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Arts Initiatives by Refugees for Refugees
Forced Displacement, Creativity, and Agency
Lisa Gilman
356 pages, 28 figs, bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-80758-011-7 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (September 2026)
eISBN 978-1-80758-010-0 eBook Not Yet Published
Reviews
“This is an excellent and important book that makes a significant contribution to the studies of migration, refugees, resettlement, and the creativity of people facing forced migration.” • Amy Shuman, The Ohio State University
“This is a rare and vital contribution to the field —one that bridges scholarship, creative nonfiction, and advocacy. I am so impressed, inspired, and deeply supportive of this work. It is a much-needed addition to the growing literature on art, trauma, and forced migration.” • Fadi Skeiker, Fordham University
Description
Forced migration is an international problem impacting global powers as well as smaller resource-constrained countries. The rhetoric, globally and locally is rife with a confusing tangle about war, violence, persecution, vulnerability, victimhood, thievery, welfare leaching, and economy recking. Arts Initiatives by Refugees for Refugees is a narrative-driven book based in global multi-site research about the arts and cultural dimension of refugee “crises” in discrete geographic and social-political contexts. The stories highlight agency, creativity, pleasure, celebration, entrepreneurship, friendship, and community because we typically don’t associate these things with refugees. They emphasize how refugees contribute to their own communities and their host countries, contrary to stereotypical and often xenophobic anti-refugee assumptions.
Lisa Gilman is Professor of Folklore and Director of the Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University, former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of American Folklore, and former Fellow with the Refugee and Displacement Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson Center. She published The Dance of Politics: Performance, Gender, and Democratization in Malawi (Temple University Press 2011), My Music, My War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (2016), the co-authored Folklore and Ethnomusicology Fieldwork Methods Handbook (Indiana University Press 2019), and co-edited Africa Every Day: Fun, Leisure, and Expressive Culture on the Continent (Ohio University Press 2019) and UNESCO on the Ground: Local Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage (Indiana University Press 2015). She produced the documentary Grounds for Resistance and the Dzaleka Art Project.



