New Book Explores Refugee Experiences Through Photography and Writing

The book is co-authored by Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Palestinian poet Dr Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, and Bangladeshi photographer Saiful Huq Omi. It features poetic responses to photographs of the Baddawi refugee camp in Lebanon. These photos were taken by members of the camp community and Professor Fiddian-Qasmiyeh. The book also includes images of Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazaar and Dhaka, Bangladesh, captured by Saiful Huq Omi.

Published by Broken Sleep Books, the book explores themes of memory, identity, and belonging. It reflects on how refugees record the emotional landscapes of displacement. This includes their own experiences and the displacement of others.

In the final note of the book, Professor Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Dr Yousif M. Qasmiyeh discuss the idea of refugees as self-archivists. They show how refugees use creative methods to capture both their own stories and those of other refugees.

The book connects several research projects and approaches. These include the Southern Responses to Displacement project, funded by the ERC, the Refugee Hosts project, supported by the AHRC-ESRC, and the Baddawi Camp Lab, part of the Imagining Futures AHRC Network+ programme. The authors explore the concepts of "co-seeing" and "co-writing" displacements. They highlight the importance of collaborative storytelling from a South-South perspective.

In her praise of the book, Professor Tamar Garb writes:  

“This volume is a beautiful experiment in poetic/pictorial juxtaposition.  

“Comprising extended prose poems and short essays alongside assorted photographs – archival, authorial and amateur – it explores the refugee situation as mediated via text and image while positing South/South synergies and connections.  

“Whether recycled from albums or personal archives, or produced on site and location, this collection of extraordinary and ordinary pictures invokes life-worlds and livings that are both precarious and precious.  

“The carefully crafted words that accompany them constitute a suggestive and extended frame for thinking. They are neither prescriptive nor didactic.  

“They hold, like the photographs themselves, an infinite and exquisite set of possibilities.” 

The Southern Eye: Co-Seeing Displacements is out now from Broken Sleep Books. 

More information 

• Visit Professor Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s Academic Staff Profile  
• Learn more about the Southern Responses to Displacement Project