Book Review: Unsettled Families: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and the Politics of Kinship by Sophia Balakian

Abstract

Gabrielle Oliveira reviews Unsettled Families: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and the Politics of Kinship by Sofia Balakian. Oliveira centers on the politics of resettlement and family recognition as a way to understand the everyday realities of displaced people’s families as they navigate the uncertainty of waiting. Through Balakian’s ethnographic research on Somali and Congolese refugees, Oliveira draws attention to the author’s profound humanization of resettlement and reveals the emotional, relational, and even bureaucratic dimensions of displacement. Oliveira highlights the book’s methodological and conceptual contributions to refugee studies while calling for future scholarship to focus on children and youth within displaced families, whose voices are currently underrepresented in the resettlement literature.