國立虎尾科技大學 |

(Un)Making Refugee : = Beyond a Discourse of Humanity.

Record Type:	Language materials, manuscript : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	(Un)Making Refugee :/
Reminder of title:	Beyond a Discourse of Humanity.
Author:	Chung, Nga My.
Description:	1 online resource (446 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-10, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International85-10A.
Subject:	Southeast Asian studies. -
Online resource:	click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9798382219714

(Un)Making Refugee : = Beyond a Discourse of Humanity.
Chung, Nga My.

(Un)Making Refugee :Beyond a Discourse of Humanity. - 1 online resource (446 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-10, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Arizona, 2024.

Includes bibliographical references

This dissertation (un)makes refugee by dissecting the hegemonic discourses that construct the legal refugee figure as an immigrant category. To do so, I trace the emergence of the Vietnamese American refugee subject in U.S. history. The era in which Vietnamese refugees were resettled to the U.S. nation coincides with American struggles for civil rights. Yet, this history is often neglected when the Vietnamese refugee subject is situated in a white savior discourse that depicts refugees as perpetual victims and purports America as the benefactor and desired land of refuge for displaced populations. Although many individuals-including those from Haiti, Guatemala, and El Salvador-in the late twentieth century sought refugee status in the United States, no other population was as widely admitted as Vietnamese refugees.Contrary to the white savior rhetoric, this dissertation exposes that Vietnamese were granted refugee status over other populations in order to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives. The Vietnamese American refugee subject could fit into the established "model minority" myth because they were passive, submissive, and apolitical victims-as depicted in the legal studies on Vietnamese in Southeast Asian refugee camps in the late twentieth century-in ways that other populations of asylum seekers could not. To challenge the narrative of passivity, this dissertation offers a framework of the active refugee to look for the ways in which contemporary Vietnamese American authors write possibility and pleasures and theorize freedom and joy in refugee life: in camps and in resettlement. An analysis of contemporary Vietnamese American literature offers new ways of understanding Vietnamese American refugee subjectivity as one who claims the space in-between-in which refugee logic does not fit into U.S. land-based logics of belonging but rather exposes the contradictions of what it means to claim the space beyond the margins.I propose that Vietnamese American refugee subjectivity is not a fixed identity but a queer formation, one that is always in flux. I attribute the dynamicism of this subjectivity to the revolutionary women of twentieth-century Vietnamese society, who have continually challenged hegemonic gender roles. As an intervention into critical refugee studies, this dissertation brings together the fields of Black feminism, critical refugee studies, and Vietnamese American studies to illuminate the importance of Black lives in the making of Vietnamese American refugee subjectivity. I argue that the legal definition of refugee serves to reify boundaries of belonging dictated by the nation-state, in which to bring the refugee back into the discourse of national belonging through the framework of humanity negates that "human" is a gendered and racialized subject in the U.S. national imaginary. This dissertation uncovers how the legal refugee figure, which rests on preconceived notions of the human, is grounded in a hierarchy of humanity where the very idea of human requires a negation of Blackness. To move beyond a discourse of humanity, I uncover how contemporary Vietnamese American authors resignify refugee and rewrite belonging as not affixed to land-based logics of the nation-state but in the ethical possibilities of co-relationality, in one another.

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2024

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9798382219714Subjects--Topical Terms:

1183314
Southeast Asian studies.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Black feminismIndex Terms--Genre/Form:

554714
Electronic books.

(Un)Making Refugee : = Beyond a Discourse of Humanity.
LDR:04763ntm a22004337 4500 001 1147047
005 20240819061941.5
006 m o d
007 cr bn ---uuuuu
008 250605s2024 xx obm 000 0 eng d
020 $a 9798382219714
035 $a (MiAaPQ)AAI31147102
035 $a AAI31147102
040 $a MiAaPQ $b eng $c MiAaPQ $d NTU
100 1 $a Chung, Nga My. $3 1472652
245 1 0 $a (Un)Making Refugee : $b Beyond a Discourse of Humanity.
264 0 $c 2024
300 $a 1 online resource (446 pages)
336 $a text $b txt $2 rdacontent
337 $a computer $b c $2 rdamedia
338 $a online resource $b cr $2 rdacarrier
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-10, Section: A.
500 $a Advisor: Myadar, Orhon.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Arizona, 2024.
504 $a Includes bibliographical references
520 $a This dissertation (un)makes refugee by dissecting the hegemonic discourses that construct the legal refugee figure as an immigrant category. To do so, I trace the emergence of the Vietnamese American refugee subject in U.S. history. The era in which Vietnamese refugees were resettled to the U.S. nation coincides with American struggles for civil rights. Yet, this history is often neglected when the Vietnamese refugee subject is situated in a white savior discourse that depicts refugees as perpetual victims and purports America as the benefactor and desired land of refuge for displaced populations. Although many individuals-including those from Haiti, Guatemala, and El Salvador-in the late twentieth century sought refugee status in the United States, no other population was as widely admitted as Vietnamese refugees.Contrary to the white savior rhetoric, this dissertation exposes that Vietnamese were granted refugee status over other populations in order to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives. The Vietnamese American refugee subject could fit into the established "model minority" myth because they were passive, submissive, and apolitical victims-as depicted in the legal studies on Vietnamese in Southeast Asian refugee camps in the late twentieth century-in ways that other populations of asylum seekers could not. To challenge the narrative of passivity, this dissertation offers a framework of the active refugee to look for the ways in which contemporary Vietnamese American authors write possibility and pleasures and theorize freedom and joy in refugee life: in camps and in resettlement. An analysis of contemporary Vietnamese American literature offers new ways of understanding Vietnamese American refugee subjectivity as one who claims the space in-between-in which refugee logic does not fit into U.S. land-based logics of belonging but rather exposes the contradictions of what it means to claim the space beyond the margins.I propose that Vietnamese American refugee subjectivity is not a fixed identity but a queer formation, one that is always in flux. I attribute the dynamicism of this subjectivity to the revolutionary women of twentieth-century Vietnamese society, who have continually challenged hegemonic gender roles. As an intervention into critical refugee studies, this dissertation brings together the fields of Black feminism, critical refugee studies, and Vietnamese American studies to illuminate the importance of Black lives in the making of Vietnamese American refugee subjectivity. I argue that the legal definition of refugee serves to reify boundaries of belonging dictated by the nation-state, in which to bring the refugee back into the discourse of national belonging through the framework of humanity negates that "human" is a gendered and racialized subject in the U.S. national imaginary. This dissertation uncovers how the legal refugee figure, which rests on preconceived notions of the human, is grounded in a hierarchy of humanity where the very idea of human requires a negation of Blackness. To move beyond a discourse of humanity, I uncover how contemporary Vietnamese American authors resignify refugee and rewrite belonging as not affixed to land-based logics of the nation-state but in the ethical possibilities of co-relationality, in one another.
533 $a Electronic reproduction. $b Ann Arbor, Mich. : $c ProQuest, $d 2024
538 $a Mode of access: World Wide Web
650 4 $a Southeast Asian studies. $3 1183314
650 4 $a International law. $3 557047
650 4 $a Gender studies. $3 1179195
650 4 $a Asian American studies. $3 1181012
650 4 $a Womens studies. $3 1372829
653 $a Black feminism
653 $a Critical refugee studies
653 $a Human rights
653 $a Humanitarianism
653 $a Vietnam/American war
653 $a Vietnamese American refugees
655 7 $a Electronic books. $2 local $3 554714
690 $a 0222
690 $a 0616
690 $a 0733
690 $a 0453
690 $a 0343
710 2 $a ProQuest Information and Learning Co. $3 1178819
710 2 $a The University of Arizona. $b Gender & Women's Studies. $3 1472653
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 85-10A.
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=31147102 $z click for full text (PQDT)