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UBC Theses and Dissertations
Interpreting narratives of no return : Canadian asylum claim decisions and the emergence of the “anti-refugee” Demian, Diana Nasr
Abstract
This thesis argues that, firstly, in reading asylum claim decisions, the search for the claimant’s “narrative” must end and a search for its “interpretation” by adjudicators must begin. In endorsing such an “interpretive turn,” I seek to understand how conceptual and discursive formulations of “the refugee” and “the asylum seeker” — two figures currently imagined in contradistinction to one another through a “myth of difference” — colour how the latter is encountered and subsequently “read” by adjudicators in the hearing room. Accordingly, I engage in a close-reading of asylum claims decisions, focusing on a manifestation of the “asylum seeker” seldom invoked: a woman, fleeing a situation in the Global South not readily identified as being “persecutory,” and who frustrates our attempts at locating the 21st century’s “authentic” refugee. This latter figure is imagined to be a helpless, immobile woman, often with a child or two in tow, who suffers “legitimate” horrors and untold traumas. My reading aims to explore how the female asylum seeker that I briefly profile above tends to be read, to her detriment, against this formidable invocation of the “authentic” refugee in the hearing room.
Item Metadata
Title |
Interpreting narratives of no return : Canadian asylum claim decisions and the emergence of the “anti-refugee”
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
2016
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Description |
This thesis argues that, firstly, in reading asylum claim decisions, the search for the claimant’s “narrative” must end and a search for its “interpretation” by adjudicators must begin. In endorsing such an “interpretive turn,” I seek to understand how conceptual and discursive formulations of “the refugee” and “the asylum seeker” — two figures currently imagined in contradistinction to one another through a “myth of difference” — colour how the latter is encountered and subsequently “read” by adjudicators in the hearing room. Accordingly, I engage in a close-reading of asylum claims decisions, focusing on a manifestation of the “asylum seeker” seldom invoked: a woman, fleeing a situation in the Global South not readily identified as being “persecutory,” and who frustrates our attempts at locating the 21st century’s “authentic” refugee. This latter figure is imagined to be a helpless, immobile woman, often with a child or two in tow, who suffers “legitimate” horrors and untold traumas. My reading aims to explore how the female asylum seeker that I briefly profile above tends to be read, to her detriment, against this formidable invocation of the “authentic” refugee in the hearing room.
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Genre | |
Type | |
Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2016-08-18
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0308617
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2016-09
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Rights URI | |
Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Citations and Data
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International