Centering Subjectivities

Abstract

Postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories provide lenses through which to consider the impacts of forced migration on the internal and relational lives of women—aspects of experience less visible in policy, practice, and scholarship. Policy, practice, and research contribute to the framing of “refugees” as a static category of people irrespective of complex histories, geopolitical origins, and fluid identities impacted by structural forces. They can thus deny the subjective possibilities of women through the construction of identities that informs who refugees are and who they are expected to become. These overarching trends reflected in policy and practice have particular implications for women whose internal and relational processes remain to a large extent invisible. Drawing from postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories, this article suggests that a practice of centering the subjectivities of women in forced migration may enhance the work of researchers and practitioners.

You find yourself a refugee.

You have been translated. Who translated you? Who broke your links with the land?

In moving, your life has come to a halt. Your life has been fractured, your family fragmented.

You are the intruder. You are untimely, you are out of place.

You have become an object in the eyes of the world. Who is interested in your experiences now, in what you think or feel?

(excerpts from Young, 2003, pp. 9–12) In the process of fleeing war and persecution, people are invariably reduced to objects en masse, and the possibility of their internal realities, feelings, and perspectives—their subjectivity—is denied. Those fleeing are reduced to bodies to be fed, sheltered, and managed. Countries rush to pass legislation to deny them entry, erect fences, contain them, and send them back to where they came from. The media confronts us with endless images designed to demonstrate the negative consequences of uninvited bodies flooding into neighboring countries and beyond. The surrounding political rhetoric obscures the humanity of people fleeing and inhibits confrontation with the personal consequences of dislocation. In our roles as practitioners and researchers, we can become anesthetized to human suffering in the search for solutions to an often overwhelming and increasingly politicized “problem.” As a consequence, we may fail to examine ways in which policies and practices exacerbate internal and relational disconnections that people experience as a result of forced migration. In the necessary rush to efficiently respond to presenting practical needs, we lose sight of subjectivities—where people came from, what they gave up, what they think and feel, who they are becoming, and their sense of belonging. In this article, we focus on the implications for women whose experiences with forced migration have been constructed in particular ways.

With over 65 million people displaced worldwide, forced migration is a global reality with local implications (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], 2015a). According to the 1951 United Nations Convention, refugees are those who flee their countries of birth because of a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, and membership of a particular social group or political opinion (UNHCR, 2011). A global refugee regime that responds to the consequences of forced migration is comprised of institutions, United Nations agencies—particularly the UNHCR—international and local nongovernmental organizations, laws, and norms (Barnett, 2014, p. 243). While most displaced persons remain in their regions of origin (often in neighboring countries), just less than 1% of refugees registered worldwide by UNHCR are considered for resettlement to a third country. ¹ Prior to 2017, approximately 70,000 refugees from around the world resettled in the United States per annum via the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. U.S. refugee resettlement policy is focused primarily on economic self-sufficiency as reflected in the 1980 Refugee Act (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1980/2012). Neoliberal ideals associated with cost-efficiency, self-reliance, and individualism explicitly underlie mainstream U.S. refugee resettlement policies and government-funded services, which refugee resettlement agencies augment with a variety of support from community-based volunteers and faith-based organizations.

This article seeks to contribute to a body of work that explores the intersections between theory and empirical research and practice (Deepak, 2014; Hajdukowski-Ahmed, Khanlou, & Moussa, 2008; McEwan, 2001; Mehrotra, 2010; Wahab, Anderson-Nathe, & Gringeri, 2015). We posit that postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories bring to light facets of experience in forced migration relating to internal and relational processes, which have implications for practice and research with women resettling in the United States and beyond. ² We thus argue for bringing the internal realities, feelings, and perspectives of women to the forefront of policy, practice, and research with forced migrant populations situated within historical and contemporary contexts. We urge attention to the impacts of war, displacement, and humanitarian intervention on women’s internal and relational lives.

Elements of a broader empirical project that explored experiences of women in forced migration informed this article (Wachter & Gulbas, 2018; Wachter et al., 2018) as well as the authors’ professional and personal backgrounds. Both authors self-identify as white women with multiple privileges who have been involved in standing alongside forced migrant women in various national contexts and capacities. Over the span of a decade, the first author lived and worked as a humanitarian aid worker focused on violence against women in contexts impacted by war and forced migration in West, Central, and North Africa. In this role, she engaged with and resisted certain structural processes we critique in this article. Over the past several years, she has engaged with the U.S. refugee resettlement service sector as a researcher, evaluator, and volunteer. The two authors collaborated on a study (Wachter, Cook Heffron, Snyder, Nsonwu, Busch-Armendariz, 2016) that highlighted the dramatic differences in context and relational life and the extent to which global refugee-related policies and practices overlook the importance of social support in women’s lives. The second author has supported refugees and those seeking asylum in the United Kingdom and United States, largely as part of faith-based organizational responses, and has undertaken research designed to encourage faith-based organizations to be more reflexive about their practice. Revealing author positionality is integral to the theories we explore in this article, as it makes transparent the identities, experiences, and commitments that have shaped this work.

Postcolonial Feminist and African Diaspora Theories

Postcolonial feminist theories offer an intersectional analysis of social identities and related systems of oppression that are tied to geography, and contemporary and historical political, economic, cultural, and technological structures. Mohanty (2003) explains:

Cross-cultural feminist work must be attentive to the micropolitics of context, subjectivity, and struggle, as well as to the macropolitics of global economic and political systems and processes…the definition and recognition of the Third World not just through oppression but in terms of historical complexities and the many struggles to change these oppressions. Thus I argued for grounded, particularized analyses linked with larger, even global, economic and political frameworks (p. 501).

Two key struggles lie at the heart of postcolonial feminist theory. These are, as Tyagi (2014) suggests, colonized women’s resistance against nationalist discourses that bind female bodies in traditional stereotypes; and Western feminists speaking for colonized women, irrespective of social, historical, and cultural contexts, and ignoring issues of race and class (p. 49). ³ Temporal considerations are important. The “post” in postcolonialism does not connote a designation in which colonialism is over with and is regulated to the past (Hall, 1996), but more accurately reflects anticolonial commitments that recognize continuing colonial and neocolonial dynamics and impacts in the world today. Postcolonialism critically examines ongoing as well as earlier colonizing processes and impacts, and the production of (post)colonial subjectivities (Bhabha, 1994; Fanon, 1988), within the context of empire and nation state formation. Critically, Said’s (1978) Orientalism developed the notion that the othering of the Orient served to shape the real and imagined existences of those subjected to the fantasy of the Orient—that is, those colonized—and was in turn used to solidify notions of a superior West. Postcolonial feminists point out, however, that even within postcolonial theory, gender, and class have often been ignored as well as the global forces at work that silence and exploit marginalized women in particular (Spivak, 1988).

African diaspora theory shares similar concerns to postcolonial feminism, but it emerged from a specific context and alternative emphases are apparent. The word diaspora is the Greek word for “dispersal,” and it has most commonly been used to describe the Jewish experience and shared diasporic consciousness. Diasporic consciousness emerges from dispersal from a homeland, often by force or threat of violence, out of which a memory and vision of the homeland is created. The experience of marginalization in the host land, as well as the commitment to the restoration of the homeland, shapes the desire for return. This relationship with the homeland in turn shapes the identity of the (dispersed) group (Safran, 1991, pp. 83–84). The notion of the black and/or African diaspora emerged in the 1950s and 1960s and led to a new discourse of black social, cultural, and political life (Patterson & Kelley, 2000) tied to the forced exodus of an estimated 12 million Africans through the transatlantic slave trade and their dispersal across the Americas. ⁴ The introduction of diaspora theory to black studies was originally linked to pan-Africanism and the Africa interest, theorized in the west by W. E. B. Du Bois, John Gibbs St. Clair Drake, and others (Edwards, 2001). Since its inception, theorizing the African diaspora in the West has been connected to a political project concerned with antiblack racism. As the basis for knowledge production, a black diasporic perspective generates “an ambitious and radically decentered analysis of transnational circuits of culture and politics that are resistant or exorbitant to the frames of nations and continents” (Edwards, 2001, p. 52). The nation-state is understood as an organizing force that is fundamentally antiblack and that engenders a type of interpellation in which white nationalisms are normed and black nationalisms are othered as “egregious…absurd, tragic, deterritorialized…and performed” (Iton, 2008, p. 197). Defining the African diaspora is complex because it is in essence about identity and community formation by those living outside a real or imagined homeland (Butler, 2001). As a process, diaspora is “constantly being remade through movement, migration, and travel, as well as imagined through thought, cultural production, and political struggle” (Patterson & Kelley, 2000, p. 20). As a condition, the development of diasporic consciousnesses, identities, and communities is tied to the process by which it is being made and remade situated within global race, gender, and class hierarchies (Patterson & Kelley, 2000).

Postcolonial feminisms and African Diaspora theories, as discussed here, are informed by overlapping and disparate influences and scholarship, and they have shaped one another over time as evidenced by their shared concerns and questions. These theoretical bodies of work were derived from rich philosophical traditions shaped by Marx, Derrida, and Foucault among others. Much of the development of these theories has taken place in the realm of cultural and literary critique, areas of scholarship not typically incorporated into applied disciplines such as social work. However, together, postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories provide valuable lenses through which to consider the impacts of forced migration on the internal and relational lives of women—aspects of experience rarely visible in policy, practice, and academic research. They are particularly relevant when (re)considering the experiences of women migrating from African contexts shaped by legacies of colonialism and for practitioners and researchers engaging with migrating women in countries with post/colonial legacies and global spheres of influence, such as the United States. These theories share in common a concern with human suffering and the production of identities and communities in light of structural injustices relevant to forced migration and social work research and practice. They analyze and challenge the role and positionality of the academic—analysis that can be borrowed to consider the role of practitioners as well as researchers engaged in serving forced migrant populations, globally and locally. In the subsequent sections, we explore how these theoretical perspectives may be interwoven to offer insights into the experiences of women in forced migration.

Constructions of “Refugee Women”

We turn, first, to examine ways in which these theoretical perspectives bring to light problematic structural constructions of refugee women, which have fixed female identities in enduring and particular ways. Spivak (1988) argues that the subaltern female cannot be heard or read because they are denied space in which to speak for and as themselves and are ignored when they do speak. ⁵ Thus, the fixed other, or (post)colonial subject, cannot represent herself, but instead academics or practitioners speak for them. Hegemonic beliefs in the superiority of the West produce inverse (inferior) images of women in the global South, freezing women in time, space, and history (Mohanty, 2003). Forced migration academics and the international humanitarian regime (as well as the media and other institutions) have historically constructed and responded to refugee women as “apolitical and nonagentic victims” or “as weakened, dependent, and vulnerable ‘women and children’” (Enloe, 1991; Malkki, 1992 in Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2014, p. 398). Efforts to highlight ways in which the experiences of women in forced migration differ from that of men invariably resulted in the reduction of complex experiences to the vulnerability of female bodies to sexual violence (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2014, p. 398). The violence women experience can be life defining. At the same time, reductions of complex lives and identities to singular and/or more visible acts of violence encapsulate women as “survivors” and reinforce fixed categories such as “women at risk” and “victim of (sexual) violence” (see UNHCR, 2011). Use of these categories can increase women’s access to services and resettlement opportunities but can simultaneously also take control away from women in shaping how they are represented by their experiences. In efforts to move away from the woman-as-victim paradigm, which nevertheless prevails, models of women’s empowerment have in recent decades sought to highlight diverse expressions of agency in all aspects of women’s lives, even in times of extreme adversity, such as in war and displacement. However, notions of agency can also ironically and inadvertently reinforce essentializing images of racialized brown and black women—now smiling brightly and claiming their power—as well as mask ways in which oppressive power dynamics are maintained (Madhok, Phillips, & Wilson, 2013). ⁶

Freezing racial identities of black and brown refugee women as victims, vulnerable, and in need of rescue from patriarchy, violence, culture, and religion serves to evoke a sympathetic gaze and reinforce images of a benevolent (majority white) West. ⁷ This remains the case despite the destabilization of these images of benevolence by the contemporary rise in nationalistic anti-immigrant sentiment and politics across the globe. With the goal of saving lives and providing protection to displaced persons, the efforts of the global refugee regime can have unacknowledged consequences for all aid recipients, and particularly for women. As humanitarian crises emerge, constructions of refugees and “the refugee woman” reflect the (re)creation of new female subalterns whose voices cannot be heard and are disregarded in dominant modes of narrative production by the academy, the global refugee regime, policy makers, politicians, and the media. These representations give voice to Western experts and the humanitarian regime (ourselves included) to speak for displaced persons and on the subject of forced migration (Rajaram, 2002; Sigona, 2014). Fixed formulations of the refugee woman also help to mobilize fundraising and advocacy efforts in the West to secure basic needs, such as food, water, and shelter, for tens to hundreds of thousands of people over an indefinite span of time. As such, one-dimensional identity constructions of women as victims and in need of empowerment are thus commodified for the West to help resource the humanitarian endeavor and provide assistance. However, if and when women are granted refugee status, they relinquish control over how they are represented by these institutions that decide who to help and how. While their new status comes with obvious benefits, there may be substantial hidden costs.

Constructions of refugee women have also facilitated the promotion of gender equality across the humanitarian system and increased resettlement opportunities for women (UNHCR, 2015a). ⁸ The process of identifying and recommending individual women for resettlement relies heavily on “victim of torture and violence” and women-at-risk categories and processes that compartmentalize certain aspects of women’s experiences, and assessments that detect but do not seek to mitigate risk beyond postresettlement (Busch-Armendariz, Wachter, Cook Heffron, Nsonwu, & Snyder, 2014). ⁹ Women go through arduous vetting processes and are invited to participate in the creation of their narratives of risk and victimhood, with the aim of securing the coveted and rare opportunity for resettlement. These narratives, reflecting the most private and personal of experiences, are repeated in detail to discern inconsistencies and fraud based on a culture of disbelief (cf. Sigona, 2014, p. 374). Such narratives arising from personal experience, and marked by trauma, can be reinternalized and integrated in potentially damaging ways through retelling (Hajdukowski-Ahmed, 2008). As Adichie (2009) puts it: “Showing a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” Three-dimensional multiplicity and complexity is flattened into a two- or one-dimensional single story (Adichie, 2009) and is solidified through narration and repetition. This has real practical, psychological, and spiritual implications for women’s identities and their lives moving forward.

Despite the intent of resettlement categories to inform decision-making around placement and availability of services upon arrival to the resettlement country, the designations under which (some) women resettle seem to evaporate as they cross the Atlantic. Not necessarily distinguishing the global refugee regime from the U.S. resettlement one, women may be perplexed by the sudden lack of interest in the narratives they repeatedly retold in order to be chosen for resettlement when they arrive in Atlanta or Denver or New York. On the one hand, women may feel a sense of relief and maybe a renewed sense of control over their privacy. ¹⁰ On the other hand, women may experience it as disinterest and feel disappointed that they do not receive specialized services based on the focus of their narrative, as was the original intent of the classification.

With the aim of connecting women with relevant resources where they exist, some mainstream resettlement agencies conduct screenings for specific experiences and problems that reflect the dominant refugee health discourse rather than the needs or desires that women might themselves express at that point in time postarrival. Mental health outcomes among those with refugee status are principally studied as a consequence of traumatic events associated with the circumstances they fled including political persecution, torture, armed conflict, genocide, and sexual violence. As such, clients may be screened for mental health problems related to traumatic experiences associated with war but not for social isolation or the grief associated with being separated from loved ones. These issues may come to the forefront when opportunities arise for service providers and clients to engage over time—through extended case management services, due to individual efforts of case workers, or in the event of a referral to a mental health professional—but they have not been systematically prioritized in the mainstream refugee resettlement service sector to date. The academic and practitioner literatures have increasingly supported the need for an increased focus on these issues (Berte, 2015; Craig, Sossou, Schnak, & Essex, 2008; Fong, Cook Heffron, & Wachter, 2017; Grove & Zwi, 2006; Reading & Rubin, 2011; Ross-Sheriff, Foy, Kaiser, & Gomes, 2012; Simich & Andermann, 2014), but structural barriers including time and resource constraints serve as obstacles to more nuanced programming. Furthermore, resettlement agencies in the United States often provide case management services via the adult named as the principal applicant representing the family, who is most often the male “head of household” in heteronormative two-parent households, limiting women’s access to information and services (Wachter & Donahue, 2015). The U.S. refugee resettlement program has only recently begun to address issues related to gender (in)equality among resettling groups, and within the resettlement system itself (Wachter, personal communication, June 2, 2017).

Having inhabited amplified constructions of victimhood and dependency during displacement and prolonged vetting processes, women who resettle to the United States are immediately confronted with diametrically opposed expectations of refugees. By participating directly and indirectly in resettlement services and programs, all those resettling encounter explicit expectations to become independent, self-reliant, and economically self-sufficient “as quickly as possible” (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1980/2012) during a time of immense change and dislocation. Gaining and sustaining employment along with paying bills are the new order of the day. Through the provision of resettlement services, agencies systematically remind recipients that the financial and social benefits they currently receive will end and that they will be responsible for supporting themselves, including paying their rent and other bills. By preparing newcomers to survive (and thrive) in America, case managers and other agency staff communicate expectations of self-sufficiency, reliance, and independence reflective of policy. Thus, resettlement agencies impart values of individualism and accountability associated with neoliberalism (Mehrotra, Kimball, & Wahab, 2016) and transfer the responsibility for succeeding and prospering in the United States from the state to the individual. This aspect of the work is carried out by agencies operating within a context of ever-diminishing resources, and every-increasing time pressures and expectations of efficiency. Despite intersecting structural and societal forces that will complicate realizations of the American dream—notably racism, classism, and Islamophobia—the message is that they (alone) hold their futures in their hands. ¹¹ In crossing the Atlantic, women are expected to move from understanding themselves as “victimized” to “self-sufficient” almost overnight.

Internal and Relational Possibilities

In addition to alerting researchers and practitioners to simplistic structural constructions of “refugee women as victims” on one side of the Atlantic, and “self-sufficient refugees” on the other, engagement with postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories reveals how these constructions overshadow nuanced internal and relational processes underway in forced migration. These theories shift our gaze from the structural fixed constructions discussed above to imagine what is happening within, below the surface, and the possibilities associated with those processes. Through notions of identity and community formation, they bring into focus the complexity of processes at a depth not often considered in research and mainstream practice. Engaging with identity formation “as a continuous and relational process rather than a fixed construct” is helpful for understanding identities of women who have been uprooted by forced migration (Hajdukowski-Ahmed, 2008, p. 29). In contrast to fixed one-dimensional constructions, identity and community formation associated with historic events and memories of displacement are conceptualized in African diaspora theories as in motion, evolving, and inevitably comprising difference and hybridity. Life processes persist under diasporic conditions that challenge not only ways of life but also the meanings people make of life. Hall (1994) depicts the diasporic experience as:

[T]he recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of identity which lives with and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity. Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference. (p. 235)

The meaning and lived experiences associated with diaspora are as much a dynamic process as are the identities that are in continual formation as a result. Identities are fluid and shifting and are challenged by their increasing multiplicity. They are always in motion but intensified as a result of dislocation from place and home, loss, and dramatic reconfigurations of self, family, and community. Throughout migrant journeys, encounters with different contexts, cultures, people, circumstances, and worldviews, serve as a catalyst for identity transformation and give rise to questioning, reacting, and repositioning (Hajdukowski-Ahmed, 2008). In displacement and postresettlement, structural and societal forces converge to shape identity and community formation and newfound senses of self. These processes may have implications for the extent to which women are able and wish to forge new connections (Wachter & Gulbas, 2018). Only when we consider what has come before, historically and contextually, can we glean a better understanding of the varied dynamics shaping the lives of women. While not easily discernable, the possibility of complex dynamics unfolding in women’s lives postresettlement should not be ignored. For instance, qualitative research with women originating from the Democratic Republic of Congo revealed that women encountered ways of life in the United States, postresettlement, which fostered disconnections (Wachter & Gulbas, 2018). Juxtaposed with past emphasis on living relationally and collectively in community, women described living among American neighbors who keep to themselves in the confines of their homes. This particular study highlighted how time and trust required to build new connections are scarce commodities in the United States, and women were propelled toward standing on their own to varying degrees (Wachter & Gulbas, 2018). Additionally, while attention has been given to the magnitude and devastating consequences of violence against women in armed conflict and forced displacement (Abrahams et al., 2014; Stark & Ager, 2011; Stark & Wessells, 2012; Tol et al., 2013; Vu et al., 2013), practitioners in the United States and other resettlement countries may not be attuned to the complex interplay of psychological and social consequences of sexual violence that may carry into resettlement processes postarrival. Depending on the context, female survivors may have experienced and internalized rejection by family and community members, isolation, strained interpersonal relationships, diminished opportunities, and risk of revictimization (Albutt, Kelly, Kabanga, & VanRooyen, 2017; Kohli et al., 2013). These consequences reflect ruptures in social connections instrumental to women’s identity, survival, and well-being (Sideris, 2003) that may shape how women engage with shared language and cultural groups, seek help, and reestablish vital social networks postresettlement.

The creation of diaspora holds promise for supporting internal processes associated with identity formation, as well as relational processes associated with community formation. African diaspora theory is based on the premise that diasporas form when those with memories of dispersal from a shared homeland create linkages in exile. Through these linkages, communities, and shared identities form, new expressions of culture are produced, and political activity leads to liberation. The shared history of dispersal, often traumatic, as well as an evolving relationship to a homeland, binds fragmented communities together in exile. The theory brings into focus not only the promise of cultural production and political activity but also ongoing possibilities for healing, community, meaning making, and social support. Its premise speaks to the longing for connection to self, place, family, and community ruptured by war, displacement, and resettlement. Invoking Edward Said’s writing on exile and belonging, Zeleza (2005) writes “diaspora is simultaneously a state of being and a process of becoming, a kind of voyage that encompasses the possibility of never arriving or returning, a navigation of multiple belongings” (p. 41, italics added). The possibility of personhood flourishing in its fullest expression and concurrently always in development holds promise to meet desires for healing, growth, and hope—desires many women express, notwithstanding the suffering they have endured and continue to live with. The possibility of never fully arriving or returning complicates the notion of resettlement as a process of integration or settlement. Rather, the inhabiting of the vast transnational space of here-and-there simultaneously intensifies feelings of distance and separation from loved ones and ways of life left behind. ¹² The possibility of multiple belongings holds promise for ultimately relocating oneself, letting go, and finding belonging in new and familiar ways over time. The internal and relational possibilities associated with women’s subjectivities are themselves unbounded and limitless.

Centering the Subjectivities of Women: Implications for Practice

Recognizing and supporting processes for women to relocate themselves internally and relationally become a central point of interest in practice informed by postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories. We refer to this practice as centering subjectivities to indicate the foregrounding of the internal realities, feelings, and perspectives of women in policy, practice, and research with forced migrant populations. In bringing subjectivities to the center, these perspectives urge us to situate experiences within historical and contemporary contexts and become (more) attuned to the impacts of war, displacement, and humanitarian intervention on women’s internal and relational lives. As Kumsa (2002) has aptly noted in her work:

Feminist social work practice has been riddled between tensions between micro and macro, person and structure, identity and cohesion…. To help negotiate an equitable space and promote social welfare, feminist social workers need an adequate understanding of the reality of the lives of these strangers who have come home to the West. They need an adequate understanding of how strangers negotiate identity and cohesion (pp. 472–473, italics added).

Mohanty similarly compels researchers and practitioners to attend to the “micro-politics of context, subjectivity, and struggle, as well as to the macro-politics of global economic and political systems and processes” (Mohanty, 2003, p. 501). Given our focus on internal and relational possibilities and the current political context in which U.S. humanitarian assistance and refugee resettlement programs are at stake, we do not articulate specific policy recommendations here and instead focus on shifts in perspectives that researchers and practitioners can make to influence practice.

Postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories caution against replicating and intensifying existing power dynamics in our efforts as researchers and practitioners. They suggest that, first and foremost, there is a need to understand oppressive processes that came before. When we center subjectivities, the very notion of refugee becomes an area of interrogation in our work and interactions, in recognition of structural oppressions of the past and how women may have internalized the classifications that facilitated their resettlement. The theories invite us to question how we use the construct of refugee postresettlement, the purpose it serves, and its impacts. A central question becomes what being a refugee means from the subject’s—that is, in this case, a woman’s perspective—and when and if someone ever stops being a refugee. The theories challenge us to examine how continuing constructions of fixed identities postresettlement may influence women’s relocations of self—within the self and in relation to others—and to explore opportunities for resisting their replication in our work.

Postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories promote an approach that attends to the experiences of women to sustain crucial transnational connections to loved ones “there,” while exploring new possibilities for communities and belongings “here.” Concerned with women’s belonging(s), these theories highlight the importance of listening to how life was and how it has changed as a result of resettlement and contextualize the significance of experiences here; for instance, what it means for women to be, feel, and be left alone (Wachter & Gulbas, 2018). When we center subjectivities, concern with those who may experience (multiple) marginalizations emerges as a priority, as well as those who at the margins lack belonging. The approach promotes nuanced and subject-centered understandings of community, and resists assumptions that everybody finds meaningful belonging, even among communities perceived as active and cohesive. Practitioners and researchers, alike, focus efforts, so that those who desire community may receive support in seeking it.

In recognition of colonial legacies and the impacts of war and displacement on rupturing connections and shattering trust, this approach brings into question how individuals and groups negotiate intersecting identities and experiences that carry over from different contexts associated with home and displacement. The theories challenge us to consider how migrating women are (re)racialized, (re)classed, and (re)gendered in global and local hierarchies by resettling to the United States, and how as practitioners and researchers we may exacerbate or resist essentializing processes in our efforts. Developing deeper understandings of existing fault lines and possibilities for inter- and intragroup discord, we keep assumptions at bay and check ourselves against recreating fixed identities based on nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, class, and so on. In a spirit of informed optimism, we imagine that possibilities for healing, forgiveness, and community will manifest in unexpected ways and explore openings for new connections.

In appreciation of the impacts of forced migration and resettlement on internal and relational processes, the centering of women’s subjectivities stirs us to cultivate a deeper relational approach to conducting research and practice that foregrounds interdependence and contextualism in line with more collectivist values (Frey, 2013). This is not to romanticize or promote superficial notions of collectivism but rather to explore ways of life that women may associate with life preresettlement (Wachter & Gulbas, 2018). An intentionally relational approach may help counter social and structural forces underway, particularly in the U.S. context, that rapidly propel those resettling toward an individualism that on some level may be necessary for survival postresettlement but can have profound impacts on recovering oneself, internally and relationally. In organizational and societal cultures concerned with maintaining rigid interpersonal boundaries, a relational approach promotes authentic human connections and makes the boundaries between fixed roles (e.g., provider/client or researcher/participant) more permeable. It means acknowledging the meanings and significance women can associate with those relationships, such as friendship, in the wake of loss and separation from family, community, and place reignited through the resettlement process. It also can bring into focus the growth and enrichment we as researchers and practitioners may experience through more authentic connections, which in and of itself may counteract feelings of burnout when dynamics are constructed as only one way in direction. A relational–cultural approach, for instance, builds on the premise that meaningful and mutual connections with others lead to the development of self (Miller & Stiver, 1997 in Frey, 2013), which may be beneficial for all involved. In advocating for relational approaches in practice, there is a tension with principles that rightly promote maintaining professional boundaries for ethical reasons and to ensure the well-being of practitioners who are often overstretched. This tension is especially fraught for practitioners whose lives intersect with those of their clients based on shared identities, culture, and language and who therefore are frequently called upon to provide assistance beyond what their jobs officially require. Rather than ignoring or dismantling boundaries that bring clarity around roles and responsibilities, we are suggesting a subtle to dramatic reconsideration and revaluation of roles from a relational perspective.

Postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories inform research with forced migrant populations, specifically, by situating knowledge production within historical and contemporary processes, attending to the complexity of identity and experience in local and transnational contexts, and challenging neoliberal and essentializing discourses of black African women. Linkages with activist and participatory researchers across disciplines can help bring into the center contemporary diasporas traditionally relegated to the margins of knowledge production. This recognizes that women resettling as “refugees” from sub-Saharan African contexts are often overlooked as producers of diasporic processes and knowledge based on class, race, gender, and language.

Finally, these perspectives add to a growing body of theoretical reflection that challenges and seeks to advance understanding of what constitutes feminist practice and research within the discipline of social work and beyond (Wahab et al., 2015; Wendt & Moulding, 2016). We offer these notions as a complement to existing feminist frameworks that include intersectional analyses of positionalities and systems of oppression, reflexivity, and deep engagement with theory (Wahab et al., 2015); critical approaches to cultural competence (Warrier, 2009); and relevant trauma-informed approaches. While this article takes a critical stance on humanitarian policies and practices in international and U.S. spheres, the authors by no means seek to detract from the creativity, passion, commitment, and commendable efforts of individuals and organizations working on behalf of forced migrant populations, oftentimes under very difficult circumstances impacted by ever-increasing constraints. Changes in policy required to foster systemic change at the structural level are an important focus for ongoing critique, scholarship, dialogue, and political organizing.

Conclusion

Policy, practice, and academic research contribute to the framing of refugees as a static category of people irrespective of their complex histories, geopolitical origins, and fluid identities impacted by structural forces. They thus contribute to the denial of the subjectivities of women through the construction of identities that inform who refugees are and who they are expected to become. These overarching trends in U.S. government policy and mainstream practice inadvertently both shape and deny the internal and relational processes of women underway in forced migration. Insights from postcolonial feminist and African diaspora theories bring complexity to understandings of identity and community formation, as well as to the ways in which those processes are impacted by forced migration, and the particular consequences for women. These theories encourage us to center subjectivities in our efforts to assist women in their journeys in relocating self, internally and relationally. In effect, this becomes a call to explore the reaches of our own internal and relational possibilities and to create space for revolutionary shifts within ourselves as practitioners and researchers and within the institutions we inhabit.