Anna Ball is Associate Professor of Postcolonial Feminisms, Literatures, and Cultures at Nottingham Trent University, U.K. Working across literary, filmic, and artistic mediums, her research operates at the intersection of postcolonial feminist literary and cultural studies, and focusses primarily on the gendered politics of mobility, agency, and cultural expression at stake within sites of political instability in the Middle East and among its resulting global flows of forced migrants. She held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2018-19 in support of this work. Firmly committed to transcultural feminist community-building, she also engages in collaborative cultural work that enables those within forced migrant communities to explore their creative agency.

"This book provides a much needed critical engagement with an entire field of multi-media work that has appeared in order to specifically document, represent and facilitate an understanding of the experiences of forced migration. Anna Ball's intervention shows us how to construct creative and compassionate responses and as such it is a crucial book – a necessary book."Anastasia Valassopoulos, Senior Lecturer in World Literatures, University of Manchester, UK"This powerful book examines the forced migration of women as a gendered experience. Its original transcultural approach demonstrates the migration of women not as single transnational experiences, but as part of larger global trends about the perception of women that are influenced not only by the particular migratory path, but also by attitudes and knowledge towards other migratory places and experiences. Dr Ball compellingly weaves together the primary reading of text with larger theoretical questions about author intentionality, political currents, patterns of female engagement, the significance of maternity in establishing women’s ‘acceptability’ and ‘need’, and larger national and international questions about human rights crises, medical and political responsibility for refugees, and the politics of images in changing narratives about refugees from ‘terrorists’ to ‘victims’. It is a 'must read' for scholars of women and gender studies, and those interested in labor and forced migration."Rachel Sylvia Harris, Associate Professor of Comparative and World Literature, University of Illinois, USA "This is a wonderful book! Deeply inspiring, essential reading and a major intervention in transcultural feminist approaches to forced migration. It will have resonance far beyond academia in reinvigorating feminist responses through the transcultural feminist imagination defined and practiced in the book." Maggie O'Neill, Professor in Sociology and Criminology, University College Cork, Ireland

• Preface: Walking with the River 1. Moving Women, Moving Stories: Forced Migration in the Transcultural Feminist Imagination2. An Expectant Figure: Encountering the ‘Refugee Crisis’ through Literary Maternal Feminism3. Feminisms in Conflict: Decolonising Afghan Women’s Displacement through the Iranian Cinematic Gaze4. Sounding Out Dissent: Learning to Listen to Women in Detention through Sonic Creativities5. No Straightforward Journey: Traversing Queer Feminist Territories through a Poetics of CrossingConclusion: Creative Mobilisations

Anna Ball is Associate Professor of Postcolonial Feminisms, Literatures, and Cultures at Nottingham Trent University, U.K. Working across literary, filmic, and artistic mediums, her research operates at the intersection of postcolonial feminist literary and cultural studies, and focusses primarily on the gendered politics of mobility, agency, and cultural expression at stake within sites of political instability in the Middle East and among its resulting global flows of forced migrants. She held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2018-19 in support of this work. Firmly committed to transcultural feminist community-building, she also engages in collaborative cultural work that enables those within forced migrant communities to explore their creative agency.

"This book provides a much needed critical engagement with an entire field of multi-media work that has appeared in order to specifically document, represent and facilitate an understanding of the experiences of forced migration. Anna Ball's intervention shows us how to construct creative and compassionate responses and as such it is a crucial book – a necessary book."Anastasia Valassopoulos, Senior Lecturer in World Literatures, University of Manchester, UK"This powerful book examines the forced migration of women as a gendered experience. Its original transcultural approach demonstrates the migration of women not as single transnational experiences, but as part of larger global trends about the perception of women that are influenced not only by the particular migratory path, but also by attitudes and knowledge towards other migratory places and experiences. Dr Ball compellingly weaves together the primary reading of text with larger theoretical questions about author intentionality, political currents, patterns of female engagement, the significance of maternity in establishing women’s ‘acceptability’ and ‘need’, and larger national and international questions about human rights crises, medical and political responsibility for refugees, and the politics of images in changing narratives about refugees from ‘terrorists’ to ‘victims’. It is a 'must read' for scholars of women and gender studies, and those interested in labor and forced migration."Rachel Sylvia Harris, Associate Professor of Comparative and World Literature, University of Illinois, USA "This is a wonderful book! Deeply inspiring, essential reading and a major intervention in transcultural feminist approaches to forced migration. It will have resonance far beyond academia in reinvigorating feminist responses through the transcultural feminist imagination defined and practiced in the book." Maggie O'Neill, Professor in Sociology and Criminology, University College Cork, Ireland

• Preface: Walking with the River 1. Moving Women, Moving Stories: Forced Migration in the Transcultural Feminist Imagination2. An Expectant Figure: Encountering the ‘Refugee Crisis’ through Literary Maternal Feminism3. Feminisms in Conflict: Decolonising Afghan Women’s Displacement through the Iranian Cinematic Gaze4. Sounding Out Dissent: Learning to Listen to Women in Detention through Sonic Creativities5. No Straightforward Journey: Traversing Queer Feminist Territories through a Poetics of CrossingConclusion: Creative Mobilisations

Anna Ball is Associate Professor of Postcolonial Feminisms, Literatures, and Cultures at Nottingham Trent University, U.K. Working across literary, filmic, and artistic mediums, her research operates at the intersection of postcolonial feminist literary and cultural studies, and focusses primarily on the gendered politics of mobility, agency, and cultural expression at stake within sites of political instability in the Middle East and among its resulting global flows of forced migrants. She held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2018-19 in support of this work. Firmly committed to transcultural feminist community-building, she also engages in collaborative cultural work that enables those within forced migrant communities to explore their creative agency.

"This book provides a much needed critical engagement with an entire field of multi-media work that has appeared in order to specifically document, represent and facilitate an understanding of the experiences of forced migration. Anna Ball's intervention shows us how to construct creative and compassionate responses and as such it is a crucial book – a necessary book."Anastasia Valassopoulos, Senior Lecturer in World Literatures, University of Manchester, UK"This powerful book examines the forced migration of women as a gendered experience. Its original transcultural approach demonstrates the migration of women not as single transnational experiences, but as part of larger global trends about the perception of women that are influenced not only by the particular migratory path, but also by attitudes and knowledge towards other migratory places and experiences. Dr Ball compellingly weaves together the primary reading of text with larger theoretical questions about author intentionality, political currents, patterns of female engagement, the significance of maternity in establishing women’s ‘acceptability’ and ‘need’, and larger national and international questions about human rights crises, medical and political responsibility for refugees, and the politics of images in changing narratives about refugees from ‘terrorists’ to ‘victims’. It is a 'must read' for scholars of women and gender studies, and those interested in labor and forced migration."Rachel Sylvia Harris, Associate Professor of Comparative and World Literature, University of Illinois, USA "This is a wonderful book! Deeply inspiring, essential reading and a major intervention in transcultural feminist approaches to forced migration. It will have resonance far beyond academia in reinvigorating feminist responses through the transcultural feminist imagination defined and practiced in the book." Maggie O'Neill, Professor in Sociology and Criminology, University College Cork, Ireland

• Preface: Walking with the River 1. Moving Women, Moving Stories: Forced Migration in the Transcultural Feminist Imagination2. An Expectant Figure: Encountering the ‘Refugee Crisis’ through Literary Maternal Feminism3. Feminisms in Conflict: Decolonising Afghan Women’s Displacement through the Iranian Cinematic Gaze4. Sounding Out Dissent: Learning to Listen to Women in Detention through Sonic Creativities5. No Straightforward Journey: Traversing Queer Feminist Territories through a Poetics of CrossingConclusion: Creative Mobilisations