Critical Migration and Refugee Studies Series: Yến Lê Espiritu, "Feminist Refugee Epistemology: Reading Displacement in Vietnamese and Syrian Refugee Art"
Petteruti Lounge, Stephen Robert '62 Center, 75 Waterman Street, Providence RI 02912
Joining the fields of transnational feminist studies with critical refugee studies, this talk introduces the concept feminist refugee epistemology (FRE) to re-conceptualize war-based displacement as not only about social disorder and interruption but also about social reproduction and innovation. FRE does more than critique Western media representation of refugees; it underlines the refugees' rich and complicated lives, the ways in which they enact their hopes, beliefs, and politics, even when they live militarized lives.