In this thesis I argue that race, culture and imperialism intersect with gender at the site
of refugee law to produce 'racialized and exotic others.' These exotic others are
refugee women whose differences from refugee decision makers in destination
countries are made crucial to their refugee claims by refugee lawyers, decision
makers and the system of refugee determination. I use a comparative methodology to
examine the gender guidelines for refugee decision makers and selected key cases
from Canada, the United States and Australia.
The gender guidelines represent a human rights approach to refugee law. I critique the
guidelines and relevant cases from an anti-essential ist perspective informed by
postcolonial, feminist and critical race theory. My discussion is organized by
contrasting 'exotic harms,' transgression of social mores and female genital cutting,
with treatment of 'familiar harms', domestic violence and sexual assault. I aim to
show how the distinctions between the exotic and the familiar are founded on
orientalist notions about other women in other places. I seek to suggest strategies for
refugee advocates, decision makers and academic lawyers to avoid perpetuating
orientalist notions of other countries and other cultures. I conclude, however, that
refugee law is a limited project whose solutions to the problems faced by refugee
claimants can only ever be incomplete. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/16718 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Simm, Gabrielle Anne |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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