Not Exactly like the Phoenix—But Rising all the Same: Reconstructing Displaced Livelihoods in Post-Cleanup Harare

Studies of displacement often emphasise massive physical dislocation. In this paper, based on a study of displaced youth in Harare, Zimbabwe, I argue for the freeing of the concept from ‘physical uprooting’ and build a case for focusing on in situ displacement and displaced livelihoods. I consider attempts by youth to reconstitute displaced livelihoods in the wake of ‘cleansing’ by the state. I scrutinise evolving recovery tactics in the face of determined efforts by the authorities to repress the ‘filth’, demonstrating that the youth's resistance comprises a myriad of spatialised recovery strategies for dealing with spatialised repression. I argue that it is the mutation of the youth's modes of operation that have enabled them to (re)contaminate and (re)subvert the ‘purified’ spaces.