Towards an archaeology of refugee lifeworlds

In this article I introduce the concept of an “archaeology of refugee lifeworlds,” an approach that draws on Critical Refugee Studies to reframe refugeehood as an enduring, lived condition rather than a discrete moment of crisis, and do so by examining how displaced communities sustain memory, identity, and meaning through ongoing relationships with material culture. I argue that such a framework is necessary to move beyond state-centered definitions of “refugee” and to foreground refugee agency in shaping their own histories. The argument unfolds through a discussion of the collaborative digitization work with the Việt Museum in San Jose, which inspired the methodological and theoretical framework behind the Refugee Material Culture Initiative (RMCI) and its partnership with the Vietnamese Heritage Museum in Garden Grove, California. Ultimately, the article argues for a shift toward collaborative, care-centered practices that support refugee communities in preserving and defining their own lifeworlds.