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To cite this article: Patricia Ehrkamp, Jenna M. Loyd & Anna J. Secor (2022) Trauma as
Displacement: Observations from Refugee Resettlement, Annals of the American Association
of Geographers, 112:3, 715-722, DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.1956296
T
rauma does not have a single definition. Trauma studies thus converges with the ongoing
Within Western paradigms, the most com- emergency of population displacement. Some 79.5
monly referenced experiences of trauma—repe- million people have been forcibly displaced as of
tition of a past event, intrusive thoughts, senses of 2019, according to the United Nations High
disembodiment, or hyperalertness—were characterized Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), with 26 million
by the psy-sciences through work with survivors of war of those individuals classified as refugees living outside
and domestic violence in the early and late twentieth of their nation of origin and 45.7 million people
century (Young 1997; Fassin and Rechtman 2009). internally displaced within their national territory. In
This framework has been widely criticized for its indi- her influential assessment of refugee studies, Malkki
vidualized as opposed to structural focus; its attention (1995) observed that the field was characterized by a
to singular events rather than sustained, even multige- “view of society that constructs displacement as an
nerational, suffering; and inappropriateness of its diag- anomaly in the life of an otherwise ‘whole,’ stable,
noses and remedies to non-Western cultures and places sedentary society” (508). Although there is now con-
(Linklater 2014; Marshall and Sousa 2014; Atallah siderable academic attention to the geopolitical and
2017; Pain 2020). Given this ongoing debate, it is not geoeconomic forces that create and sustain displace-
surprising that the interdisciplinary field of trauma ment, the discursive framing of displacement as
studies claims “relatively little structural coherence,” abnormal and disruptive for individuals and societies
aiming rather to critically assess the “political and cul- continues to have ideological purchase, driving the
tural work that ‘trauma’ does” within particular securitization of migration that serves to justify
“epistemological and broader geopolitical contexts” nationalist and restrictionist politics and policies
(Wertheimer and Casper 2016, 3). Critical studies of around the world (see Ehrkamp’s [2017] Progress in
trauma, then, seek to understand framings of rupture, Human Geography report).
catastrophe, and mass displacement as part of dis- We see a parallel between Western constructions
courses through which we collectively also distinguish of trauma and population displacement in that each
between “normal” and aberrant forms of violence. phenomenon continues to be framed as a rupture or
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 112(3) 2022, pp. 715–722 # 2021 by American Association of Geographers
Initial submission, December 2020; revised submission, May 2021; final acceptance, July 2021
Published by Taylor & Francis, LLC.
716 Ehrkamp, Loyd, and Secor
exception when both are widely, if differentially, are “fundamental in the establishment of differenti-
experienced. Indeed, as Pain (2020) wrote, critical ated and active forms of belonging and political
race, decolonial, feminist, and queer scholarship on community” (7). Whereas Till is interested in the
trauma has questioned this frame of rupture and possibilities of making more just cities, Micieli-
exception, instead drawing attention to trauma’s Voutsinas’s (2017) examination of the memory work
structural, intergenerational dimensions: “It is the of the National September 11th Memorial and
commonness of experiences of gender-based, racist Museum finds that “re-membering 9/11 keeps the
and homophobic violence that challenges assump- emotional wounds of the attacks raw,” and thereby
tions of cohesion or security before or after trauma” “risks further intensifying islamophobia and thwart-
(5). To explore trauma’s ideological, geopolitical, ing collective healing beyond social divisions” (102,
and geoeconomic displacements, we begin with a italics in original). Similarly, in their work on gen-
brief discussion of geographic literature on trauma.1 der-based violence, Pain, Rezwana, and Sahdan
Then we explore how refugee management and the (2020) argued that trauma “involv[es] spatial and
securitization of migration are part of a first-order temporal psychological dislocation [that is] triggered
displacement, which create conditions that can be by aspects of place or particular sites where memory,
traumatizing. To illustrate the transitivity of trauma, pain or ongoing violence linger. Place thus becomes
we show how mental health care for trauma and hardwired in trauma, and trauma can become hard-
other distress becomes part of refugee containment. wired in place” (288). Building on Ahmed’s idea of
We close with some thoughts on the multiple dis- the “stickiness” of affect, Adams-Hutcheson (2017)
placements of war, geopolitics, and trauma. argued that the failure of trauma to leave the body
and remain stuck to the skin “challenges the theori-
sation of trauma as a ‘breakdown’ or rupture—a
Theorizing Trauma in Geography momentary interruption in time and space” precisely
Blum and Secor (2014) wrote that “although the because both skin and affect are relational (106).
‘scene’ of trauma lacks a determinate time and place In striking contrast to the idea of trauma as sticky
(it is, in a sense, unlocalizable), it is nevertheless or emplaced, Perera’s (2010) examination of the geo-
spatial” (104). A growing body of work in geography politicization of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
has explored the multiple spatialities and emplace- argued that trauma is “eminently transactable,
ments of trauma, from place destruction to colonial mobile and adaptable in its circulation” (31).
occupation, human migration, militarism, and every- Coddington (2017) drew on the metaphor of conta-
day forms of violence. We do not recount all of this gion to suggest that trauma features a “movement
literature (see Pain’s [2020] Progress in Human through space that circles back on itself as well, con-
Geography report) but draw out two major constella- centrating and expanding” (7). For Mountz (2017),
tions of this work to illustrate different ways of ana- trauma exceeds detention’s capacity to contain
lyzing the traumas of displacement and displacement because it acts as a “conduit” that moves “among
of trauma. The first constellation considers trauma people in ways that disrupt and distort time, space,
through themes of emplacement and displacement and the boundaries surrounding facilities” (75).
and the second foregrounds the transitivity, mobility, Pratt, Johnston, and Banta (2017) emphasized that
or transnational dimensions of trauma.2 the “transmission and reception of trauma narratives
Much of the geographic work on trauma concep- are uneven and thoroughly embedded within exist-
tualized through examinations of emplacement and ing unequal geopolitical and other power relations”
displacement has focused on memory work and place (84). Moreover, the “multi-directional conversations
destruction or rebuilding. Entrikin’s (2007) examina- across traumas of the Global South and North” rep-
tion of disasters draws attention to how the resent a “diffused network of interrelated stories of
“collective trauma of place destruction” is often trauma” that radiate, knot, and link with each other
described in terms of “uprootedness, dislocation, and (91). Recent work on refugee resettlement (Loyd,
exile” from a “sense of security that place and its Ehrkamp, and Secor 2018; Ehrkamp, Loyd, and
everyday rhythms provide” (177, italics in original). Secor 2019) argues that efforts to emplace trauma as
Till (2012) argued that practices of memory work in internal to refugees or as originating in the space of
“wounded cities” actively remake place in ways that war is part of a geopolitical imagination that works,
Trauma as Displacement: Observations from Refugee Resettlement 717
but fails, to create linear time and discrete geogra- community leaders, and Iraqis who came to the
phies. Instead, the effects of war-making endure and United States via the resettlement and Special
combine with increasingly exclusionary refugee Immigrant Visa process.
regimes to move trauma across space.
Our purpose in highlighting these constellations is
not to identify theoretical or methodological Tracing Displacement
approaches paradigmatic to each—feminist perspec- The influx of Iraqis started in May 2014. And as [my
tives, for example, are common in both. Nor are we colleague] mentioned, we had [almost 5,000] people in
advocating the superiority of one focus over another. front of our office one day. And due to this influx and
Nor do we wish to diminish important work on the the increasing numbers of Iraqis, … they started to
methodological and practical dimensions of research- register Iraqis like Syrians, but they were not included
ing and coping with trauma (see Cuomo 2019; under temporary protection. So, their status was
Taylor 2019; Markowitz 2021) and on trauma’s insti- somehow undefined, actually. They had an ID card
tutionalization (Moss 2014; Moss and Prince 2017). like the Syrians, had the ID numbers like the Syrians,
Rather, both of these constellations offer crucial but they could not benefit from the rights determined
insights, suggesting that trauma must be approached in the temporary protection policy, and they cannot
benefit from the rights that are for international
through attention to both place and mobility.
protection advocates like Afghans, Syrians or Somalis.
Our insights offered here are based on a study that
(Agent at NGO working with refugees and asylum
examined how mental health paradigms and practices seekers, Turkey, 2015)
affect the resettlement of Iraqi refugees to the United
States in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion We began our research in 2015, some twelve years
and occupation of Iraq. Our study builds on long- after the 2003 U.S. and ally war with Iraq. A major
standing work in feminist geopolitics that questions wave of displacement began in 2006, with a high in
the neat separation of war and peace. Instead, we 2007 of nearly 2.2 million UNHCR-registered Iraqi
investigate how conceptions and practices of trauma refugees. In 2015, there were 252,000 UNHCR-
are imbued with geopolitics (Loyd, Ehrkamp, and registered Iraqi refugees and some 4.4 million were
Secor 2018). We traced notions of trauma transna- internally displaced. Our arrival in Turkey for field-
tionally in 2015 and 2016 with fieldwork in Turkey work that year was in the midst of the so-called
and Jordan, where we interviewed more than thirty Syrian refugee crisis, driven by the civil war that
staff members from the major intergovernmental had begun in 2011. The majority of Iraqi and Syrian
organizations and nongovernmental organizations refugees had made their ways to other countries in
(NGOs) tasked with third-country resettlement and the region, with Jordan and Turkey alone hosting
refugee administration, psychologists and psychiatrists, 2.85 and 2.75 million people, respectively, as of
panel physicians, and legal aid providers. We also 2015 (Pew Research Center 2016). More than 1 mil-
observed planning meetings among such organiza- lion Syrians arrived in the European Union (EU)
tions. The U.S.-based portion of our study included later that same year. Meanwhile, EU member states
fieldwork in two larger and two smaller cities, all sites had granted refugee status to 40,000 Iraqi refugees
of substantial resettlement of Iraqis, and in between 2003 and 2013 (Fandrich 2013), and the
Washington, DC, between 2016 and 2019. Our data United States had admitted nearly 85,000 Iraqi refu-
collection includes interviews and focus groups with gees between 2007 and 2013 (U.S. Citizenship and
more than sixty domestic participants, recruited from Immigration Services 2013).
resettlement agencies, medical centers, county health We quickly found that the rhetoric of “refugee
departments, Iraqi community centers, legal aid, psy- crisis” regarding the Syrian situation displaced what
chosocial services, and voluntary organizations that attention there had been to Iraqis and other groups
provide support services for vulnerable groups within in the region (e.g., Palestinians, Afghans, Yemenis,
refugee populations such as the elderly, survivors of and Sudanese). Although the scale of displacement
torture, or survivors of domestic violence. Our inter- and human needs of Syrians were significant and
viewees were administrators, case workers, mental urgent, the protracted displacement of other groups
health screeners, employment agents, counselors, also remained pressing. As the quotation at the out-
attorneys, psychologists, social workers, physicians, set of this section suggests, the situation led to the
718 Ehrkamp, Loyd, and Secor
effective collapse of asylum in Turkey; the UNHCR in identical episodes, nor does trauma emplace a sin-
office there suspended applications from Afghans in gular geography. Rather, trauma can be understood
2013 and began to prioritize their resettlement work as a set of serial emplacements and displacements
on “vulnerable” categories of applicants (Heck and across multiple sites, in our case transnationally.
Hess 2017). UNHCR in Turkey was still allowing Across our U.S. research sites, we heard many stories
Iraqis to apply for resettlement in 2015, but it was about the involuntarily transnational character that
scheduling registration interviews eight years from life has taken for Iraqis. For example, an Iraqi
then (Loyd, Ehrkamp, and Secor 2018). woman in her sixties who was part of a focus group
As one of our respondents who worked with refu- of fellow Iraqis now living in the U.S. West told us:
gees in Turkey put it, “The system depends on
resettlement,” but such opportunities were becoming We got refugee status, and we were [resettled] within a
year. But the real problem is that my children … my
increasingly scarce as displaced groups’ futures became
children were a part of my same case, but there was a
more tightly entwined with the Trump administra-
delay. So, the new amendment that was added to the
tion’s hardline stance on migration. A series of execu-
new law says they have to investigate the last ten
tive orders issued in early 2017 invoked national years, that delayed the arrival of my kids. My daughter
security to bar entry to the United States for citizens has a school-age daughter in Egypt. They’re not letting
of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and her go to school.
Yemen; they fully suspended the U.S. Refugee
Admissions Program for ninety days. Ensuing airport She broke into tears recounting her worries about
protests and legal challenges curtailed the full scope children and grandchildren abroad. Like other Iraqis
of the so-called Muslim ban, but the orders and other we interviewed across the country, she recounted
policy changes still resulted in even more extreme trying—and failing—to bring her family to the
security screenings for visa seekers and refugees and United States. Increasingly strict security screening
sharp cuts to the number of refugees whom the procedures diminished her and other Iraqis’ hopes of
United States would agree to resettle (Darrow and reuniting with (or even visiting) family members
Scholl 2020; Paik 2020). The result was increasing who were in Iraq, neighboring countries, or Europe.
uncertainty, not only for those in Turkey or Jordan During this time, each executive order and
awaiting status determination but also for those who Supreme Court decision added to the sense of uncer-
had already arrived in the United States without their tainty and vulnerability within the community. The
families. In the words of one young woman who had ongoing separation of refugee families is thereby part
been resettled to a major U.S. city with her brother of a routinized “economy of abandonment” (Povinelli
but without her parents: 2011) that produces and sustains displacement as a
traumatizing experience, not as emplaced either here
I’m always with my family, but now, it’s been one year.
or over there but as it courses through the translocally
It’s very—and now, we’re really concerned because of the
Supreme Court decision [upholding the 2017 immigration and transhistorically distended relations of people
ban]. We don’t know what will happen next. who have been involuntarily separated.
(MHPSS) in emergency settings in 2005, which was … Europe is trying to keep the refugee crisis here in
aimed at developing practical agreement and coordi- this part of the world under control because if all the
nation across three paradigms: trauma, psychosocial, people who come here somehow find a way to get into
and mental health in general health care (Ventevogel Europe, it’s gonna create a lot of trouble for them.
2018). Based on guidelines the committee published This analysis acutely addresses the politics of human-
in 2007, the World Health Organization and Inter- itarian aid in an era of refugee externalization and
Agency Standing Committee created a “4 W” tool to containment in regions closer to where people are
map MHPSS services to enable coordination across being displaced (Hyndman and Mountz 2008). As
NGO and state sectors. For Ventevogel (2018), a Heck and Hess (2017) cautioned, refugee externali-
public health researcher at UNHCR, this planning zation is not a story of the Global North dictating
has made MHPSS work “more coherent, more visible, terms to the Global South. Rather, “refugee rent-
and probably more effective,” but it has not translated seeking” on the part of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey
to requisite increases in funding (174). has resulted in substantial foreign (and military) aid
From the perspective of public health, such fund- and other concessions, such as favorable visa condi-
ing is necessary to address human needs, including tions and health services for citizens, that affect
the stressor of displacement. Yet, there are geopoliti-
domestic governance and regional geopolitics (Loyd,
cal dimensions to such funding that extend beyond
Ehrkamp, and Secor 2018; Tsourapas 2019; Sharp
the recognition of human rights or need. The rapidly
2020). Amidst competing trauma paradigms, the
changing terrain of mental health services became
principle of mainstreaming mental health services
evident in our interviews with mental health care
becomes tied to geopolitics of containment and
providers and other refugee resettlement workers in
domestic governance dynamics. Within this context,
Jordan, the country where the 4 W tool was first
resettlement workers and health providers also find
deployed in 2009 (Mental Health & Psychosocial
themselves navigating the geopolitics of their
Support Working Group 2017). One organization
national governments’ negotiations with Europe and
underscored the importance of stability in these ser-
the United States. Some use and some reject
vices: “We had a medical mobile team, but now
Western trauma frameworks (Loyd, Ehrkamp, and
we’ve stopped for the lack of funding. So, we
Secor 2018), but all recognize the stressor not just of
stopped it, but they made 345 visits.” Other people
we interviewed suggested that there was an invidious war but of protracted displacement.
cycle of donors in the Global North issuing calls to Although the donor landscape might shift, what
fund certain kinds of services, leading agencies to has remained steady is the Global North’s continued
shift their work to justify their proposals, resulting in geopolitical commitment to containment.
competition for scarce resources. The effect, some Containment fails, though. As we have seen from
said, was a paucity of specialized services, which the distress of the grandmother and young woman
would have required more qualified (and highly quoted earlier, people find formal and informal ways
paid) health practitioners, more time, and perhaps to make lives, albeit in different places, stretching
more (expensive) medications. Although donor sup- families across the globe. With each further tear in
port for specialized services seems to have improved, the fabric of family life, the stresses mount. Beyond
the most recent 4 W mapping exercise estimates that the heartaches and worries for the safety of those far
only 49.9 percent of funding necessary to support away, the “direct negative consequences of family
refugees has been allotted and that 64.0 percent of separation for refugee health” (L€obel 2020, 28) are
the funding was for projects that lasted twelve clear and quantifiable (Jamil, Nassar-McMillan, and
months (Mental Health & Psychosocial Support Lambert 2007; Nickerson et al. 2010). With policies
Working Group 2017). that shred multigenerational households and kinship
This sense of capricious and arbitrary funding on networks, refugees are less able to pool resources,
the part of the Global North was interpreted in geo- young people are forced to leave school for work,
political terms by one service provider we inter- and elders are stranded without the duty-bound care
viewed in Turkey: and respect of their adult children (UNHCR 2018).
War and geopolitics thereby continue to be inscribed
They send resources because it’s cheaper this way. onto families through the securitization of migration
That’s why there are some projects being funded here.
and capriciousness of humanitarian funding.
720 Ehrkamp, Loyd, and Secor
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Accessed November 30, 2020. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/ PATRICIA EHRKAMP is a Professor and Chair of the
mideast/RL33546.pdf. Geography Department at the University of Kentucky,
Smith, S., P. Vasudevan, C. Serrano, and B. G€okarıksel. Lexington, KY 40506. E-mail: p.ehrkamp@uky.edu. Her
2019. Breaking families: Whiteness, state violence, research interests include immigration, citizenship, trans-
and the alienable rights of kin. Political Geography
72:144–46. doi: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.01.001.
nationalism, and the geopolitics of refugee resettlement.
Taylor, S. 2019. The long shadows cast by the field: JENNA M. LOYD is Associate Professor in the
Violence, trauma, and the ethnographic researcher.
Fennia—International Journal of Geography 197
Department of Geography at the University of
(2):183–99. doi: 10.11143/fennia.84792. Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706. E-mail:
Till, K. E. 2012. Wounded cities: Memory-work and a jmloyd@wisc.edu. She researches health politics,
place-based ethics of care. Political Geography 31 migration politics, and their intersection.
(1):3–14. doi: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2011.10.008.
Tsourapas, G. 2019. The Syrian refugee crisis and foreign ANNA J. SECOR is Professor of Human Geography
policy decision-making in Jordan, Lebanon, and at Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1
Turkey. Journal of Global Security Studies (4):464–81. 2LE, UK. E-mail: anna.j.secor@durham.ac.uk. Her
doi: 10.1093/jogss/ogz016.
United Nations High Commission on Refugees. 2018. research seeks to understand difference, politics, and
Impact of separation on refugee families: Syrian refugees space in everyday life in Turkey and in refugee reset-
in Jordan. Amman, Jordan: Columbia Global Centers. tlement to the United States.