The Politics Department at The New School for Social Research presentsProfessor Dimitris Vardoulakis, chair of the Philosophy Research Initiative at the University of Western Sydney, who asks whether the figure of the refugee discloses insights into the operation of democracy.   This question runs counter to a venerable tradition that regards the refugee – as well as related figures – as configuring a position outside the law that is constitutive of sovereignty.

According to this tradition – a position that owes a lot to the famous ninth chapter of Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism – the refugee’s positioning in relation to the law provokes the state to exercise, and thus disclose, its power. Professor Vardoulakis argues instead that the exercise and disclosure of sovereign power points to the operation of the possibility of resistance against sovereignty.

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