Relationality in Refugee Narratives: Abbas Khider’s Ohrfeige and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Displaced

The following article explores relational perspectives in Ohrfeige, a novel by writer and former Iraqi refugee, Abbas Khider, and the essay collection, The Displaced, edited by the writer and former refugee from Vietnam, Viet Thanh Nguyen. Drawing on Judith Butler’s relational ontology, the article discusses how these narratives critically intervene in today’s climate of anti-immigrant rhetoric and intensified border enforcement as they re-humanize refugees, de-essentialize refugee vulnerability, disentangle vulnerability from passivity, and formulate nonviolent positions of resistance, protest and demand. Particular focus is paid to grotesque figurations of corporeality that demonstrate relational vulnerability and simultaneously function as a powerful mode for mourning and protest.