Cockroaches: Refugee Justice in the Novels of Rawi Hage

Abstract

Traditionally, refugees have been represented as passive, silent, and abject. While such representations are often used to elicit sympathy and support, they do so at the risk of dehumanizing their subjects. By rendering refugees as apolitical and decontextualized, such representations encourage ways of imagining refugees that justify exclusionary practices; because they lack the rights and political voice of a citizen, refugees are not owed anything, and so their claims can be accepted or rejected at the will of the host country. This thesis explores the ways in which Rawi Hage, by representing refugees who are active and politically engaged, challenges these representations of the abject and passive refugee. Contextualizing the experiences of migrants and refugees within the history of colonialism and the neo-colonial present, Hage questions the ideas of nationalism and sovereignty that underlie exclusionary practices and suggests that we consider refugees as deserving justice as well as aid.