The essays in this collection explore the activities of two populations of displaced peoples that are seldom discussed together: Indigenous peoples and refugees or diasporic peoples around the world. Rather than focusing on victimhood, the authors focus on the creativity and agency of displaced peoples, thereby emphasizing capacity and resilience. Throughout their chapters, they show how cultural activities-from public performance to filmmaking to community arts-recur as significant ways in which people counter the powers of displacement. This book is an indispensable resource for displaced peoples everywhere and the policy makers, social scientists, and others who work in concert with them. Contributors: Catherine Graham, Subhasri Ghosh, Jon Gordon, Maroussia Hajdukowski-Ahmed, Agnes Kramer-Hamstra, Mazen Masri, Jean McDonald, and Pavithra Narayanan.

Daniel Coleman is a recently retired English professor who is grateful to live in the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe in Hamilton, Ontario. He taught in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. He has studied and written about Canadian Literature, whiteness, the literatures of Indigeneity and diaspora, the cultural politics of reading, and wampum, the form of literacy-ceremony-communication-law that was invented by the people who inhabited the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence–Hudson River Watershed before Europeans arrived on Turtle Island.

Daniel has long been fascinated by the poetic power of narrative arts to generate a sense of place and community, critical social engagement and mindfulness, and especially wonder. Although he has committed considerable effort to learning in and from the natural world, he is still a bookish person who loves the learning that is essential to writing. He has published numerous academic and creative non-fiction books as an author and as an editor. His books include Masculine Migrations (1998), The Scent of Eucalyptus (2003), White Civility (2006; winner of the Raymond Klibansky Prize), In Bed with the Word (2009) and Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place (2017, shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize).

Daniel Coleman's profile page

Erin Goheen Glanville is a PhD Candidate in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. She lives in Vancouver.

Erin Goheen Glanville's profile page

Wafaa Hasan recently completed her PhD in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University and was founding Associate Director for the Symposium for the CRC on Diversity in Canadian Literary Cultures. She lives in Toronto.

Wafaa Hasan's profile page

Agnes Kramer-Hamstra is Professor of Literature in the Department of English at St. Stephen's University. She lives in St. Stephen, New Brunswick.

Agnes Kramer-Hamstra's profile page

"This collection provides a thoughtful response to a rising global issue. Throughout the collection there is an underlying presence of human rights rhetoric and although not explicitly stated, it is worth noting that the trend toward moving human rights out of juridical and legal frameworks to humanities based research is helpful in developing creative solutions to problems of displacement." Alexander Hartwiger, Transnational Literature, November 2012 [Full review at http://bit.ly/1dbxOn6]

"...thoughtful and strongly humanitarian collection, highly recommended especially for college library anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies collections."

Reviewer's Choice

"In addition to its unique assemblage of refugee and Indigenous voices, the most exciting aspect of this book is its envisioning of resistance through creativity. Authors include forms of resistance and affirmation ranging from creative works to policy-making to outright protest.... These eight divergent essays together comprise a collection that is genuinely evocative and courageous. In concluding, I will leave you with an inspirational statement, alluded to in my title, from Hajdukowski-Ahmed's writing. She says, 'creativity is an alchemy that can transform pain into art, testimony, and hope.' One after another, the chapters in Countering Displacements work to describe this alchemy, and to attest to the strength of those who practice it within their political and cultural struggles." Aubrey Hanson, The Goose 2013 Double Issue [Full review at http://bit.ly/HVycI3]

"In Countering Displacements, eight brilliant essays focus on histories of displacement across the world, shedding light on the reality of people's everyday lives when fighting for the right to move or to stay.. This is a book like no other: where refugees' ongoing confrontation with authority, land exploitation, Indigenous self-determination and questions of citizenship are re-created in relation to one another, forming ways to creatively and collectively redefine statehood, nationality and legality." Ro Velasquez Guzman, Shameless, Spring 2013

"Countering Displacements brings together citizenship studies, refugee studies, diaspora studies and indigenous studies to create new conversations.. It is a book that offers diverse and challenging reflections on a wide range of questions around dispossession, migration, and the resilience to remake lives. Everyone working on postcolonial studies will find something of interest here." Pamela McCallum, Chimo