The Refugee in Anthropological Perspective

Over the past decade, we have witnessed new and ongoing crises around the world that have forced many people to uproot their lives in order to seek refuge elsewhere. On the news we see aerial shots of battered and dilapidated boats overflowing with passengers, or throngs of people on foot carrying their meager belongings, dusty and tired from the long trek. The visual rhetoric we see in these spaces deeply shapes how we understand refugees, and 'their' lives in 'our' national spaces. Through their movement, refugees raise many powerful questions of interest to anthropologists, but also for policy makers, governments, local communities, and for those who endure forced migration themselves.

We've collected here a few interesting resources for discussing anthropological approaches to refugees, especially in light of the more recent and very visible migration of asylum seekers around and across the Mediterranean into Europe.

First, Mayanthi Fernando and Cristiana Giordano's curated "Hot Spot" in Cultural Anthropology on "Refugees and the Crisis of Europe" collects a number of anthropological perspectives on this phenomenon. As they note in the collection's abstract, the "unprecedented" movement of refugees from Middle Eastern and African countries to Europe since 2015 has "turned immigration, asylum, border control, and state sovereignty into interconnected problems, making migration not only a political event but also a media spectacle." The diversity of issues raised in these short articles -- a mapping of "the histories, geopolitics, ethical imaginaries, forms of sovereignty, and patterns of circulation that state categories of crisis and emergency render visible and/or invisible, in Europe and elsewhere" -- recommend them as course texts in discussing a wide range of anthropological questions centred on this highly visible public issue.

In thinking about what an anthropological perspective can bring to understanding this "crisis," I would highly recommend the interview that appeared in Peeps online forum between anthropologists Monica Heller and Sarah Green on "Shifting the global conversation on refugees" (2016).

For other interesting, but non-anthropological sources, instructors might be interested in the New York Times' feature from earlier this year on the the integration of Syrian refugees in Weimar, Germany. While the journalists who wrote this piece spent months in Weimar, this long-form journalism might be interesting to use in also raising the question of how journalistic and anthropological approaches differ.

Lastly, the Refugee Atlas (http://refugeeatlas.com/) is a visual atlas, whose creators suggest could "help to construct the anthropology in motion, referring to crucial aspects of human condition without any recourse to national, ethnic or cultural essentialism."

The Refugee Atlas project is part of the larger "the European History Atlas Under Construction - the transgenerational project of Strefa WolnoSłowa Foundation organized in collaboration with artistic and research organizations from Warsaw, Paris, Bologna and Antwerp." While this is rooted in a fine arts approach to understanding migration, refugees and multiculturalism, the atlas' juxtaposition of diverse and thematic historical and contemporary images and maps may make it an interesting visual for anthropological discussions. The project organizers worked with youth and seniors of both European and migrant backgrounds to explore themes around memory and history in connection to migration. According to the atlas' creators:

The phenomenon of mass migration often cuts across traditional cultural formations, reveals hidden tensions or unmasks shameful continuities. It catches culture in its movement and shows its perpetual fluctuations, irrevocable unrest. This is why making a visual atlas on the experience of migration requires stepping out of both the journalistic news culture, which changes the “refugee crisis” into another viral celebration of the ignorance, and the injunction to always associate the suffering of the oppressed with documentary sensibility.

What kinds of narratives do these images generate, and how might they reflect or differ what we typically see in the news, or in a quick "Google Image" search?

If you have other resources that would be a good addition to this short list, please let us know via email (anthrolens@gmail.com) or tweet us @anthrolens.

Quick links:

• Refugees and the Crisis of Europe, Cultural Anthropology Hot Spot
• Shifting the global conversation on refugees, Peeps Forum (2016)
• Welcome to Weimar, New York Times (28 April 2017)
• Refugee Atlas

Is it good enough to think like an Anthropologist?

In recent weeks we've been posting about the use of anthropological tenets and ethnographic practices beyond traditional field sites. This topic was addressed from author Elizabeth Durham's perspective in a recent article post on Somatosphere (a collaborative website covering the intersections of medical anthropology, science and technology studies, cultural psychiatry, psychology and bioethics), called  "The Good Enough Anthropologist"

In it, Durham speaks about the anthropological response to the recent Ebola outbreak and the push by diverse responders for anthropologists to take a culturalist perspective - e.g. what cultural practices might be undermining the Ebola response process - to help fight the epidemic.

Below is a pertinent quote from Durham's article although it doesn't include Durham's definition of the "good enough Anthropologist" or her conclusion:

As such, it suggests that anthropologists ought to expand our academic practice to encompass both research and better public relations: non-anthropological actors become good-enough anthropologists when we ourselves are not good enough at self-promotion, at clearly defining and communicating what it is we do, how we do it, and why we do it this way.

The issue of what constitutes “good anthropology” is, of course, controversial within anthropology: this is part of the issue, albeit an inevitable one. Moreover, while good-enough anthropology easily veers into culturalism, I can also admittedly see where it has the potential to foster a more democratic anthropology (though this is not the direction it has largely taken thus far), raising and/or reopening key questions similar to the one above. Who controls public anthropology, if anyone? What can or should “real” anthropologists do when faced with a public anthropology they may find dismaying? Is public anthropology an anthropology with a public presence, an anthropology practiced by publics, or both? Do attempts to trace such public afterlives aid the democratization of anthropology, or do they border on a way for scholars to reassert authority over the works they write? These are questions whose value lies more in discussion than in simple answers. 

Their article is worth a read as are the comments section. For example, Daniel Lendie writes:

But I think you are on the right track when you ask about our role as public anthropologists. For me, that can mean an effort to overcome our own focus on research and critical engagement to start to address questions that are relevant and immediate for others. We teach publicly all the time; we can apply that same anthropological approach that we use in the classroom to other arenas. But that means getting out of our comfort zones (our areas of deep expertise), and also having the institutional support for doing such work.

Finally, I’d push anthropologists to look closely at what we’d want instead of culturalism. We need a theory for this type of academic practice and engagement; just critiquing “culturalism” doesn’t do much to develop a viable way to add anthropology into the work around Ebola (and other public issues/problems) in a viable and satisfactory way. “Quick ethnography” might be a methodological way to do that, but we need a conceptual tool set for this type of work as well, one as much oriented to public and applied issues, to “How to?” sorts of questions.

Anthropology really seems everywhere these days - so where, if anywhere, are its limits?

How Anthropology Can Transform Global Health Efforts

In the context of global health crises from tuberculosis to HIV/AIDS and Ebola, Jean Hunleth discusses How Anthropology Can Transform Global Health Efforts (American Association of University Women (AAUW) blog, 2015)

"Hunleth suggests that an anthropologist’s success in public health draws on being able to do three main things. First, viewing public health as a culture you are trying to learn by paying attention to the language, norms, assumptions, and behaviors of each distinct global health organization. Secondly, identifying hidden assumptions some public health programs make, and their potential to lead to unintended effects. And lastly, learning to draw on theories and methods from anthropology and showing your co-workers the value of using them."

Africa is not a country!

In spite of many students' regular claims in term papers and on tests, anthropology instructors know that Africa is not a county. (To be fair to our students, claiming that Africa is a country is a crime that journalists and politicians in the West regularly commit.)

Over the past few years in my intro classes I have taken the time to discuss this common misnomer/ slip of the pen with my students. For one, it often means that I don't have to write "Africa is not a country!" a dozen times come marking season, but I find that it is also a useful discussion to have when introducing the issues of representation, ethnocentrism/ Eurocentrism, power, and colonialism. In doing this, Kai Krause's True Size of Africa map has been very useful. (I sometimes also like to show this 4 minute clip from The West Wing on the Mercator projection map that most students know.)

Other links:

• Inspired by both Krause and The West Wing, The True Size of... is an interactive mapping tool that allows users to compare the sizes of any country.
• Al Jezeera's Reality Check: Africa is not a country (3 October 2015) debunks a slew of stereotypes in just 2 minutes
• Africa is not a country (The Guardian, 24 January 2014) highlights media prejudice against Africa
• For those who insist, Africa is a Country is a critical blog whose authors/ artists and editors "deliberately challenge and destabilize received wisdom about the African continent and its people in Western media."

Tracing the erased histories & diaspora traditions in Southern cooking

Michael Twitty is an independent researcher and teacher whose work explores the impact of the African roots and traditions of American Southern cooking -- which have been largely erased from history. He has a background in African American studies and anthropology from Howard University. Twitty is the founder of The Cooking Gene project, and blogs about "Culinary Traditions of Africa, African America and the African Diaspora" on Afroculinaria.com.

The Washington Post's Michaele Weissman wrote about Twitty and his work here: "His Paula Deen takedown went viral. But this food scholar isn’t done yet." (16 February 2016)