Salt | water: Vietnamese Refugee Passages, Memory, and Statelessness at Sea

Critical refugee studies have focused on land-based geographies to theorize Vietnamese subjectivity from the refugee camp to the country of resettlement. Through a performance studies lens, this article contributes to the field of refugee studies by focusing on water as a crucial site and a material force to theorize Vietnamese refugee subject formation and statelessness at sea. I analyze salt | water, a performance that draws upon the oral histories of my parents, Nguyễn Văn Tâm and Tạ Thanh Thủy, and media archives of Boat People S.O.S. to examine technologies of power that leave refugee bodies drifting at sea.