Dimensions of refugee identity in Dina Nayeri’s Refuge
Keywords:
refugees, identity, Dina Nayeri, the novel ‘Refuge’, fictions of migration.
Abstract
The article concentrates on Dina Nayeri’s novel “Refuge”. The focus of this article is on the processes of formation of refugee’s identity of the main character, Niloo. It has been argued that the construction of her agency is based on the continual dialogue between her and her father as well as between her and the exiled Iranians in Amsterdam. The main character’s initial reluctance to support connections with her father and, in a broader sense, with her native country is transformed during the novel’s diegesis. In the end, Niloo admits that she needs to embrace her Iranian self and establish a dialogue with her past. The second part of the article deals with the notion of the refugee community and the idea that exiled collective identity is constructed on the primal injury of oppression and exclusion. Niloo’s meetings with her people stimulate her to reconsider that part of herself she was trying to suppress. Moreover, the reconciliation with her former neglected self becomes possible after meeting the Iranian immigrants. The diegetic narrator tries to make sense of her life and construct her agency through negotiations with others. It is concluded that the refugee’s past experience cannot be forgotten or refused during the formation of an exiled identity. Instead, it must be integrated and acknowledged by a forced migrant.
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References
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Van der Linden, M., & Jacobs, L. (2016). The Impact of Cultural, Economic, and Safety Issues in Flemish Television News Coverage (2003–13) of North African Immigrants on Perceptions of Intergroup Threat. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 71(4), 1-19.
Webster, W. (1998). Imagining Home: Gender, ‘Race’ and National Identity, 1945–64. London: UCL Press.
Adichie, C. N. (2013). Americanah. Knopf.
Agamben, G. (2000). Means without End. Notes on Politics. The University of Minnesota Press.
Agier, M. (2008). On the Margins of the World. (D. Fernsach, Trans.). Polity Press.
Ahmed, S., Castada, C., Fortier, A-M., & Sheller, M. (Eds.). (2003). Uprootings/Regroundings. Questions of Home and Migration. Oxford, New York: Berg.
Allan, G., & Crow, G. (Eds.). (1989). Home and Family: Creating the Domestic Space. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Arendt, H. (2007). The Jewish Writings. New York: Shocken Books.
Barnett, M. (2014). Refugees and Humanitarianism. In E. F. Qasmiyeh, G. Loescher, K. Long, & N. Sigona (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (pp. 200 – 207). Oxford University Press.
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Polity.
Benmayor, R., & Skotnes, A. (1994). Some Reflections on Migration and Identity. In R. Benmayor & A. Skotnes (Eds.), Migration and identity (pp. 1-14). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Chapman, T. & Hockey, J. (Eds.). (1999). Ideal Homes? Social Change and Domestic Life. London and New York: Routledge.
Conlon, E. (2013). Not the Same Sky. Wakefield Press.
Costello, K., & Hodson, G. (2011). Social Dominance-based Threat Reactions to Immigrants in Need of Assistance. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41(2), 220–231. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.769
Cresswell, T. (1996). In Place/Out of Place: Geography, Identity, and Transgression. University of Minnesota Press.
Currie, M. (2007). About Time. Narrative, Fiction and the Philosophy of Time. Edinburgh University Press.
Di Cesare, D. (2020). Resident Foreigners: A Philosophy of Migration. Polity.
Erll, A. (2009). Narratology and Cultural Memory Studies. In S. Heinen & R. Sommer (Eds.), Narratology in the Age of Cross-disciplinary. Narrative Research (pp. 212-228). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., Loescher, G., Long, K., & Sigona, N. (Eds.). (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford University Press.
Florack, A., Piontkowski, U., Rohmann, A., Balzer, T., & Perzig, S. (2003). Perceived Intergroup Threat and Attitudes of Host Community Members toward Immigrant Acculturation. The Journal of Social Psychology, 143(5), 633-648. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224540309598468
Foucault, M. (1972). An Archaeology of Knowledge (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Pantheon.
Genette, G. (1983). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Cornell University Press.
Hamid, M. (2018). Exit West. Einaudi.
Henriquez, Ch. (2014). The Book of the Unknown Americans. Canongate Books.
Hosseini, K. (2003). The Kite Runner. Riverhead Books.
Kwok, J. (2011). Girl in Translation. Penguin.
Kristeva, J. (1991). Strangers to Ourselves (L. Roudiez, Trans.). Columbia University Press.
Linhard, T., & Parsons, T. (2019). How Does Migration Take Place? In T. Linhard, T. Parsons (Eds.), Mapping Migration, Identity, and Space (pp. 1-21). Palgrave Macmillan.
Llena, C. (2020) Fictions of Migration in Contemporary Britain and Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan.
Luiselli, V. (2020). The Lost Children Archive. Fourth Estate.
Lyotard, J-F. (1984). The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Maalouf, A. (2001). In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong. New York: Arcade.
Manguel, A. (2023). A Return. Quattro Books.
Nayeri, D. (2017). Refuge. New York: Riverhead Books.
Nehamas, A. (1985). Nietzche: Life as Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nguyen, V. T. (2019). The Refugees. Corsair.
Otsuka, J. (2011). The Buddha in the Attic. Knopf.
Patric, A. (2016). Black Rock White City. Transit Lounge.
Phillips, C. (2008). Foreigners: Three English Lives. Vintage Digital.
Rapport, N., & Dawson, A. (Eds.). (1998). Migrants of Identity: Perceptions of Home in a World of Movement. Oxford: Berg.
Ricoeur, P. (1986). Time and Narrative. Vol. 2. (K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Shamsie, K. (2001). Salt and Saffron. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
Shymchyshyn, M., & Chernyshova, S. (2022). Between Remembering and Confession: A Refugee Narrative in Dina Nayeri’s Refuge. Anglia, 140(3-4), 572-590. https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2022-0033
Shymchyshyn, M. (2021). Geocriticism at the Crossroads: An Overview. In Robert T. Tally Jr. (Ed.), Spatial Literary Studies Interdisciplinary Approaches to Space, Geography, and the Imagination. (pp. 13-30). Routledge.
Somers, M., & Gibson, G. (1993). Reclaiming the Epistemological 'Other': Narrative and the Social Constitution of Identity. The University of Michigan Ann Arbor. https://acortar.link/GvR6qw
Stanzel, F. (1984). A Theory of Narrative. Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, Ch. (1989). Sources of the Self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tremain, R. (2003). The Colour. Vintage.
Urrea, L. A. (2019). The House of Broken Angels. John Murray.
Van der Linden, M., & Jacobs, L. (2016). The Impact of Cultural, Economic, and Safety Issues in Flemish Television News Coverage (2003–13) of North African Immigrants on Perceptions of Intergroup Threat. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 71(4), 1-19.
Webster, W. (1998). Imagining Home: Gender, ‘Race’ and National Identity, 1945–64. London: UCL Press.
Published
2023-08-30
How to Cite
Chernyshova, S. (2023). Dimensions of refugee identity in Dina Nayeri’s Refuge. Amazonia Investiga, 12(68), 67-77. https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.68.08.6
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