This article examines the right to return for internally displaced persons within the context of post-war resettlement, focusing on Sri Lankan IDPs and the military-bureaucratic apparatus they must navigate to return home. It demonstrates how military interests and the political significance of contested territories continue to override humanitarian considerations in the Northern and Eastern provinces, producing ‘ethnocratic regimes’, or governance systems that privilege territorial control whilst marginalising ethnic minorities through spatial regulation. The author argues that land distribution continues to function as a tool of state-making and power consolidation, even as it appears to remedy decades of displacement. Ultimately, bureaucratic controls, militarised surveillance, and procedural barriers in accessing land serve to reinforce ethno-territorial politics, reframing religious and ethnic minority IDPs not as bearers of rights but as populations requiring management and control.

This short article argues why a decolonial approach to planned relocation is essential, particularly in contexts where states have demonstrated a proclivity to weaponise development and climate change adaptation in pursuit of nation-building, including minoritisation. Looking at Bangladesh as a case study, the article examines the colonial roots and dubious application of "guccharam", the "cluster village" program, in the Chittagong Hill Tracks region of Bangladesh, an area of non-Bengali Indigenous Peoples. Ultimately, the author argues that because planned relocations can have profound effects on communities and the broader political and social fabric, for example, leading to political and social minoritisation of certain ethnic groups, a much higher level of scrutiny of states and their "state-making" ambitions is called for. As this case study demonstrates, viewing the state's approach to combatting climate change normatively risks erasing the ways in which many states have committed violence against their own citizens, potentially leading to the normalisation of further harm.

This brief article highlights the lesser-known deportations of people from Lithuania conducted in 1940-1950s by the Soviet authorities. The unlawful Soviet actions led to the forced displacement, imprisonment, and deaths of thousands of Lithuanians within the Soviet Union, resulting in significant shifts in political, cultural, and economic life in Lithuanian society. Since the Soviet government concealed the deportations until just before the Soviet Union's collapse, scholars are still at work analysing the deportations and their long-lasting consequences for the re-establishment of Lithuania's independence in 1990, for Lithuanian historical memory and national identity. This blog provides a glimpse into this tragic period in Lithuanian history.

This short blog by a Barbudan community advocate examines how the Government of Antigua and Barbuda cynically forced the evacuation of Barbuda during Hurricane Irma in 2017 to make way for a luxury real estate development project catering to the exclusive private lifestyles of millionaires. Declaring the island ‘uninhabitable’, the government used threats and dubious legal procedures to confiscate all Barbudan land and prevent Barbudans from asserting their right to live on their land and island. Eight years on, Barbudans, led by community representatives and activists, continue their struggle. As the author notes, their challenges have strengthened the resolve of the people of Barbuda and helped forge alliances with other communities facing similar injustices.

This policy brief examines the forced and mostly failed relocation of members of coastal Sri Lankan communities following the 2004 tsunami that devastated parts of the country. In the aftermath of the tsunami, the Sri Lankan government decided to enforce a coastal buffer zone law that banned housing within proximity to the coastline, requiring residents in the buffer zone to vacate and move to poorly planned and constructed housing in ill-conceived relocation sites. As government and civil society organisations involved in the relocation gradually disengaged from the project, community members were left to fend for themselves amidst growing economic and social challenges associated with the relocation. As such, many families eventually returned to the buffer zone, exposing themselves to both legal and coastal hazard risks. This blog highlights how failure to involve communities in the planning and development of the relocation project has led to a second disaster for tsunami-affected communities – that of a poorly implemented planned relocation.

This short article spotlights what the authors introduce as “the feminization of recovery” of internally displaced communities in Lebanon's southern border with Israel, where women’s unpaid and unrecognized efforts sustain reconstruction in the absence of formal systems following the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah one year ago.

The October 2023 conflict along Lebanon’s southern border displaced thousands, with female-headed households (FHHs) among the most affected. Returning after the ‘ceasefire,’ many women faced destroyed homes, scarce livelihoods, and gender norms privileging male breadwinners, all compounded by Lebanon’s refusal to recognize internally displaced persons (IDPs). Without legal acknowledegment or state support, women relied on informal networks, care work, and community solidarity to rebuild. Drawing on qualitative research (2023-2025), this commentary examines how FHHs transform survival into agency, turning daily labor and mutual support into the backbone of recovery. Recognizing their roles demands a policy shift from short-term aid to gender-sensitive livelihoods, housing repair, psychosocial support, and municipal funding that affirms women not as victims of war, but as architects of post-conflict renewal.

The Somali Region of Ethiopia has shifted toward local integration as a preferred solution for over one million internally displaced persons (IDPs). This piece examines how the Somali Region's policy blueprint provides a valuable model for integrating displacement responses into development strategies. The blueprint features evidence-based policy, institutional coordination, and community incentives, including plans to transform Qoloji, the region’s largest IDP site, into a city-level administrative or district hub. By placing IDPs at the center of decision-making and adapting to specific social and economic contexts, the Region advances durable, equitable, and development-oriented solutions that offer lessons for Ethiopia and beyond.

This article calls attention to the escalating displacement crisis in South Sudan, where the overlapping impacts of conflict and climate change are deepening insecurity for IDPs and others in displacement affected communities. Highlighting the links between climate events, localized violence and displacement, the article calls on government and civil society stakeholders to acknowledge the worsening 'dual crisis' and do more to embed climate risk management strategies, including disaster risk reduction and climate adaption programming, into civilian protection and conflict resolution policies. Such measures should also support community-based adaptation practices that address IDP needs, empower community leaders and contribute to long-term stability in communities where IDPs reside.