7 - Beyond the Demand for Narrative: Genres of Refugee Testimony

Summary

This chapter completes the book’s examination of the impossible narrative position faced by refugee applicants by examining how specific genres enter the hearing room and further determine the ‘authentic’ refugee that states are willing to accept. Drawing on Joseph R Slaughter’s engagement with the genre of human rights discourse, it argues that like the protagonist of the classic Bildungsroman and human rights narratives, refugee applicants are expected to narrate a linear progression from a non-citizen ‘outsider’ towards full civic incorporation through the seeking of protection and the resolution of refugee status. In this generic mode, refugee applicants were expected to present evidence as omniscient narrators with sovereignty over self and others, and the ability to account not only for their own actions but also the decisions and interior worlds of others. Crucially, the ‘good’ refugee’s story moves steadily towards complete resolution that is the determination of refugee status and the realisation of a liberal personhood, marked by self-possession and autonomy, and readiness to become a refugee-citizen.