Landscapes of affinity: movement, memory and practices of the imagination amongst resettled Karen refugees in Melbourne, Australia

This anthropological research investigated the humanitarian resettlement of Karen refugees to Australia. The dissertation examines the Karen Burmese ethnic conflict, the forced displacement of ethnic Karens in Burma and people's experience of long term settlement in refugee camps along the Thailand Burma border. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork, this research provides insight into the settlement practices and place-making techniques employed by Karen refugees in the first five years of resettlement in Australia, with a particular focus upon the bodily sensorium and visual material culture. This research informs anthropological understandings of place, mobility, embodied memory and humanitarian refugee resettlement.