REFUGEE VOICE Giving Silence a Chance: The Importance of Life Stories for Research on Refugees HALLEH GHORASHI Department of Culture, Organization and Management, Faculty of Social Sciences, De Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1081c, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands h.ghorashi@fsw.vu.nl In order to capture refugees’ experiences and narratives it is necessary to create space within research to be able to notice the untold within the interviews. This article focuses on the ways that Iranian women refugees (in the Netherlands and the United States) narrate their experiences of the past and the present or stay silent when the experiences are too difficult to talk about. Including the moments of silence within the process of analysing the stories has helped the researcher to discover different layers within the interviews. The main argument of this article is that the combination of the life stories method and the comparative nature of the research have especially helped to find out about the different ways in which the past is positioned within the present narratives. The life stories in particular have created the necessary space to listen to the often untold stories of refugees. This has enabled the researcher to go beyond the expressed words in order to understand different layers of expression within the narratives. Keywords: Iranian women, exile, life stories, trauma, layers of expression, home In June 1988, I left Iran and came to the Netherlands as a political refugee. I had to leave my home country because of my political involvement with a leftist organization during the Iranian Revolution of 1979. After arriving in the Netherlands, I obtained a degree in Cultural Anthropology, and between 1995 and 2000 did research on life stories of Iranian women in exile. The research was concentrated on the narratives of Iranian women exiles living in the Netherlands and the US (California) and the ways in which they position themselves in the countries they live in at present. The women who were part of this research participated in the Iranian revolution of 1979 within leftist organizations. They left Iran when the years of suppression started after 1981. I listened to the life stories of 20 women in each country. I also did several months of participant observation within the local Iranian Journal of Refugee Studies Vol. 21, No. 1 ß The Author [2007]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org doi:10.1093/jrs/fem033 Advance Access publication 30 November 2007