Etzold & Fechter, ‘Gendered Experiences of Waiting, (Dis)Connectivity, and (Im)Mobility under Conditions of Protracted Displacement’, 2025

Etzold, Benjamin, and Anne-Meike Fechter, ‘Gendered Experiences of Waiting, (Dis)Connectivity, and (Im)Mobility under Conditions of Protracted Displacement’ (24 June 2025), in Gökce Yurdakul, and others (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Intersectional Approaches to Migration, Gender, and Sexuality (online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 June 2025 – )

Abstract

Twenty-five million refugees worldwide live in so-called protracted displacement situations as they were forced to flee to another country but consistently face barriers to returning home, to local integration, and to moving elsewhere. Such protracted situations are normally understood as conditions of immobility and stasis, while the people who are enduring them are seen as passive, disconnected, vulnerable, and in need of external support. Female refugees, in particular, are believed to be affected and to suffer under such conditions. The chapter first discusses the notion of protracted displacement and reflects upon recent conceptual advances that challenge conventional assumptions in the policy debate and factor in displaced people’s agency, mobility, and social connectivity. In a second step, we summarize how gender perspectives have been applied in studies of protracted displacement and how they have revealed more differentiated experiences of waiting, liminality, and precarity. Based on empirical research insights from a multiyear project in selected countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe, the chapter then shows how gender, sexuality, and patriarchal norms shape conditions of protracted displacement; social relations, including transnational networks, of displaced people; and pathways out of precarity and uncertainty.