Rhetorics of Displacement: Constructing Identities in Forced Relocations

Forced displacement has often involved the use of rhetoric, both by government institutions and by people who struggle not only to survive displacement, but also to resist it. The author analyzes such discourses through three case studies: Spike Lee’s film When the Levees Broke, Dave Eggers’s novel What Is the What, and a documentaryshe helped produce on families displaced by eminent domain when the Shenandoah National Park was created.