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“I Am a Refugee in This Land”: Performative Narration, Recollection, and Resilience in Refugee Narratives of West Bengal, India
- Narrative Culture
- Wayne State University Press
- Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 2022
- pp. 197-216
- 10.1353/ncu.2022.0009
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
The article extends the reconstructive agenda of oral history with a view to establishing the idea that it is not merely to reconstruct history but to study the act of recollection as a performative presentation of the narrator’s life story. The performative interview establishes the oral narrative as a “momentous” occasion by following the techniques an individual uses to frame the narrative text. The theoretical arguments are developed by studying the refugee narratives of those displaced by 1947 Bengal Partition. The performative narration interrogates the immediate refugee identity and depicts the refugees as resilient people capable of self-sustaining in adverse situations.