Geopolitics of Displacement and Exclusion: Making and Unmaking of Refugees
AAG, April 10-14, 2018
New Orleans, LA
Organizers: Kara Dempsey (Appalachian State University) and Orhon Myadar (University of Arizona)
As the number of refugees reaches record high globally, refugee issues have been brought to the forefront of political and public debates both nationally and internationally. The public views towards these refugees have been shaped by various mediums that disseminate images and ideas of and about refugees.
This session seeks to conceptualize refugee migration as a critical geopolitical issue and examine the theoretical and practical assumptions surrounding the humanitarian crisis. Invoking Judith Butler’s Precarious Life and Giorgio Agamben’s Bare Life, the session aims to explore the politics of making and unmaking refugees at different scales and in different milieus. Central to our understanding of the politics of refugees is the contradiction between the basic International Relations assumption based on the sanctity of the states and the forces that defy the assumption and the rigidity that comes with it. In exploring the processes of making and unmaking refugees within this contradiction, this session thus seeks to bring together discussions on topics including but not limited to: geopolitics of displacement and bordering (that of exclusion and inclusion; the travel ban); the biopolitics of making/unmaking refugees (coding, registration, incarceration, representation, exploitation and subjugation of refugee bodies); precariousness of refugee lives; refugee stories (production, narration, animation, fetishizing and silencing of refugee narratives; documenting refugee voices), racializing and essentializing tropes of refugees.
Interested contributors should submit an abstract of approximately 250 words to Kara Dempsey (dempseyke@appstate.edu) and Orhon Myadar (orhon@email.arizona.edu) by October 10, 2017.