Counter Narratives of Crisis: An Interactive Dialogue on Migration, Resistance, and Solidarity

Abstract

In this workshop that addresses “vectors of society and culture,” we interrogate the meaning of “crisis” through examinations of Western-centric narratives and political definitions of crisis that erase the ongoing precarity and permanent crises of racialized and subjugated groups. We wish to question for whom, by whom, and where crisis is defined. Through transnational research spanning the US, France, and Greece, we will discuss examples that rupture the temporality of crisis as an exceptional moment of emergency. For example, the Covid pandemic is a global health crisis that has highlighted ongoing medical apartheid, economic and educational inequities, and the transnational lockdown of populations already immobilized due to war, siege, and border regimes. In the US, there is an imperial amnesia about crises overseas and the ravages of US-backed military interventions in places such as Yemen, now synonymous with “humanitarian crisis.” We will examine the racialized logics of hospitality and solidarity in the global “refugee crisis” and enactments of migrant solidarity and antiwar resistance that counter the humanitarian politics of “emergency.” The facilitators of this interactive session will briefly share their research in different sites on issues of displacement, resistance, solidarities, and counter-narratives that unsettle dominant notions of crisis. We will discuss how refugee, migrant, and diasporic communities resist the manufacturing of crisis through activism, digital storytelling, and reimagining belonging. After a brief framing, the facilitators will pose questions to engage participants in discussion and to elicit reflections on what crisis means in, and across, their own contexts and research settings.

Presenters

Monisha Bajaj
Professor , International and Multicultural Education, University of San Francisco, California, United States

Magid Shihade
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor, Dar Al Kalima University, Bethlehem, Palestine, West Bank, Palestinian Territory

Zeena Zakharia
Assistant Professor, College of Education, University of Maryland, College Park, United States

Maria Hantzopoulos
Professor, Education, Vassar, New York, United States

Sunaina Maira
Professor , Asian American Studies, UC Davis, California, United States

Roozbeh Shirazi
Associate professor, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, Minnesota, United States

Details

Presentation Type

Workshop Presentation

Theme

Vectors of Society and Culture

KEYWORDS

Youth Studies, Immigration, Displacement, Crisis, Digital Story-telling, Activism, Refugees

Digital Media

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