Title
Review: Mimi Thi Nguyen. The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages Passages (Duke University Press, 2012)
Document Type
Review
Publication Date
12-17-2013
Department 1
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Abstract
The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages critiques the bio- and necropolitical functioning of the liberal discourse of freedom as a form of subjection and subjectivization. Nguyen adeptly describes how the 'gift of freedom' constitutes gendered and racialized subjects of liberal empire, while simultaneously subjecting them to the murderous violence of war in the name of freedom. Nguyen's compelling discussion of the discursive construction of the Vietnamese refugee as a gendered subject, as both arbiter for peace and forgiveness, as well as an agent of US violence, left me with further productive questions: How are bio- and necropolitical discourses of freedom always already constituted in relation to gender and sexuality? How does the 'gift of freedom' constitute queer subjects? While the answers to these questions may exist beyond the scope of this text, the theoretical framework introduced by Nguyen provides a generative starting point for future feminist and queer critiques of the 'gift of freedom'. [excerpt]
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
DOI
10.1080/14616742.2013.841564
Version
Post-Print
Recommended Citation
Velasco, Gina. Review of The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages by Mimi Thi Nguyen. International Feminist Journal of Politics 15, no. 4 (2013): 570-572.
Required Publisher's Statement
This book review is also available on the publisher's website: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616742.2013.841564