Beyond the ‘Modern Refugee’

The “modern refugee” (Peter Gatrell) is not a person. Think of it as an institution and a discursive figure, and as part of the international migration regime that emerged after the Second World War. The Geneva Refugee Convention from 1951 aimed to protect the forcibly displaced under certain conditions and created pathways to build institutional frameworks for their protection on national and international levels. But that institutionalization came with a prize: the “refugee” became objectified, bureaucratised, victimised, depoliticized, separated from the common world, often interned, and bereft of agency; an anonymous, dehumanized mass, in the hands of the states and registered NGO's.

The projects presented here try to look at what's behind this systematic victimisation and objectification: by showing the historical and present experiences and memories that have been excluded, the gaps in the discourse, and the strategies of „refugees“ to maintain a sense of agency; by addressing the harmful consequences of the victimisation both in host communities and in migrant communities/families; and even by challenging the modern concept of „migration“ altogether.

— Due to the lockdown during the pandemic in Spring 2020 the exhibition was cancelled and the students’ works could only be shown online —

Instructors: Marion Detjen (BCB), Dorothea von Hantelmann (BCB)

Workshop leader: Penny Yassour

With contributions from BCB: Lejla Zjakic, Anas Al Maghrabi, Sohaib Alzoubi & Ameenah Sawan, India Halsted, Abed Alkhamrah, Adeeb Hadi & Maddy Kennard, Ethan Gutman, Karina Chada, Maya Chami & Lilas Alloulou

The production workshop and online exhibition for this class drew on the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation made available through the Consortium on Forced Migration, Education and Displacement.