Identity Mobilization Practices of Refugees: The Case of Iraqis in the United States and the War in Iraq

Abstract

This study illustrates the narrative construction of diasporic refugee identities in times of sociopolitical tensions. Specifically, this paper is concerned with how Iraqi refugees living in the United States constituted their identities through narrating in times of the War in Iraq. Gergen's social constructionist approach towards narrating and current theorizing in diaspora studies build the theoretical bases for the analysis. Narratives were collected through participant observations, interviews, and group discussion in the Pacific Northwest of the United States before, during, and after combat operations in Iraq were declared to be over by President Bush. The paper answers three questions. First, which events triggered the construction of Iraqi refugee identities in the United States? Second, what is the role of narrating in constituting Iraqi identities? Third, do the Iraqi narrators construct diasporic imaginations and if so, how? The findings show that the narrative construction of being Iraqi and a refugee was a relational achievement and situated response. The respondents constructed imaginations of transnational communities that included Iraqis in Iraq, Iraqis in refugee camps, and Iraqis in the United States. By integrating their emerging political voices in the United States with their political resistor identities in Iraq, the narrators made salient transnational links between being Iraqi, a displaced person, and a member of U.S. society, disrupted political discourses about Iraqis in the United States, and affirmed moral values.

Keywords:

• Diaspora
• Refugee
• Narrative
• Iraqi
• Transnational communities
• Identity
• Social constructionism

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the people in this study for sharing their stories. The author also thanks Gerry Philipsen, Valerie Manusov, Sandra Silberstein, and Alicia Wassink for their invaluable assistance with the dissertation project of which this study was part. The author is grateful for the helpful comments from the anonymous reviewers. A different version of this paper was presented at the National Communication Association convention in San Antonio in November 2006.

Notes

1. Although combat operations were officially declared to be over in 2003, the war can be regarded as ongoing at the time of writing this paper in 2008 due to U.S. military presence in Iraq as well as ethno-religious tensions in the country.

2. For an in-depth discussion of diaspora as “mode of cultural production,” see Vertovec (1997, p. 289).

3. This study takes the term “mobilization” from social movement research and uses it to describe the communicative means, in particular narratives, through which Iraqis constituted their transnational collective senses of being.

4. The brackets indicate overlaps. This transcription symbol is attributed to Gail Jefferson (2004).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Saskia Witteborn

Saskia Witteborn is Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong