Kirsi Pauliina Kallio and Jouni Hakli, ‘Political Agency in Vulnerable Life Situations: Studying Refugee Political Subjectivities’

In these events Kirsi Pauliina Kallio and Jouni Hakli will present the findings of their research project that includes in-depth interviews with asylum seekers in Cairo, Egypt, and Tampere, Finland. This project aims to gain a better understanding about the mundane political agencies of refugees and thereby intervene in the dominant representation of refugees as victims defined by their vulnerability. The ‘ordinary refugee’ who seeks to adjust to the available living conditions, struggles from day to day to meet the everyday needs, and waits for years for status determination and possible relocation, may seem to be living a non-political life. Yet they ask what this living takes, what it requires from people as individuals and groups, and how it contributes to the formation of political agency.

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Center for European Studies, the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies, the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations and the Center for Global Initiatives.