Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Explores the cultural dimension of global flows of capital and data, comparing, on the one hand, the consequences of increased mobility and, on the other hand, the drive towards increased control and immobility of displaced populations. Examines how the tightening of national boundaries and economic and political processes of globalization have left populations "placeless" whether because of war, environmental disaster, etc. Looks at the ways in which these groups make sense of their displacement and immobility through narratives, stories and images, focusing on issues of power and the destruction of social life. Students who have taken CMNS 487 in terms 1051, 1057 and 1081 cannot take this course for further credit.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course studies the relationship between refugee cultures and globalization through an examination of narrative media. The course follows the critical refugee studies method to researching refugee and forced migration cultures. The power of globalization can be attributed in part to its ability to subsume and repackage local culture in transnational economic networks. Refugee cultures are vulnerable to being co-opted, framed, and shaped by global narratives, but they are also powerful to subvert, resist, and re-frame global narratives. Critical refugee studies and its theoretical kin (postcolonial, diaspora, and transnational studies) offer ways of theorizing cultural production in global migration that attend to the unevenness of global power, the structures that create refugee subjects, the uses of refugee cultures, and, centrally, the self-narration and critique produced by people navigating the international refugee regime.

Refugee lives are regularly framed in narrative media as either a crisis or an opportunity requiring a political or humanitarian response from citizens. Humanitarian and political communication shine floodlights on refugee anecdotes to illustrate a larger cultural narrative and imperative, often to demonstrate the necessity of their own existence. Critical refugee studies turns the floodlights off of refugee subjects, looking instead for what is illuminated when refugee cultures are listened to, or read on their own terms. This course follows critical refugee studies in examining narrative media produced by migrants and asking what can be learned from refugee cultures about the systems that structure the daily lives of forced migrants. The tangled routes of forced migration are represented in the wide geographical origins and homes of the authors and media makers whose work we will study. Our texts focus on the three categories of ‘resettled refugee,’ ‘asylum seeker,’ and ‘detainee.’

The course will be comprised of a combination of class discussion, lectures, workshops, close reading practice, and writing and creative exercises. Each class will integrate reading response papers with student discussion. Successful completion of this course will provide students with the skills and confidence to understand and critically analyze the cultural, social, political, and aesthetic dynamics in refugee media. The theoretical concepts we encounter will be applied to a. reframing humanitarian representations of refugee people away from needy victims towards resilient, productive cultures that promote human community and empowerment, b. reframing state sovereignty representations of refugee people away from dehumanized threats towards transnational narrators of the globe who shed light on vital issues for our shared future, c. reframing the desire for authentic, representative refugee voices towards an understanding of the diversity contained by the legal label, ‘refugee.’ Students will have the opportunity to produce their own content and actively participate in these processes.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

This course is designed to:

• Introduce students to central texts and concepts in critical refugee studies.
• Provide students with the skills to read, contextualize, and analyze narrative media across a variety of platforms.
• Introduce students to a critical refugee studies approach to researching forced migration realities in global context.
• Empower students to make arguments about narrative media using their knowledge of refugee and forced migration studies.
• Provide students with the opportunity to tell their own stories using their previous skills in media production technologies, including photo stories, digital storytelling, graphic narration, blogging, podcasting, and basic website design.
• Strengthen students’ ability to write effectively and persuasively about refugee cultures as a global phenomenon. Improve presentation skills and ability to engage audiences.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: