Refuging continuity, narrating political subjectivity: Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees’ navigation of the biopolitics of displacement, camp, and community

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dc.contributor.authorChaulagain, Rabindra Prasad
dc.contributor.authorUniversity of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science
dc.contributor.supervisorRamp, William
dc.contributor.supervisorBonifacio, Glenda
dc.date.accessioned2022-11-09T18:22:47Z
dc.date.available2022-11-09T18:22:47Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.degree.levelPh.Den_US
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation examines the narrated experiences of Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees from different religious groups, now residing in Southern Alberta. On average, they spent about two decades in seven refugee camps in Nepal. It examines from a biopolitical perspective their accounts of displacement, transition, and resettlement across three key sites: Bhutan, refugee camps in Nepal, and Canada. Utilizing the work of four social and political theorists—Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, and Achille Mbembe— I bring a contextual discussion into conversation with narratives through which Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees understand the politics of their designation as “refugees,” and “homeless,” and their experience of homesickness as both a mode of objectification and a form of subject-formation. I privilege their own articulation of political and social agency and of continuity in the complex transition from camp to community. The conduct of this project involved multiple methods, including semi-structured interviews and ethnography, and subsequently discourse and narrative analysis. The accounts discussed are from interviews conducted in 2021. They deal with state violence, displacement, homelessness, statelessness, racism, and discrimination. National and international refugee biopolitics includes efforts to place refugee spaces and subjectivities in a “state of exception” under the banner of “humanitarianism.” Such efforts close off claims to political rights and calls for repatriation. They accompany disciplinary regulation and normalization of refugee populations, application of labels supposedly identifying inherent characteristics of “refugees” or “migrants” (here identified collectively as “refugeeness”), and various forms of death that I term “necrobiopolitical” and that involve passive neglect, active death-dealing, or resistant self-harm. However, a key point of this thesis is that the refugees interviewed continued to identify themselves as political subjects and agents. A study of refugee biopolitics must also account for this persistence of political subjectivity, expressed in assertions of citizenship and a “right to be governed,” in descriptions of practical survival and self-organization in the camps, and in responses to discrimination in the resettlement phase. This study contributes to a new approach to the definition, management, policing, and regulation of refugee agency, analyzing concepts and practices that produce “the refugee” as a category of biopolitical management across different geographical locations. However, it refuses to discount persistent assertions of that agency in homesickness and claims to citizenship and civic ability. This study will help policymakers not only to formulate ways to manage future refugee flows to countries promising or refusing refuge or resettlement but also to recognize refugees (who may in future be from any part of the globe and any social sector) as agents with rights to political subjectivity and a say in their destinies.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10133/6380
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.proquest.subject0626en_US
dc.proquest.subject0615en_US
dc.proquest.subject0326en_US
dc.proquestyesYesen_US
dc.publisherLethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Women and Gender Studiesen_US
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Women and Gender Studiesen_US
dc.publisher.facultyArts and Scienceen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesThesis (University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science)en_US
dc.subjectbiopoliticsen_US
dc.subjectnecropoliticsen_US
dc.subjectbiopoweren_US
dc.subjectnecrobiopoliticsen_US
dc.subjectthanatopoliticsen_US
dc.subjectnecroresistanceen_US
dc.subjectnecroborderen_US
dc.subjectrefugeesen_US
dc.subjectNepali-speaking Bhutanese refugeeen_US
dc.subjectrefugee regimesen_US
dc.subjectpoliticalen_US
dc.subjectunpoliticalen_US
dc.subjectrefugeenessen_US
dc.subjecthomesicknessen_US
dc.subjecthopelessnessen_US
dc.subjectresistanceen_US
dc.subjectpower and politicsen_US
dc.subjectcitizenshipen_US
dc.subjectFoucaulten_US
dc.subjectAgambenen_US
dc.subjectMbembeen_US
dc.subjectArendten_US
dc.subjectagencyen_US
dc.subjectpolitical subjectivityen_US
dc.subjectborderen_US
dc.subjectbodyen_US
dc.subjectmigrationen_US
dc.subjectdisplacementen_US
dc.subjectcampen_US
dc.subjectcommunityen_US
dc.subjectspace of exceptionen_US
dc.subjectneoliberalismen_US
dc.subjectneoliberal biopoliticsen_US
dc.subjectidentityen_US
dc.subjectnegotiationen_US
dc.subjecthumanitarianismen_US
dc.subjectracismen_US
dc.subjectstate racismen_US
dc.subjectsovereign poweren_US
dc.subjectpolicingen_US
dc.subjectdeathen_US
dc.subjectethnographyen_US
dc.subjectsemi-structured interviewen_US
dc.subjectdiscourse and narrative analysisen_US
dc.subjectgenealogyen_US
dc.subjectBhutanen_US
dc.subjectIndiaen_US
dc.subjectNepalen_US
dc.subjectCanadaen_US
dc.subjectBiopoliticsen_US
dc.subjectRefugees--Bhutanen_US
dc.subjectRefugees--Nepalen_US
dc.subjectRefugees--Alberta, Southernen_US
dc.subjectRefugees--Bhutan--Interviewsen_US
dc.subjectRefugees--Nepal--Interviewsen_US
dc.subjectRefugees--Alberta, Southern--Interviewsen_US
dc.subjectRefugees--Bhutan--Social conditionsen_US
dc.subjectRefugees--Nepal--Social conditionsen_US
dc.subjectRefugee camps--Nepalen_US
dc.subjectEmigration and immigrationen_US
dc.subjectNepali people--Bhutanen_US
dc.subjectRefugees--Legal status, laws, etc.en_US
dc.subjectPolitical refugees--Nepalen_US
dc.subjectHomesicknessen_US
dc.subjectForced migration--Bhutanen_US
dc.subjectForced migration--Nepalen_US
dc.subjectSocial integration--Alberta, Southernen_US
dc.subjectResistance (Philosophy)en_US
dc.subjectDespairen_US
dc.subjectDissertations, Academicen_US
dc.titleRefuging continuity, narrating political subjectivity: Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees’ navigation of the biopolitics of displacement, camp, and communityen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
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