Refugee fiction as world-literature: Rethinking registration in the contemporary refugee novel

ABSTRACT

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees #IBelong campaign reinforces the importance of national belonging in crisis resolution. However, both the “refugee crisis” and world-literature complicate this classification of belonging. Whilst research into refugee fiction is abundant, readings of refugee fiction as world-literature are sparse. This paper re-examines the impact of the “refugee crisis” on classifications of belonging, arguing that a reading of refugee fiction through the Warwick Research Collective’s definition of world-literature enables an understanding of the systems and forces underlying the crisis. Synthesizing the work of the Warwick Research Collective, Hannah Arendt, and Judith Butler, it explores contemporary social (rather than national) belonging in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, enabling a critique of the United Nations-led assignment of rights in the contemporary world. Through reading registration in refugee fiction, we can re-examine literature’s role in crisis, critiquing contemporary responses to the “refugee crisis”, and contributing alternative approaches based on collective belonging.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugee fiction
• world-literature
• Warwick Research Collective
• belonging
• crisis
• Exit West

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I refer throughout this article to the “refugee crisis”, in order to attend to the article’s specific critique of the UN’s dealings with the crisis, whilst also acknowledging the ongoing debates around the problematics of the “refugee” designation (Anderson 2017; Hayden 2006; Lister 2013).

2. I refer to “refugee fiction” rather than migration literature to draw attention to the specific contours of the refugee crisis, and to highlight the emphasis on fictionality as opposed to memoir or the specific figure of the refugee author.

3. By “core countries”, I follow Immanuel Wallerstein’s definition in referring to those regions in the world-system that are characterized by the most profitable, predominantly monopolized as opposed to competitive production processes (Wallerstein 2004, 28).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; Midlands4Cities.

Notes on contributors

Charlotte Spear

Charlotte Spear is a PhD candidate in English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. Her thesis is titled “Locating the Human: World Literature and the Concept of Rights” and explores the role of literature in rethinking dominant human rights frameworks. She has published on the notion of the “state of emergency” in Modern Language Review and has publications upcoming on issues including postcolonial humanitarian intervention, extended temporalities of disaster and literary responses to sexual trauma.