Do tell: a rhetorical and literary analysis of post-9/11 refugee storytelling

Abstract

Do Tell: A Rhetorical and Literary Analysis of Post-9/11 Refugee Storytelling introduces the concept of “post-9/11 refugee counternarratives,” a framework for understanding stories that resist dominant portrayals of refugees as either passive victims or dangerous threats. These counternarratives challenge reductive frameworks shaped by cultural suspicion, economic anxiety, and securitization, offering temporally layered representations that center agency, fractured identity, and disrupted belonging. ☐ Through a comparative rhetorical and literary analysis of multiple narrative forms, this dissertation explores how medium shapes meaning in refugee storytelling. The project begins with an auto-ethnographic study based on fieldwork with Syrian refugees in Jordan, curating new, firsthand “post-9/11 refugee counternarratives.” It then turns to Olivier Kugler’s graphic novel, Escaping Wars and Waves (2018), analyzing how visual fragmentation and text-image interplay evoke the nonlinearity of displacement. Mohsin Hamid’s novel Exit West (2017) is examined for its speculative use of magical realism to reframe forced migration, while Ben Sharrock’s film Limbo (2020) is explored for its use of stillness, silence, and suspended time to represent the lived realities of asylum-seeking. ☐ By centering form, including structure, medium, and aesthetic strategy, this dissertation argues that these “counternarratives” do not simply depict refugee experience but actively reconfigure how displacement is conceptualized and conveyed. In doing so, the project offers alternative ways of witnessing that move beyond extractive or sentimental modes of representation. It positions refugee storytelling not as a tool for eliciting empathy alone but as a form of community building, resistance, reclamation, and knowledge production. ☐ Ultimately, this study contributes to refugee and narrative theory by highlighting how “post-9/11 refugee counternarratives” open new ethical and interpretive pathways for engaging with stories of forced displacement across literary, visual, and personal terrains.