30. Wars, Diasporas, and Un/Re- Rooted Familial Geographies: From Springfield, Massachusetts, to São Paulo, Brazil, and Beyond

Abstract

This chapter captures the displacement and emplacement of transnational refugee families in scattered locations because of military conflict, (neo)colonialism, immigration regimes, and their refashioned kinship, identity, and belonging. It draws from ethnographic research conducted on resettled Palestinian Iraq War refugees in São Paulo, Brazil, over the span of several years (2009–2014), and most recently in summer 2018, as well as field data collected in Springfield, MA, in January 2018. It focuses on a family originally separated in 2003, contained in various in-between places from 2003 to 2017, and the ways in which they continue their connections while anchoring their lives in disparate locations. Brazil and the United States are the nexus of these exchanges, but these familial geographies encompass the contexts of Lebanon, Syria, and Australia and also reflect and dialogue with family dispersions in Latinx communities.