The Refugee Abyss

In defiance of the refugee abyss, this book presents the flesh of pained bodies and the breath of displaced voices, contributing to the thread of traces yet to be forged and the politics yet to emerge, in a world where Relation takes precedence. The book unfolds in several traces. First, open wounds and scars represent the refugee abyss, revealing the onto-epistemic chains that silence displaced voices. These voices, through embodied subjects, recount their struggles in a world marked by violence. Second, the book questions the rights-based order, revealing how the human rights project is a new incarnation of the colonial civilising mission. It claims to elevate humanity, starting with those deemed uncivilised. Yet, its mask of benevolence, once upheld in the metropoles of empire, now appears hollow. Third, the book theorises the nationstate as a womb-abyss, a matrix that both births and consumes life. Fourth, it explores the refugee abyss as a realm of confinement and destitution, where lives are commodified, exploited, and destroyed. Fifth, it shifts from open wounds to the poetics of refuge, illustrating how life persists in the shadows of rights and laws, while death is inflicted through them. Finally, it reflects on untamed life, emerging from wounds and scars as a proclamation of the unfamiliar and enduring. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of criminology, criminal justice, and refugee studies. It will also appeal to political scientists and policymakers interested in issues of citizenship, human rights, and decoloniality.