Paper short abstract:

This paper offers analysis on the efficacy of the biographies in increasing the audibility and visibility of African migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, and their engagement with refugee and migration crises as prevailing and hotly debated topic, globally.

Paper long abstract:

Arguably, aside from climate action, the most debated topic globally is the refugee and migration crisis that the world faces in this epoch. Literary productions delve on this topic in various forms, and this explains the increasing rise of life writing for and about migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers from different parts of the world. In this study, premium is anchored on the biographical representations of African refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers in the volumes of David Herd and Anna Pincus’ (Eds) Refugee Tales and Dave Smith’s Refugee Stories insofar these texts are appreciated for their amplification of the voices and enhancing visibility of the subjects that have hitherto are marginalised in their respective host countries. The argument advanced herein is that such biographical collections provide reconfigure understanding and studying the African subjects in the West by creating and establishing spaces where they can share their personal stories and experiences, hence contributing to the ongoing debates on mobility and migrations. In so doing, this study will demonstrate that Refugee Tales and Refugee Stories provide the capacity for notable African subjects to construct and enact their own agency in a highly polarized world about migration and refugees. Guided by the theory of the auto/biography and critical reflections from refugee and migration studies, reading and analyzing such works is to appreciate the political amplification of African voices to the capacity of being heard and observe their challenging of precarity, vulnerability and marginalization that is definitive of migration and refugee experiences.