The Responsibilization of Refugees in the United States: On the Political Uses of Psychology

Contemporary theorizing about refugees has centered on the refugee as a victim of disciplinary coercion and a focus, especially in camps, of biopolitical control. This article expands that line of inquiry in a different direction by closely considering the interstitial space between refugee service providers and their clients. Analytics of governmentality reveal not the victimization but the responsibilization of refugees through orientation programs that utilize psychology to attain political and economic objectives. Relationship education programs provide an additional site for reconfiguring gendered domains, entailing technologies of the self that encourage refugees to rethink intimacy. This individualized and psychologized framework is especially clear in refugees’ encounter with services providers who focus on intimate partner violence. While some seek to change refugees’ “whole concept of the world,” refugees maintain their ability to establish hybridized identities and define normal for themselves.