Refugees, freedom of assembly, and the right to have a place in the world

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197674871.013.15

Refugees have been described as ‘speechless emissaries’, not allowed to speak on their own terms under humanitarian structures. Relations of protection not only de-historicize refugees and reduce them to mere bodies to be kept alive, but also deny them political representation. Under these circumstances, how does freedom of assembly matter for refugees’ participation in their own governance? This chapter traces two refugee assemblies to illustrate assembly as an embodied attempt to claim the right to a place in the world. Going against their emplacement by national and international governance regimes, both assemblies search for and at times make different kinds of place, which restore their political agency and allow refugees to engage in foundational politics. The relation between assembling and claiming the right to a place in the world is perhaps self-evidently central in the case of refugees as they are people-out-of-place par excellence. Yet, the relation is not exclusive to refugees.