Crime Fiction's Disobedient Gaze: Refugees' Vulnerability in Ausma Zehanat Khan's A Dangerous Crossing (2018)

Abstract

This chapter explores Ausma Zehanat Khan’s fourth police procedural, A Dangerous Crossing (2018), as an example of human rights fiction that casts a “disobedient gaze” on the current global refugee situation. Using the conventions of the crime genre, the novel manages to provide a detailed analysis of the gender vulnerability of Syrian refugees stranded in Greek camps and mobilises a transformative kind of empathy by drawing alternative affective economies that help readers expand the limit of our imagination. The chapter argues that Khan’s refugee advocacy rests on envisioning the human within those who are depicted as nonhuman in media and political descriptions of forced migration in the context of increased border securitisation.