Why Katrina's Victims Aren't Refugees: Musings on a “Dirty” Word

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a controversy emerged in the U.S. public sphere over the use of the word refugee to characterize the displaced residents of New Orleans. In this article, I explore the significance of the concept of “the refugee” for U.S. citizens, and I discuss what the failure to find an appropriate term to describe stranded New Orleanians reveals about the experience of poverty. I argue that the conceptual void uncovered by the crisis reflects the larger social void in which poor New Orleanians have long been confined and I examine the role of public discourse in defining and helping justify the inequalities uncovered by Katrina.