State of Democracy Lecture with Dina Nayeri

Reconsidering Refugees and Immigration: A Conversation with Dina Nayeri

Why are honest asylum seekers dismissed as liars? Former refugee and award-winning author Dina Nayeri begins with this question, then turns to her own shocking and illuminating experiences, which grow into a reckoning with believability in our culture. "Who Gets Believed?" is as deeply personal as it is profound in its reflections on morals, language, history, compassion, and the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another.

Nayeri offers a new understanding of refugee life, confronting dangers from the metaphor of the swarm to the notion of “good” immigrants. With surprising and provocative questions, her other book, "The Ungrateful Refugee," recalibrates the conversation around the refugee experience. Here are the real human stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, and to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh.

Dina Nayeri is an Iranian-American writer and recently joined the faculty at the University of St. Andrews. This conversation will be conducted by Kristi Andersen, professor emerita of political science and senior research associate of the Campbell Institute.