The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies presents:
Book Talk: Guilt by Location: Forced Displacement and Population Sorting in Civil Wars
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
12:15 pm -2:00 pm
1302 International Affairs
Click Here for In-Person Registration Link
Featuring the author:
Adam Lichtenheld, Author, Guilt by Location: Forced Displacement and Population Sorting in Civil Wars; Executive Director, Immigration Policy Lab, Stanford University
Moderated by Allison Carnegie, Director, Politics and Global Economy (PaGE) Lab, Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies; Professor of Political Science, Columbia University.
Book Description:
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.
Lunch will be served with the event. Pre-registration Required.
