RELATIONAL PEDAGOGY AND THE ETHICS OF REPRESENTATION IN COLLABORATIVE REFUGEE MEMOIR: REFRAMING HOMES WITHIN WORLD LITERATURE

Abstract

The paper reviews the article Homes: A Refugee Story by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah in partnership with Winnie Yeung as an example of refugee literature in the contemporary world literature. Based on the model of collaboration and dialogic reading created by Nuria Codina Sola, the present study argues that Homes cannot be viewed as nothing other than a story that produces sympathy or emotional reaction but rather, it is a multifaceted text that lends itself to a multitude of meanings and ethical consideration. By using the textual analysis, the article reveals how collaboration informs the narrative voice, memory, and authority in the memoir and how the child viewpoint renders the war and displacement as a normal aspect of life as opposed to a few instances of tragedy. Emotional proximity is balanced in the story with episodes of separation and uncertainty and does not allow the reader to digest refugee suffering in a naive or pathos manner. The article further claims that Homes is a world literature since its inception since it is influenced by transnational cooperation and mediation rather than subsequent world circulation. This undermines conventional centre and periphery theories of world literature and redefines originality as a relation and not a point. Lastly, the article demonstrates the pedagogical usefulness of reading Homes as a part of dialogic methods of teaching, which promotes dialogue, self-reflection and moral accountability in the classroom. Through moral closure and emotional simplification, which Homes opposes, the author shows how cooperative refugee accounts can be used as both literature and pedagogical resource in cases of humanitarian crisis.