Polemics of Healing: Storytelling, refugees and futures

Abstract

The plight of refugees has been well documented in a number of countries. Refugees represent the failure of nation states to live peacefully and endow human rights to their citizens. A significant aspect of refugees'; stories concerns the ways in which they express their distress. In this paper we locate storytelling in the lives of Afghan refugee women living in Australia. We explore the tie between the body and metaphor and how the later is articulated via a language of distress. We also tie current constructions of refugees to the wider social sphere. Here, refugees are viewed in an array of negative stereotypes which mirrors the moral crisis of post-modernity. We suggest for the fostering of empathy towards refugees in the future as their stories allow us to become more humane, thereby providing a means of developing a higher level of consciousness.