Repatriation and de-territorialization: Meskhetian Turks' conception of home

Repatriation is considered ideologically and in policy making to be the preferred 'durable' solution for refugees: displaced people should go 'home', to their country or place of origin. Using the work of legal theorists and refugee studies scholars, the article analyses the theorizations associated with home and belonging.

Ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Azerbaijan presents evidence of the disjuncture between Meskhetian Turk refugees' idea of home as they articulate it, and the conventional understanding of the idea of home in much of the theory and policy about place, belonging and the nation. Secondly, the article addresses the ability of the human rights regime or its regional manifestation to protect and represent refugee rights.