Displacements

This chapter engages with the human consequences of the territorial imaginings examined in the previous chapter: the ethnic cleansing of populations whose presence did not accord with exclusive visions of national space. The chapter provides a broad overview of the population movements that accompanied the violence of 1988-1994, seeking to disaggregate our understanding of ‘population exchange’. The chapter argues for a differentiated understanding of forced displacement, conditioned by different motives and conceptions of space. ‘Communal ethnic cleansing’ is explored as a collective eviction of ethnic others informed by underlying affective dispositions, characterising mass displacements in the 1988-90 period. ‘Strategic ethnic cleansing’ is explored as the forced expulsion of ethnic others in the service of military-strategic goals, characterising mass displacements in the 1991-94 period. The chapter closes by considering the prospects and politics of return and restitution.