The Ecosystem of Exile Politics: The importance of physical location in diaspora mobilisation

Susan Banki’s book explores the Bhutanese refugee crisis and diaspora activism. It highlights how proximity to the homeland strengthened advocacy but also exposed activists to greater risks—a dynamic of both power and precarity.

The Ecosystem of Exile Politics, tells the story of a little-known refugee situation. It relays the events in Bhutan that led to the exodus of one-sixth of the population, and then recounts the activism by Bhutan’s refugee diaspora that followed.  It shows that activism functions like a physical ecosystem, in which hubs of activism in different locations interact to pressure the home country. Proximity to the homeland allowed for powerful oppositional action, but rendered the activists quite precarious. Thus proximity, the book shows, was a boon and a bane.

Speaker

Susan Banki is Associate Professor at the University of Sydney and the Director of the Master of Social Justice. Susan’s focus is in the Asia-Pacific region, where she has conducted extensive field research in Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh and Japan on refugee/migrant protection, statelessness and border control.

Teaser image credit: Sudeshna Sarkar and International Relations and Security Network via flickr