AustLit

'Life narratives about asylum seekers and refugees provoke strong emotions, both compassion and aversion. Drawing on Lauren Berlant's work and archives of asylum seekers' letters held at the Fryer Library in the University of Queensland, this article explores the compassionate emotions, their aesthetic conventions, and the mutual implications of compassion and aversion by using object biography. The life of an embroidery archived in the Elaine Smith collection suggests the agency of humanitarianism and human rights discourse, yet it also speaks to the limits of compassion and the fundamental break with the human that occurs at scenes of structural violence.'
Source: Author's abstract