In Search of Shelter: Refugee Narratives & the Politics of Displacement

by Jeremy Got | 20-minute read

The predominant tensions in Kate Evans’ 2017 full-colour graphic novel Threads: From the Refugee Crisis (Evans, 2017) and the 2018 novel Shatila Stories (Gowanlock, 2018) centres around the refugee narrative, and notions of home, belonging and identity within the context and setting of refugee camps, as are countless other refugee and migrant narratives of the late twentieth century up till this day. The continuing instability and conflict in the Middle East and the reverberations and repercussions of the Syrian refugee crisis still continues to inform on the concerns and challenges that face the global North, being North America and continental Europe. Particularly, in an increasingly politically polarised landscape regarding questions of immigration, open borders, multiculturalism, migrants and refugees and of the clash between Islam and the West. Hence, it makes it doubly more important to challenge the dominant narratives that surrounds refugees and immigration in personalising and humanising the people and human beings that are the refugees, and to broaden our collective understanding and empathy to those lives that are so drastically and unimaginably yet not so impossibly different from our own. Hence, through an exploration of the concept of home, belonging and identity within the context and setting of refugee camps, one may have the hope of filling the refugee discourse with elements of human empathy and fellow-feeling that are far more important and critical in these polarsing and divided times.

One of the most salient aspects of the refugee narrative is the brutal reality of the conditions of the refugee camps, and of its dehumanising effects and also presenting within it the literal and living symbol of statelessness and displacement, which is almost always a permanent reality for those that are refugees. As Hiba Marei through the character of Reham ‘describes a chaotic scene at the Syrian-Lebanese border that resembles her own experience’ (Nowell, 2019, p. 7) where there’s ‘[c]haos everywhere. Thundering sounds rip through my ears… Racing feet, dragging feet; old people; young people… Hundreds, thousands are waiting at the closed gate, paperwork in hand, hoping to pass through. They want to cross the border.’ (Gowanland, 2018, p. 23) It is further described as ‘[a] scene worthy of the Day of Reckoning. Worry and fear are paramount. A pallor has settled across everyone’s face, no matter how dark or fair their complexion. Desperate eyes.’ (p. 23) 

This sense of chaos, confusion and dislocation is the universal image in refugee narratives, in which the individual human beings are reduced to a series of primal emotions of fear and terror, and a lack of shelter that may constitute as the building foundations of a home, or any sense of belonging. This sense of dislocation and displacement is present too in the refugee narratives of Kate Evans’ portrayal of the lives of the refugee in the notorious Calais Jungle, except that it is orchestrated through an imposition of Otherness by the State and police brutality that further highlight the vulnerability of refugees to human rights abuses by those who are meant to uphold the law of the land, and of othering processes that are carried out not by the material conditions of camp life, but by state authorities. As on page 30 where the graphic imagery of three refugee men being brutally beaten by police batons on the face and the nose, drawing blood. Furthermore, the violent images of being kicked and stomped on by these unforgiving black leather boots. Finally, on page 31 the shocking image of the three refugee men, where the man in the middle has blood dripping head to toe and his shirt completely blood-drenched. 

In both these instances, the two texts display the two kinds of dislocation that further fragments what little pieces of the notions home and belonging that they may possess. As Ilaria Oddenino remarks in her 2018 Re-Drawing Heterotopias Challenging Refugee Camps as Other Spaces in Kate Evans’ Threads: From the Refugee Crisis (Oddenino, 2018) that ‘[f]or its many residents, the camp [becomes] the ultimate place of banishment, “a purgatory between two countries, both of which unwilling to accept them”.’ (p. 78) Yet this ‘ultimate place of banishment’ (p, 78) also constitutes a place that is devoid of choice and freedom, and consequently that of the absence of stability that does not enable for the construction of a full and complete identity and that of a complete conceptualisation of home and of belonging. As in the opening chapter of Shatila Stories, the chapter of Shatila Alleys speaks of how ‘[we the refugees] force [themselves] to live [there] – forced not free’ (Gowanlock, 2018, p. 21) and how ‘[t]ey’re stuck inside this maze. Above [their] heads / The electric cables tangle with themselves’ (p. 21) and how ‘[a boy’s] mother cries for a life she can’t describe / We have no home – no home but Shatila.’ (p. 21) 

However, this conceptualisation of home and belonging negates the small moments of bond and connection that is present within the camps, even in such harsh circumstances and conditions. As these two text adds an extra layer of complexity to the refugee narratives, not as merely victims or oppressed persons that is devoid of any degree of autonomy or agency, but rather imbues their narratives with hope, perseverance, and the struggle of human spirit that is part and parcel of the human experience under oppressive conditions of being. This element of realism allows us the reader to fully understand and empathise with the refugees, as it shows both sides of their narratives. As Meike Ziervogel articulates that ‘[l]iterature will never provide easy answers. And neither will Shatila Stories. But what it might do is give us an example of how we can connect with each other through one part of our shared human experience: our creativity.’ (p. 19) 

This unifying force of creativity that enables the construction of these refugee narratives highlights the power these stories have in what constitutes as human, and of this inherent need for belonging and for an ontological stability that can only be conceptualised through the framework of a home. Thus, a new form or definition of home arises from this ontologically fragmented political landscape of the refugee camp, where home may be defined as a series of connections and bonds formed within the human network of the camp, one that combats sentiments of isolation and otherness through a unified Otherness through a collective of Others which consequently dissolves the state of homelessness or one without identity and belonging. In Threads: From the Refugee Crisis, these small instances of human connection and hope could be seen in where Kate, the main female protagonist is invited in by Kurdish refugees, where in pages 98 to 103 share close and intimate conversations, and how Hoshyar the Kurdish translator for Alaz translated to Kate what Alaz said that ‘[h]e say this winter he sit here in this room, many hours. He travels in his mind back to Kurdistan. He actually see Kurdistan, see his family.’ (p. 102) Although Alaz’s family is in Kurdistan, the extension of home and belonging actually flowers and blossoms in these small precious moments of human interaction, albeit indirectly through translation. We are also able to witness these small sparks of hope in the brief yet beautiful relationship between Adam and Shatha in Shatila Stories that breaks past the supposed constraints in the establishment of human connection and love, in the harsh settings of a refugee camp. 

As Shatha describes her feelings to Adam as ‘[t]he overwhelming affection I feel for him makes it seem like he is a piece of ribbon holding my soul together. Were the ribbon to tear, my soul would be scattered. (Gowanlock, 2018, p. 88) and how ‘[l]ove transforms depressing cities into streets of blossoming flowers.’ (p. 89) Not only does this momentary yet tragic relationship break past the borders that block human connection and love, but their relationship serves as the living symbol of the forging of a community and a wider family within Shatila camp through the transcendent form of music and song. As in their duo performance, [t]he second [Adam] start singing, the audience – made up of the other performers, their families and friends, and workers from the centre – begin to roar with excitement’ (p. 70) where Adam ‘[sees] the proud faces of [his] parents… [and how a] burst of love and warmth emanates from the crowd, with the sound of their applause rising so high it threatens to drown us out.’ (p. 70) 

Hence, there is a sense of solidarity and unity among the refugees of Shatila camp at least in that moment of joy through the unifying power of music, this sense of community, belonging and shared identity bleeds out into a fragmented yet nevertheless sphere of home that extends to all those who have participated in that event. This shows that the lives of refugees and their narratives need not be that of isolation or exclusion, that through a state of collective exclusion one may form a collective and unified  through the unification of the totality of Others. As little hope as this offers, this echoes the sentiment shared by Meike Ziervogel of how ‘by pooling our imaginations we might be able to access something that would transcend the boundaries that surround individuals, nations and entire cultures (Gowanlock, 2018, p. 19) and how ‘[i]n the face of human catastrophes such as the Syrian refugee crisis, I wanted to see if it was possible to alter our thinking and so effect change.’ Thus, here Ziervogel expresses the power of narratives told by those affected to not only heal the wounds and trauma of conflict and for the cause of unity, but also in reclaiming and challenging the dominant narratives of the refugee through the vehicle of authentic voices and perspectives. 

Thence, the concept of home need not be localised or constrained by temporal or spatial dimensions but extends that to the global scale. As concepts of home, family and belonging transcends the arbitrary ethnic, racial and religious markers, they are also underpinned by a universal empathy for all human beings. As in Threads: From the Refugee Crisis, it is said that ‘[w]hile the bombs still fall, and the bullets still reign, there will be refugees at Calais. Hope springs eternal: people looking for that good chance, that one chance however slim.’ (Evans, 2017, p. 170) and how ‘[i]nto the slanting sunshine of a Sunday evening a group of young men emerge. They head out onto the desolate, bulldozed flatlands, the ruins of their former homes. They improvise wickets, a bat and a ball. Standing at the stumps…squinting at the sun… ready for whatever life will bowl at them next.’ (p. 170-173) 

However, this hopeful optimism of this conception of the extension of home and belonging to the global scale must be carefully tread, particularly in Shatila camp where ‘[o]ne participant’s [of the writers’ workshop] was killed by the low-hanging electrical cables, a grandmother slipped badly in one of the camps’s muddy alleys and someone else’s father died in Syria.’ (Gowanlock, 2018, p. 15) In spite of the power of narratives and hope, one must also be aware that the refugee camp still exists as a site of death and horror as to not ignore or understate the realities of the refugee experience. As Reham’s first description of Shatila camp was how ‘[w]e marched through dim, muddy alleyways where hardly any light penetrates…[t]angled electrical cables run everywhere…climbing up the precariously assembled buildings that look like giant matchboxes stacked on top of each other’ (p. 26-27) and how ‘[she] gasped at the sight of an exposed copper wire at the end of a sagging cable. Is it live? What if one of our heads skims it as we walk past? Suddenly I struggle to breathe. As if there’s no oxygen left in these alleyways.’ (p. 27) 

Although the ontological space of the refugee camp may be transformed into a new form of home and shared communal identity and belonging, it is predominantly a space of imposed fragmentation, of statelessness and chaos. This fragmentary and oppressive space in this instance of arrival manifests itself as a sense of claustrophobia and suffocation by its labyrinthine structure and of the ubiquity of the possibility of death, expressed through the live electrical cables. Yet this chaotic space, devoid of order, that exists beyond the political realm of the State, this state of chaos becomes one with dislocation and displacement, and in turn warps into a kind of space that allows for the growth of oppression. As Oddenino articulates that ‘the refugee camp, too, is designed to contain humanity that deviates from the norm’ (Oddenino, 2018, p. 79) that ‘[t]he migrants’ crisis of nonconformity to the Declaration’s hendiadys – man and citizen – finds its elsewhere in the liminal space of the camp, a place outside the urban tissue of the European nation where this deviation is contained, tamed, controlled…camps become off-places…locations on the edges or limits of the normal order of things (Agier 2012: 278)’ (p. 79) 

This liminal space expressed through the space of the refugee camp translates to the human rights abuses by police brutality under the guise of carrying out the law of the land, yet since the camp exists within a space that is ‘outside of the urban tissue of the European nation’ (p. 79) and ‘is designed to contain humanity that deviates from the norm’ (p, 79), a lack of accountability and the abuse of power further cements the absence of rights of the refugee by virtue of their statelessness, which under this framework sees them as less than human, as they are not recognised by the governing authority and law of the land. As in Threads: From the Refugee Crisis, on page 128 and 129 a pregnant woman is brutally beaten for her refusal to have her children photographed without their consent. ‘“They slapped her three times in the face.”’ (p. 128), where blood is drawn in the second slap and how the red blouse of the pregnant woman is being aggressively torn open by the third slap, where her face by now is palpably bruised and cut. Whilst, the children are cowering in fear with hands on their faces and their ears to block out the brutality and violence inflicted on their mother by this faceless force of cruelty. 

In summation, the setting of the refugee camp is ultimately an ontological space in which we may inscribe meaning and construct new possible identities and realities, where we may overcome the material conditions and circumstances by the establishment of small yet meaning bonds and connection, that enable us to create new narratives and models for the figure of the refugee and possible hope for the future. Yet, one must also recognise this as a space of fragmentation and dislocation that may allow violence, oppression and disorder to ferment, in a space that exists beyond the political order of the State. However, the relationships and connections forged under these conditions stands testament to the strength of the human will and the human spirit in times and conditions of struggle and hardship, and also of the slow, shifting, painful yet persevering nature of hope in spite of it all. Wherein, the concept of home, identity and belonging is rather an ontological space that one has to struggle to construct, fight for and defend, in which home is free from the constraints of time and space and are not localised to the regional but to the global, but this conceptual reality can and is only made possible through the power of the narrative spoken through authentic voices of refugees bolstered through the universal call for understanding and empathy for all human beings, refugees, migrants, the stateless or citizens alike. 

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