476
The Meaning of Flight in Biographies
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC38 Biography and Society (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
Experiences of forced migration are multilayered, embodied and constructed in dialogues surrounded and infused by refugee discourses. The reasons for flight and migration are often defined as either legitimate or illegitimate. However, for refugees themselves, their situations which forced them to move are manifold and complex. Violence, economic insecurity, climate change, sexual abuse or harassment, ethnic persecution and many more also might intersect.
This session seeks papers dealing with biographical experiences of refugees in different legal stages of flight (e.g. asylum seekers and undocumented migrants), different points in the process (e.g., in transit, soon after resettlement and long after resettlement), and from different historical periods (e.g., WWII, Europe during the Cold War, post-Vietnam War, recent forced migration movements). A particular interest in this session is to explore the risks of being locked into the social positions of “refugee” and individuals’ capacity to redefine and transform who they are in new temporary, transitional or “permanent” and unstable settings. How do they negotiate stereotypes? What strategies do people use in talking about their experiences and constructing their biographies? What kind of approaches do we have for understanding experiences and biographies of refugees, such as face-to-face interviews, film, images?