What survives displacement, and who can give a surviving claim practical force?
When people move, the relationships they rely on do not move on equal terms. Medical care, household evidence, work, local government and a claim to return each depend on different institutions. These cases follow that uneven continuity, from displaced communities to exile administrations and a state whose territory is threatened by rising seas.
The accessions, institutions and membership rules in these comparisons are authored for the project’s 2036 setting. They are not predictions, existing organizations, or positions attributed to the real communities and sources cited here.
When a population moves and the state does not
The opening cases distribute continuity across several kinds of institution rather than imagining one body that can stand in for every displaced person.
UNHCR’s 2024 report documents displacement linked to conflicts including Sudan, Syria and Ukraine.
Authored 2036 fiction
Ukraine
Syria
UkraineContinuum
Displaced care compact
Continuum’s 2028 compact joined displaced Ukrainian patients and clinicians with receiving hospital districts. Its first civil records were treatment transfers that no single welfare authority would keep open indefinitely. The founding hospital chamber acquired admission powers when temporary funding became a membership contribution.
Hospitals want predictable funding, patients want continuity and host governments want a limit on responsibility. The same person can be medically indispensable to one register and financially ineligible in another.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Mnemos
Displaced civil record union
Mnemos’s 2028 union assembled duplicated Syrian household and municipal records that had travelled through incompatible authorities. Displaced clerks became custodians of a register designed to survive another change in government. The charter accepts contested evidence without declaring which claimant owns the home.
Families need a usable record before every contradiction can be resolved. Clerks who certify continuity can quietly become the authority over which version of a life survives.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Solum
Agricultural return compact
Solum’s 2030 compact linked displaced farming households with return districts that needed work before cultivation could resume. Village councils retained authority over occupation histories. Restoration lenders financed access conditions against future agricultural output.
A return claimant can become indebted for making land usable before the ownership dispute is settled. The investor receives a production forecast while the household receives a pending-access notice.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Tessera
Municipal continuity federation
Tessera’s 2032 federation connected neighbourhood councils whose residents had scattered while local service obligations remained. Delegates refused both a single exile capital and the idea that control of a checkpoint should determine the civic roll. Each district accepted only the services named in its accession schedule.
The councils need security agreements to deliver services. Those agreements can make the people controlling access more powerful than the residents represented by the charter.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Aegis
Civilian protection compact
Aegis’s 2028 compact grew from Sudanese civilian relief relationships that crossed lines controlled by competing armed forces. Local groups created a shared record for supply and refuge requests. Armed sponsors were denied membership in the governing assembly but retained power over physical passage.
Neutral administration still needs negotiations with armed power. The compact can preserve a civilian claim while every party controlling the road declines responsibility for delivering it.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Motus
Portable labour federation
Motus’s 2030 federation was established by displaced workers whose qualifications and employment contributions became fragmented between receiving states. Host unions secured representation on its admissions board. Staffing firms joined for access to verified labour histories.
Portability reduces the loss caused by displacement and makes the workforce easier to move again. The federation’s strongest commercial clients rarely need to relocate themselves.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Sillage
Creole household federation
Sillage’s 2031 federation linked Haitian neighbourhood and diaspora institutions seeking continuity across repeated displacement. Other Creole-speaking associations acceded through separate agreements. Shared language does not erase their different histories or give the federation authority over the Caribbean.
Diaspora finance keeps local institutions operating but can shift authority away from residents exposed to violence. The register can reward a remittance more clearly than the labour of staying.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Keystone
Receiving-city federation
Keystone’s 2031 federation joined receiving cities that were financing shared obligations through incompatible national systems. Resident associations gained seats alongside municipalities. The charter pools local entry and services where the city can lawfully provide them, without claiming a national immigration power.
Cities carry the cost of belonging while higher authorities retain many powers to grant it. A common card can conceal the point at which municipal competence ends.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Recognition without a route home
A portable record becomes more difficult when the state denies the citizenship on which other rights would depend. Adding another register can also make a household more exposed.
The UN describes denial of citizenship and free movement to Rohingya and the absence of conditions for safe, sustainable return.
United Nations in Myanmar / March 2024 ↗
Authored 2036 fiction
Rohingya communitiesLimen
Stateless household register
Limen’s 2029 register was founded as a supplemental institution for Rohingya households whose community identity was not secured by the documents issued around them. Its covenant preserves claims to citizenship, return and self-identification. It does not convert statelessness into an accepted permanent substitute nationality.
A humanitarian database can be useful to the authority restricting a household’s movement. Members need recognition but may distrust every new demand to make themselves visible.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗A community after territorial loss
The next case separates the preservation of a homeland claim from the immediate demands of housing and work after territorial loss.
More than 100,000 refugees arrived in Armenia from Karabakh in September 2023, according to UNHCR.
Authored 2036 fiction
ArmeniaArarat
Armenian continuity covenant
Ararat’s 2028 covenant formed around households displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh and diaspora institutions preserving community and property evidence. It supplements Armenian and host-state citizenship. Membership does not settle a territorial claim or imply that relocation extinguishes a right asserted by a family.
Institutions abroad can afford to preserve a homeland narrative while displaced households need housing and work now. The council must decide whose urgency defines continuity.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗The provisional institution that outlives a generation
When unresolved status lasts across generations, a service institution must decide how to endure without making the provisional arrangement appear settled.
Western Sahara remains on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.
United Nations / decolonization record ↗
Authored 2036 fiction
Western SaharaBruma
Provisional services covenant
Bruma’s 2031 covenant joined voluntary Sahrawi associations seeking durable water and household services during an unresolved political process. It explicitly preserves members’ self-determination claims. Service trustees administer contributions without acquiring authority to negotiate away those claims.
Donors prefer projects with an end date. Families have inherited a provisional status. The covenant’s survival can make an unresolved arrangement look administratively complete.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Leaving without agreeing to disappear
Exile also changes the value of visibility. A record that once demonstrated civic participation can become a liability to the people it names.
The UK introduced the BN(O) immigration route in 2021 following the imposition of Hong Kong’s National Security Law.
Authored 2036 fiction
Hong KongNull
Exile privacy register
Null began in 2027 as an overseas membership register for former Hong Kong civic associations whose public lists had become liabilities. Publishers and legal-aid custodians agreed to verify affiliation without maintaining one searchable roll. Private enclave operators later offered timed physical access against the same credentials.
The people who need discretion distrust the office that must certify it. Investors market the same system as premium privacy and can outbid the exiles who established it.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Exile after a contested election
Beyond privacy lies the question of representation: who can speak for an absent constituency, and how can that mandate be challenged?
The Council’s record links sanctions to repression and election falsification in Belarus in 2020.
Council of the European Union / sanctions record ↗
Authored 2036 fiction
Belarus
Belarusian exilePalinode
Exiled civic charter
Palinode’s 2027 charter preserved civic mandates claimed by Belarusian exile networks after repression separated political participation from physical presence. Its founding assembly made every office recallable. Host-country recognition of any document remained a separate diplomatic decision.
An exile administration needs money and recognition to continue. Donors and host governments can gain influence over a body whose legitimacy is claimed from people they do not govern.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Mora
Mandate review federation
Mora’s 2030 federation formed within exile networks contesting how long an emergency mandate could remain valid without a new territorial election. It guarantees scheduled public review of representation. Participation is possible without joining a single government-in-exile claim.
Waiting protects a contested mandate from a rushed takeover. The same waiting can preserve the leadership being challenged. Every emergency extension includes a date for reviewing the next extension.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗An institution maintained from outside
Continuity can depend on a receiving institution’s judgment even when the work itself has never stopped.
UN Women describes restrictions on Afghan women’s education, work and participation following the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Authored 2036 fiction
AfghanistanCalyx
Interrupted education covenant
Calyx’s 2028 covenant was founded by Afghan women maintaining educational and professional relationships across closed classrooms and exile. Host institutions accepted witnessed study records. Donor-financed accreditation offices then acquired control over which interrupted qualifications could be completed.
The office protects a professional history by translating it into a receiving institution’s requirements. The person can be asked to repeat years of work to make the continuity legible.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Sovereignty beyond a disappearing coastline
The final case returns to territory from another direction. Continuing statehood, the preservation of a place and the terms of living elsewhere require different agreements.
The Australia–Tuvalu treaty recognizes continuing Tuvaluan statehood despite climate-related sea-level rise and establishes a mobility pathway.
DFAT / Falepili Union treaty ↗
Authored 2036 fiction
Pacific island communities
Small-island states
Pacific coastal communitiesPelagia
Oceanic continuity compact
Pelagia’s 2030 covenant federated voluntary island-community associations after relocation agreements left cultural continuity and host accommodation in separate hands. Wayfinding schools kept authority over their own knowledge. Receiving harbours signed service schedules, not a transfer of sovereignty from existing Pacific states.
Receiving authorities offer capacity on renewable terms. Diaspora funders gain votes while people who stay on the islands carry the physical cost of maintaining places everyone claims.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Halcyon
Island risk commonwealth
Halcyon’s 2032 commonwealth emerged when island-community mutuals pooled adaptation and relocation liabilities that conventional policies kept separating. Diaspora households supplied reserves. Trustees required risk classifications to distinguish continued habitation from financed departure.
Keeping a place inhabited may cost the pool more than moving its residents. An office formed to preserve a community can acquire a financial preference for its dispersal.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Tidemark
Coastal tenure covenant
Tidemark’s 2033 covenant grew from coastal tenants excluded when relocation negotiations counted owners but not every household living on the land. Custodians preserved collective claims; receiving districts offered conditional placements. The covenant neither annexes the coast nor relinquishes the members’ existing statehood.
Compensation schemes prefer a final settlement. Households may need to move while refusing to declare their former relationship finished.
Inspect the fictional institution ↗Continuity takes different forms across these cases: a treatment record, an unextinguished claim, a recalled mandate, a course of study or a continuing statehood. The fictional institutions are judged by what they preserve and by who gains power through preserving it. A durable register can keep a claim alive while its holder still waits for a home, service or decision.