Stephen Ahern: Legacies of Forced Migration: Attending to History and Discourse

This paper addresses the current lack of historicized understanding of forced migration practices. It argues for a method of comparative analysis that takes into account the patterns of past events in order better to understand the implications of present day crises. The paper also argues for a method of situated discourse analysis, since key to stopping abuse of forced migrants is to listen to their own lived experience, and to interrogate critically the rhetoric used by state actors past and present to exclude or cover over those realities on the ground. The paper offers results of recent research into the transatlantic slave trade and the expulsion of the Acadian people in the 18th century, as case studies in how lessons learned from the past can better inform analysis of present migration and can encourage development of just policies to deal with the fluid movements of populations in our day.