“I have an idea!”: A disabled refugee’s curriculum of navigation for resettlement policy and practice

Abstract

Disabled refugees experience multiple barriers through the process of resettlement, and yet, their perspectives are rarely solicited in discussions of refugee policy and practice. This article focuses on the life history and resettlement experiences of Samir Omar, a disabled refugee, who recounts how he learned to navigate resettlement through his interactions with the state. Data for this article comes from a three year, multisited, multilingual ethnography conducted with refugee families who have been recently resettled to the United States. This larger study, in which Samir was a participant, examined the ways refugees’ encounters with the state come to bear on their embodiments and understandings of citizenship. Leveraging a critical disability studies theoretical lens, we analyze the production of Samir’s disability through displacement and resettlement, as well as the framing of his disability as barring him from productive citizenship. We argue that the refugee resettlement process is inherently educative, resulting in Samir’s sustained critique of the able-bodied norms of citizenship. Samir produces his own “curriculum of navigation” for disabled refugees that offers an alternative policy for resettlement and reframes able-bodied notions of dependency and self-sufficiency.

Keywords:

• Citizenship
• disability
• refugees
• curriculum studies

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We use the term “disabled refugee” throughout the article. This terminology is consistent with critical disability studies’ use of the term “disabled person,” intended to emphasize materially disabling social, political, and economic processes.

2 Pseudonyms are used to ensure confidentiality.

3 Disability justice activism in particular is built upon the recognition that “able-bodied supremacy has been formed in relation to other systems of domination and exploitation” including imperialism, colonialism, and racial capitalism (Sins Invalid, 2016, p. 13). Their activist work is salient to Samir’s experiences and disruptive practice.

4 The second goal is learning the English language.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sally Wesley Bonet

Sally Wesley Bonet is an Assistant Professor of Educational Studies at Colgate University. A Sudanese-Egyptian educational anthropologist, Bonet is concerned with the experiences of African, Arab, and Muslim refugee youth and families. Her current comparative project examines the ways that private, tuition-free schools respond to the exclusion of refugees in both Egypt and Lebanon. Her most recent work has appeared in Anthropology and Education, Curriculum Inquiry, and the Journal of Education and Emergencies. She has been recognized as a National Academies of Sciences/Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow and a Spencer Foundation Small Grant recipient.

Ashley Taylor

Ashley Taylor is Assistant Professor of Educational Studies at Colgate University. She specializes in philosophy of education, critical and feminist disability studies, and inclusive education. Her work appears in a range of journals including Hypatia, Harvard Educational Review, Educational Theory, Disability Studies Quarterly, Studies in Philosophy of Education, as well as a number of edited book volumes in educational foundations, educational philosophy, and disability studies.