Humanitarianism and Representations of the Refugee

Abstract

This article argues that humanitarian agencies represent refugees in terms of helplessness and loss. It is suggested that this representation consigns refugees to their bodies, to a mute and faceless physical mass. Refugees are denied the right to present narratives that are of consequence institutionally and politically. Narration of refugee experiences becomes the prerogative of Western ‘experts’: refugee lives become a site where Western ways of knowing are reproduced. The central focus of this article is a detailed examination of a project by Oxfam GB called ‘Listening to the Displaced’. It is suggested that Oxfam fails to consider that its interests as a humanitarian/development agency lead to the filtering of a particular sort of voice of the displaced. ‘Listening to the Displaced’ does not succeed in providing refugees with a means to speak for themselves, but rather results in a de‐politicized and de‐historicized image of refugees.