Historicizing concepts in refugee history
Historicizing past events is a double bind. It requires us to understand our object of interest in historical context, both in its contemporary situation and in the chronological development of history. It means, interpreting the socio-political constellation of the past and relating it to the present. Historicizing then describes an attempt at counteracting projections of current concepts into history without divorcing the relevance of the past from the present. To better understand the present through historical interpretation, we need to rethink familiar and fundamental concepts to go beyond the limits of our own historical container. Thus, refugee history forces us to re-think concepts such as ‘refugee’, ‘protection’, and ‘migration’.
▻http://refugeehistory.org/blog/2017/7/24/historicizing-concepts-in-refugee-history