Author ORCID Identifier
Semester
Spring
Date of Graduation
2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Type
PhD
College
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department
English
Committee Chair
Rose Casey
Committee Member
Gwen Bergner
Committee Member
Rosemary Hathaway
Committee Member
Mimi Thi Nguyen
Abstract
As the refugee crisis continues to worsen, so too will the field of refugee literature continue to expand into new directions to account for shifts in the refugee figure and developing concerns of survival migrant writers. Drawing from the foundational work of scholars such as Sianne Ngai and Sara Ahmed, I use affect theory as an intervention into these contemporary refugee texts to posit a rethinking of how we analyze refugee stories as narratives of crisis. I employ an affective approach to demonstrate how the emergency of forced migration can be narratively depicted in an embodied way that fosters connection with readers as well as an exploration of the intersections between the aesthetic and the political. My analyses of refugee literature, poetry, photography, and performance art examine how affective experiences are produced by a survival migrant’s material and political environment and what these affects communicate about representation, subject position, and political community. Specifically, I identify and investigate how affects such as strangeness, grief, fear, and stuplimity shape the experiences of survival migrants, influencing their actions, relationships, and sense of identity. These are affects that are often collapsed into the politics of victimhood. However, throughout the dissertation I demonstrate that while these are unfortunately staples of the refugee experience, they are also testaments to the political agency of refugees who through these affects endure, hope, bear witness, and reclaim their histories. Ultimately, I argue that the affective politics of refugee literature reveal how refugee texts can help survival migrants become narratively reimagined beyond their traumas and break down the binary between victimhood and personal agency.
Recommended Citation
Pishotti, Gabriella, "Reimagining the Refugee Figure: Survival Migration and Its After-Affects" (2024). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 12322.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/12322
Embargo Reason
Publication Pending
Included in
International Humanitarian Law Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons