ABSTRACT
The term ‘displacement’ can name an affective state, a psychological mechanism and a physical experience. The interaction between these meanings of the word produces much of its richness, and perhaps explains the frequency with which it occurs in contemporary scholarship attempting to grapple with the movement of people around the globe today, and with the legacy of the migrations of the past, both of which have involved violence, coercion and exploitation as well as hope, human ingenuity and the creation of new bonds, communities and cultures. In this chapter, I explore a particular definition of displacement which arises from four contemporary literary texts. To speak of displacement is inevitably to speak of what it means to be at home. Displacement can be understood as an experience which puts the meaning, security and reliability of home into question in various ways.
