(Un)usual spaces of refuge? The viewer’s perspective and the politics of knowledge on refugee-hosting geographies

Abstract Refugee-hosting geographies represent complex sites of encounter where power and knowledge intersect with territoriality. While they cannot be inherently ‘unusual’, they become so when they deviate from dominant discourses, categories and practices that seek to impose order and meaning within the global refugee regime. The introduction to the Special Issue sets the stage for the collection of papers by conceptualizing (un)usual spaces of refuge. It explores how complex entanglements between policy and knowledge production cast certain geographies of refuge as ‘unusual’, obscuring their role, relevance, and challenges within the global refugee regime. Drawing on perspectives from critical geopolitics, refugee studies and international relations, the collection seeks to achieve three aims. First, it pluralizes perspectives on refugee-hosting geographies beyond the core and periphery and the North/South divide. Second, it calls for mapping everyday cartographies that reflect refugees’ experiences of placemaking. Third, it highlights how policy assumptions about ‘interim’ versus ‘preferred’ geographies can obscure understanding of how refugees perceive durable solutions and destinations beyond the ‘territorial trap’.