Abstract

Increasing numbers of children’s books on the topic of refugees are appearing in publishers’ catalogues around the world, raising awareness of diverse contexts of forced migration and of the hardships faced by children and their families in this situation. Yet, few studies have analysed in depth how aesthetic and literary strategies work to engage readers with the refugee experience in these well-intentioned attempts. Drawing on a corpus of refugee texts which draw attention to the material, the corporeal and the symbolic aspects of shoes and forced walking, in this article, I look at materiality and mobility (or immobility) and analyse how text and image create three main points of connection between the narrative and the reader: appropriate footwear; physical discomfort/pain and what I have termed as ‘the chronotope of forced migration’. I discuss how calling attention to these connections is used as a strategy to create an ‘embodied simulation’ (Bergen 2016) which encourages readers to ‘walk in refugee shoes’ and adopt a more empathetic stance. Examining these strategies shows how it is possible to engender an understanding of the refugee situation through text and/or image in ways that allow a level of emotional engagement even when young readers have not experienced these circumstances directly. Understanding how these aesthetic and literacy strategies work can help to support the claims made for the role of children’s literature in fostering empathy as well as the pedagogical use of this literature by teachers and other professionals.

中文翻译：

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移民鞋和难民儿童文学中的强迫行走：物质见证和具身模拟

摘要

越来越多关于难民主题的儿童读物出现在世界各地的出版商目录中，提高了人们对强迫移民的不同背景以及儿童及其家庭在这种情况下面临的困难的认识。然而，很少有研究深入分析美学和文学策略如何在这些善意的尝试中使读者参与到难民经历中。在语料库上绘图难民文本引起人们对鞋子和强迫行走的物质、物质和象征方面的关注，在本文中，我着眼于物质性和流动性（或不动性），并分析了文本和图像如何在叙述和读者：合适的鞋类；身体不适/疼痛以及我所说的“强迫迁移的计时码表”。我讨论了如何将关注这些联系用作创建“具身模拟”（Bergen 2016）的策略，鼓励读者“穿着难民鞋行走”并采取更善解人意的立场。检查这些策略表明，即使年轻读者没有直接经历过这些情况，也可以通过文本和/或图像以允许一定程度的情感参与的方式来理解难民情况。了解这些审美和读写策略是如何发挥作用的，有助于支持儿童文学在培养同理心方面的作用以及教师和其他专业人士对这些文学的教学使用的主张。