Illegible Humanity: The Refugee, Human Rights, and the Question of Representation

Given the restrictive discursive field in which the refugee as object of representation and knowledge is constructed, this paper argues that it is necessary to find alternative narratives that provide different perspectives on the refugee experience. This process involves interrogating the very notion of the human and of humanity in the most powerful discourse currently available to make claims on behalf of the refugee: that of human rights and humanitarianism. To be a refugee is to lose certain rights, and in the absence of these rights a person is not recognizable as such and thus becomes socially irrelevant, devoid of significance, and meaningless to the prevailing schemes of representation. If this kind of social death is reserved for someone who is less than or other than human, where do we situate the refugee? This paper argues that we cannot take for granted the transparency and self-evidence of the human in ‘human rights’ when figures of apparent humanity such as the refugee remain illegible in the conceptual and representational scheme at hand.