A refugee history perspective

This article draws upon ongoing research in refugee history and specifically a close examination of confidential individual case files in the archives of the UNHCR to explore aspects of the cultural representation of refugees in different sites of population displacement in the modern world. Reflections by Roland Barthes and Abdulrazak Gurnah FBA provide the starting point to consider visual culture and cultural representation in efforts to assist refugees, such as the UN campaign for World Refugee Year in 1959–1960. No less significant have been the efforts by refugees themselves to make themselves heard in relation to the international refugee regime. The article ends with a plea for scholars and refugees to engage in the co-production of knowledge about population displacement and its consequences. (This article is published in the thematic collection `The arts and humanities: rethinking value for today—views from Fellows of the British Academy’, edited by Isobel Armstrong.)