Seeking Refuge, Resisting beyond Borders: On Security, Recognition and Rights in Dina Nayeri’s Refuge and The Ungrateful Refugee

Abstract

This article examines the nuanced discourse of hospitality in Dina Nayeri’s works Refuge (2017) and The Ungrateful Refugee (2019), attending to the ethics of interdependency that transcend beyond borders of different natures. By making the limits of hospitality evident, both texts bring forth the ethical implications beyond borders that are present in opposing, yet equally significant paradigms: security and danger—depending on whose interests prevail; recognition and non-recognition—attending to the precarious conditions that potential guests are requested to endure or fulfil to be acknowledged and hosted; and rights and duties—considering borders as exclusive and independent rather than as contact zones. Following Jacques Derrida (2000) Jeffrey Clapp and Emily Ridge (2016), and Judith Butler (2009, 2015, 2016), among others, I will consider the complexities of locating home after forced displacement and the (dis)connection between belonging and identity. In both of Nayeri’s works, the direct experience of displacement becomes key to understanding the need for refuge in the recreation of a home-like experience beyond home and borders. This is particularly evident in the negotiated spaces of vulnerability and resistance that refugees inhabit.