Description
Refugees, we are told, should be thought of as resilient people with their own agencies and capacities for flourishing rather than (mere) victims in need of help. This discursive framing purports to uphold and celebrate refugees’ humanity. But such attributions of resilience can problematically serve to demand resilience from refugees, normalize their displacement, and legitimate the exclusionary policies of states. In this paper, I examine how powerful actors have long attributed resilience to vulnerable others so as to legitimate the exercise of control over them. The central example will be the logic of resilience found in historical claims that certain Africans are naturally more suited to slavery than white-bodied Europeans. I will then probe and consider the implications of how historical resilience-talk resonates with contemporary invocations of the resilience of refugees.
