Guilt by Location: Forced Displacement and Population Sorting in Civil Wars (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781009523424)

Population displacement is a devastating feature of contemporary conflict with far-reaching political and humanitarian consequences. This book demonstrates the extent to which displacement is a deliberate strategy of war, not just a consequence of it. Moving beyond instances of ethnic cleansing, Adam Lichtenheld draws on field research in Uganda and Syria; case studies from Burundi, Indonesia, and Vietnam; and an original dataset of strategic displacement in 166 civil wars to show that armed groups often uproot civilians to sort the targeted population, not to get rid of it. When lacking information about opponents' identities and civilians' loyalties, combatants use human mobility to infer wartime affiliations through 'guilt by location'. Different displacement strategies occur in different types of civil wars, with some relying on spatial profiling, rather than ethnic profiling. As displacement reaches record highs, Lichtenheld's findings have important implications for the study of forced migration and policy responses to it.

Author: Adam Lichtenheld
ISBN-10: 1009523422
ISBN-13: 9781009523424
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 12/19/2024
Pages: 346
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.02lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.72d