Displacement as a cultural repertoire for resilience in chronic crisis, in Burundi

Prior to a new outbreak of violence in Burundi in 2015, more than 10000 Burundians had already crossed borders in search of refuge. The anticipatory displacement signalled the need to rethink displacement as contextualised in the country's long history of conflict and decline. In this article I take a life course perspective based on longitudinal ethnographic research. I show that displacement has become deeply entangled with other forms of mobility, beyond dualities of forced versus voluntary migration or coping versus adapting. I propose that past experiences have realised and transformed the collective meaning of displacement in Burundian culture. Today, displacement should be understood as a sedimented, cultural resource and framework. This conceptualisation enables situating displacement practices in lives and communities in chronic crisis. Rather than displacement being central to life projects, it is a rather ordinary cultural repertoire of action employed for resilience.