What We Brought with Us

In exile and migration, the things that forcibly displaced people take with them become mobile testimonies of defiance, mourning, creativity, and rejuvenation. Through a series of scholarly essays and biographical vignettes, this richly-illustrated volume draws on such observations to examine the meanings that their possessions assume when they are wrenched from their original contexts. The contributors to this collection thus shine an intimate spotlight on those who are driven from their homes by conflict and forced into exile by authoritarian regimes. In so doing, they underscore the necessity for civil societies to support academic freedom and the work done by critical thinkers worldwide.