The latest special issue of Amerasia Journal features the expanding field of Critical Refugee Studies. Guest edited by Yến Lê Espiritu (University of California, San Diego) – one of the co-founders of the Critical Refugee Studies Collective – and Lila Sharif (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), the special issue sheds light on the fundamental interests and questions that the field addresses, while also branching out into new avenues of inquiry. As Espiritu explains, Critical Refugee Studies makes critical adjustments and additions to Asian American studies that “re-conceptualizes refugee lifeworlds as a site of social, political, and historical critiques that, when carefully traced, make transparent processes of colonization, war, and displacement.”
The special issue offers rich studies of these refugee lifeworlds, whether they are to be found in community gardens or Black Lives Matter protests, in refugee resettlement sites in San Diego County or All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Smyrna, TN. The breadth of these locations also speaks to the wide range of experiences that the issue accounts for, including those of Vietnamese, Hmong, and Burmese refugees, alongside peoples displaced from Palestine and Iraq. Contributors also attend to the complicated relationships between Asian refugees and other people of color, particularly coalitions with African American community members in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and new social justice movements. The issue explores these topics through a variety of modes, including not only scholarly research essays, but also memoirs, speculative fiction, and experimental fieldwork.
Below is a table of contents for the special issue. To read the essays, please visit: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ramj20/current (subscription required)
Critical Refugee Studies Amerasia Journal Special Issue (47:1)
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu
“To Our Readers”
Yến Lê Espiritu
“Introduction: Critical Refugee Studies and Asian American Studies”
I. Emergence/Emergency
Eman Ghanayem, Jennifer Mongannam, and Rana Sharif
“Locating Palestinians at the Intersections: Indigeneity, Critical Refugee Studies, and Decolonization”
Ma Vang and Kit Myers
“In the Wake of George Floyd: Hmong Americans’ Refusal to Be a U.S. Ally”
Yazan Zahzah
“Warcare Economies: San Diego, Refugees, and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE)”
II. Refugee World/ing(s)
Sơn Ca Lâm
“Bearing Witness: Using Video Ethnography to Map Embodied Geographies of Home”
Long Bui
“Refugee Worlding: M.I.A and the Jumping of Global Borders”
Tamara Ho
“BurmAmerican Foodscapes: Refugee Re-settlement and Resilience”
Cecilia M. Tsu
“Refugee Community Gardens and the Politics of Self-Help”
Marimas Hosan Mostiller
“The Nexus of Asian Indigeneity, Refugee Status, and Asian Settler Colonialism in the Case of Indigenous Cham Muslim Refugees”
III. Just Between Us
Thúy Võ Đặng, Thảo Hà, and Tú-Uyên Nguyễn
“Conflict and Care: Vietnamese American Women and the Dynamics of Social Justice Work”
Jennifer Tran
“On Becoming Tender: Conversations with My Father”
Dena Al-Adeeb
“A Letter to My Daughter: An Archive of Future Memories”
Amira Noeuv
“Girl with the Sak Yon Tattoo”
Lila Sharif
“Afterwards and Other Non-Endings: Palestine, Afghanistan, and the Afterlives of War”
Russell C. Leong
“In Memoriam: Janice Mirikitani”
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