That Wordsworth "Epic"

Refugees and Knowledge Production

“…In the same manner the Peace Academics displaced in Europe highlight how they "are persistently expected to give talks, interviews, and lectures and do research on Turkey exclusively -regardless of their actual disciplines and research interests". 46 Similarly, one of the interviewees in Kmak and Farzamfar's study shows how displaced scholars are often considered to be experts only on their own region, such as an expert on whatever happens in Africa, as if it would be a unified continent.…”

“…They propose methodological transnationalism as a way to 'de-naturalize the concept of the national within migration studies' by rejecting the nation-state as the only point of departure for empirical analysis. 46 The starting point for a transnational approach is to pay attention to the various practices of people and institutions that take place in and across multiple localities. This can be done by, for instance, identifying alternative social and territorial frameworks for situating empirical research: transnational social spaces, postcolonial contexts or the global cosmopolitan arena.…”

“…45 Media stories and representations play into the dominant narrative of the vulnerable migrant, but the issue of vulnerability is also operationalised in public policy and public opinion. 46 It is certainly true that migrants have experienced vulnerability, such as perilous sea journeys and harsh living conditions in camps, but the governing of migration can also produce various types of vulnerabilities. The dominant narrative of 'the vulnerable' may be damaging to the migrants categorised as such: it strips them of agency and subjectivity, and, in addition, these categorisations often rely on external evaluation about a migrant's situation.…”

“…Actually, the state keeps the (former) prisoner in a permanent state of terror and horror by keeping them always in check. 46 Genocidal torture is aimed at systematically killing the masses by multiple forms, not merely by torture, but by creating death-worlds in which the subjects are disposable and exposed to extreme conditions of hunger, disease, siege and terror. Massacres, barrel bombs, and sarin gas feature among the tools deployed by the torture machine.…”

“…45 These experiences point to the situatedness of the experience of displacement and the role of intersectionality in the construction of social realities. 46…”