radical farmers in Detroit today, farming is an extension of the
Black liberation struggle in which the garden becomes a strategy of resistance, an
act of self-determination, a challenge to systemic violence, and an aspiration- in
short, a site from which to “free space” (Kelley, 2002 in Safransky, 2016:1093).
In this way, Black urban farming is also protecting against future displacements, as racialized
displacement(s) is central for capitalist expansion (Chakravarty and da Silva, 2012). The idea
of land as “vacant” is disputed by land ethics where an emphasis is on more-than-human
vacancy as well, just because land has no human occupation does not mean the land is
“empty” (Safransky, 2016). In Native American traditions the human and our natural world
are interdependent which guides a deep belief that the physical and spiritual realms can unite
in certain natural phenomena or locations (Mohaved, 2016). Native Americans hold a belief
system whereas land cannot be cut and owned which is an ontological belief as well as
religious, in Mohaved’s (2016) text the hope for the Hopi is discussed in terms of the US
Supreme Courts new interpretation of the rights to your religion in the RFRA law, that it
should recognize the subjectivity and uniqueness of religious beliefs. Settler colonialism ,
historically, has dispossessed and displaced Native Americans by direct violence and their
violence of treaties where the latter meant that a tribe conveyed land to the federal
government in exchange of self-determination to continue to live as separate people
exercising self-governance over territory (Mohaved, 2016).
Urban displacement through time is discussed in Miller (2020) who is taking a historical
outlook on displacement in Gowanus, Brooklyn, a neighborhood in New York City. Gowanus
is a conglomeration of both the local and historic patterns of displacement and dispossession
that helps reveal the relative power of people to be able to remain in space (Miller, 2020).
This research brings together racial capitalism, settler colonialism and Smith’s (1984)
‘production of nature’ idea by asking the question, how do we know who displaces who when
viewing displacement patterns over time? Which leads us to another question, are we
oversimplifying the role that marginalized and racialized groups play in resisting
gentrification and displacement? (ibid). Through this temporal analysis of displacement in an
urban space Miller (2020) offers an example of how racial capitalism and settler colonialism
happens in dual relation to space through time at the same time as the assumed power of both
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