Refugee Narratives and the Politics of Storytelling - Einzelansicht

In this course we will look at different kinds of refugee narratives within a wider theoretical framework of the politics of voice and storytelling. Our first task will be to define our very object of enquiry: what counts as narrative? What stories are deemed intelligible? What and where are the limits of what can be told? Yet these questions cannot be uncoupled from a political context which defines which stories get told, whose voices are heard and on what terms. This notwithstanding, in our economy of affect, which sees the public sphere saturated with marketable stories of and by refugees, it becomes an ethical imperative to seek out moments of agency and empowerment, and the potential for genuine dialogue. Our final task in this course, then, is to consider our role as witness-bearers to refugee narratives and the political and ethical responsibility these place on us.