Involuntary Displacement and Resettlement — Policy and ... - CEPA

people becoming forced migrants; losing their homes, walking through thejungle or fleeing by boat in rough seas during the monsoon rain. People inPuttalam similarly experienced becoming hosts when welcoming their Muslimbrothers and sisters. The Islamic discourse of hospitality played a crucial partin this. Later, the humanitarian discourse of internal displacement, asexpressed by the UN/Brookings approach – and which the situation in SriLanka during the 1990s played a crucial part in developing – became thedominant discourse of internal displacement. These practices and discoursesworked together to create what the IDP and host categories mean inPuttalam today. Contributing to these changes are the dynamics between theIDPs and hosts, and within the groups of IDPs and hosts, as well as thechanging policies towards IDPs and hosts by the government andhumanitarian agencies. For example, the northern Muslims were very quick inorganising themselves and advocating for their interests based on theircommon identity as displaced. Even today this is important. As a group, theIDPs can appear as almost stronger than the hosts, who to a large extenthave lost their importance in the humanitarian discourse and consequentlyhave little influence with humanitarian agencies and government institutionsset up to assist IDPs. This has created complex power relationships betweenthe two groups.I have briefly showed how the categories of ‘IDPs’ and ‘hosts’ were formedand has been transformed. Thayalasingam (this volume), in his paper, showshow these groups develop conflictual relationships. I would like to go onestep further here, and come back to the processes of labelling to look intosome of the reasons for these conflicts. I would like to focus on the so-called1) homogenising effect; 2) the privileging effect; 3) the localising effect; and4) politicisation and de-politicisation.1) The homogenising effect: The homogenising effect is a majorissue and challenge when we formulate categories. Labelling createscategories that tend to treat all individuals in that category in the sameway. We do not see that some people gain and some lose from theforced migration processes. It becomes more challenging to identifyvulnerability among the two groups of IDPs and hosts. When a situationbecomes protracted, as in the case of Puttalam, the labelsdevelop into social groups. IDPs and hosts have become social groupsthat contribute to the way society is organised.2) The privileging effect: The homogenising effect is closely relatedto the privileging effect. Categories include some and exclude others.Labelling some people as ‘IDPs’ means that those who are supposed to137