Stella Koudouma 4580869: Narrating Migrant Agency: (Re)Constructing Migrant Subjectivity in Collaborative Refugee Life Writing

Abstract

This thesis examines how migrant agency and identity function in collaborative refugee life narratives to observe if they reinforce the figure of the ‘refugee’ or construct an emergent migrant subjectivity. I maintain that collaborative refugee life narratives negotiate the agency and identity of migrant subjects, being the primary medium of refugee life writing in the Western world. To reach my conclusions I perform a comparative analysis of three different types of collaboration, which move from the more traditional process of an interview between Western and migrant subjects to more creative forms of life writing, such as semi-fictional auto/biographies and multimedia life narratives. I suggest that each type of collaboration affects the way migrant agency and identity function. The more traditional forms of collaboration abide by the human rights discourse, which is based on life stories of trauma and suffering. While allowing for the stories of migrant subjects to be heard, this Western model of human rights advocacy limits the types of life stories being told, and they can fix the identity of migrant subjects to a binary of victim/perpetrator. I argue that more creative forms of collaborative life narratives challenge the identity of the ‘refugee’ and point toward new conceptions of migrant subjectivity and of doing collaboration. This thesis aims to contribute to studies about life writing and human rights advocacy as well as migrant and postcolonial studies.