Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the stories of refugees fleeing Central America through the US to Canada as these appear in legal documents and as recalled by the author's experience of working in the preparation of these documents as an interpreter. These PIFs contrast with published testimonials such as that of Rigoberta Menchu. Whereas the latter function as speech acts in an ongoing political struggle the PIFs function as a legal instrument of flight and the end of political struggle. Considering these PIFs as a form of storytelling the author focuses a discussion of them around the question, "How do you tell a story that does not trap you?" To do this the PIFs are surrounded with other stories and theoretical discussions about the coming about of the conditions that make their telling necessary and the space through which these flights take place. The author uses a mixed form narrative that sets stories next to essays and legal documents. In this way there is a textual mimicking of the content of the dissertation through the creation of textual borders. This stylistic maneuver heightens the salience of certain elements of each type of text by creating a stark contrast with its neighboring texts. The discussion of PIFs places them in the context of a discussion about communities, borders, knowledge and capital. There is a gestalt perceptual shift created by the continuous movement between the very local, or micro-level, and the macro-level . The author argues against the still persistent prejudice for transcendental groundings of knowledge and points up how knowledge and community must inevitably make recourse to the local. Whereas some metaphors contribute to this transcendentalist tendency the author suggests epistemological metaphors which open up a field of play in a discussion of these issues