Refugee Refusals: Southeast Asian Diaspora Curriculum Theorizing

• In Event: Refugee Resistance and Radical Pedagogies: Community in Diaspora

Abstract

This paper draws on ethnographic research of the Southeast Asian diaspora in Australia and the United States to explore refugee refusals. It is guided by the question: How do Southeast Asian refugees disinvest from the norms and relations of the resettlement nation-state? It illustrates the features of refugee refusal that reject, reframe, and refocus hegemonic narratives of refugee rescue and integration. It suggests that refugee refusals provide a glimpse of aspirational elsewheres of Southeast Asian diaspora curriculum.

Author

• Bic Ngo, University of Minnesota