| This dissertation examines Meskhetian Turk refugees' conception of home as a way of investigating repatriation, the dominant discourse in global policy and theory for managing refugees. Repatriation is considered ideologically and in policy making to be the preferred "durable" solution for refugees---displaced people should go "home," to their country or place of origin. Using the work of legal theorists and refugees studies scholars on the problematizing of home, a critical analysis of the theorizations associated with home and belonging is constructed. Ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Azerbaijan presents evidence of the disjuncture between the idea of home on the part of Meskhetian Turk refugees which is articulated through their voice and the idea of home as is conventionally understood in much of theory and policy about place, and belonging and the nation.; The second concern addressed in this paper is the ability of the human rights regime or its regional manifestation to protect and represent refugee rights. This problem revolves around sovereignty of states and the emergency of new collectivities in globalization. What has happened to sovereignty as a result of globalization processes contesting control functions of the state? I conclude that the Meskhetian Turks refugees possess an account of community that runs against the grain of the meta-narrative of nation, which remains geographically bound, ideologically speaking. I also conclude that sovereignty, though interrupted by the intervention of certain international institutions, is not overcome. |
