CORI News

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CORI's web pages were maintained at George Mason University from 1997 to 2003 but have now been moved to SUNTA's web site: www.sunta.org/cori

CORI News:

General News:

For general refugee and immigration news, a few quick links are provided below. See the CORI Links page for additional sources of information.

CORI Sessions at Meetings:

Gender and Generation in Immigrant Families

Organized by Nancy Foner (SUNY, Purchase). Invited Session (CORI/GAD), Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 1997

Abstract:

As the United States, once again, experiences an enormous influx of immigrants, anthropologists have a special role to play in understanding the way the latest arrivals are carving out new lives. This session looks at the way gender and generation in immigrant families are being renegotiated, reconstructed, and redefined in groups in different parts of the country.
Immigrants live out much of their lives in the context of families, where complex processes of adaptation, adjustment, and creative culture building as well as conflict and negotiation take place. A focus on gender and generation in immigrant families allows us to see the dynamic interplay between structure, culture, and agency as well as the interaction between the local and global. A host of structural constraints and conditions in the new setting influence the way men and women -- and old and young -- in immigrant families develop new roles, orientations, and strategies. The particular cultural understandings, meanings, and symbols that immigrants bring with them from their former society are also critical. In fact, immigrants often maintain vital transnational linkages -- and these linkages may exert a powerful influence on the way gender roles and generational differences are configured and expressed. Moreover, immigrants are not simply passive individuals who are acted upon by external forces. They play an active role in reconstructing and defining family life and roles. Indeed, members of the family, by virtue of their gender and generation, have differing interests so that women (and men) and young people (and older people) often try to fashion family roles and patterns in ways that improve their position and further their aims.
The individual papers in the session examine a broad range of issues pertaining to gender and generation among a variety of Latin American and Asian groups. The papers focus on refugees (Vietnamese and Hmong) as well as immigrants (Brazilians, Mexicans, Chinese, and Indians) in different parts of the country, including California, New York, Florida, and Wisconsin. The participants draw on extensive in-depth research conducted in recent years.

Papers:

Internationalizing America: Refugees, Immigrants, and Their Localities

Organized by David Haines and Carol Mortland. Invited Session (CORI/GAD), Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 1997

Abstract:

The surge in immigration to the United States over the past thirty years has changed the economic, social, and political dynamics of the country. It has also contributed a new set of vectors to American social and societal diversity--vectors that are distinctly international and highly varied. The effects on large "immigration" cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami are well known; however the effects are also significant in other areas where the net impact of immigration is far more modest, but the diversity mix to which they are added is less broad. In either case, immigrants are a major, expanding category of diversity and one which reflects international realities as much as domestic, established categories of diversity based largely on race, sex, and class.
Papers in this session address this interaction of immigrants and their new communities in a range of American cities from those with large quantitative effects from immigration to those where the quantitative effects are smaller but the increments of social change may be as great. Each paper introduces a particular set of immigrants, outlines the key features of the locality in which they arrive, suggests the major domains of interaction, and then focuses on one or two specific domains in which immigrants and the native-born interact and through that interaction change the social relations and identity of these American localities.

Papers:

CORI at SfAA: San Juan 1998

Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 1998

CORI Plenary Session: Refugees, Immigrants, and Anthropologists: A Review and Prospectus. Organized by David Haines. Papers by: David Howell -- "Anthropology and Public Policy on Immigrants and Refugees"; David Haines -- "The Anthropological Research on Refugees, Immigrants, and Forced Relocation"; Leo Chavez -- "Theory and the Study of Refugees and Immigrants"; Lance Rasbridge -- "Programs on Behalf of Refugees and Immigrants"; Ruth Krulfeld -- "Education for and about Refugees and Immigrants"; Theodore Downing -- Strategies for Setting Standards to Protect the Human Rights of People Who are Involuntarily Displaced by Development"; Jeff MacDonald -- "Refugee Asylum and Resettlement: Issues for the Future"; and Alex Stepick -- "Refugees, Immigrants, and Anthropologists: Assessing the Fit."

Building Sustainable Communities in Post-Conflict Situations. Organized by James Phillips and Lucia Ann McSpadden. Papers by: Finn Stepputat -- "Community, Repatriation, and State Formation in Post-Conflict Guatemala"; James Phillips --"Enemies, Neighbors, and Faceless Forces: Dilemmas of Community-Building in Post-War Nicaragua"; Victoria Sanford -- "Displaced Widows, Development, Human Rights, and Democratization in Guatemala"; Laura Hammond -- "Returnees Start Again: Inventing Sustainable Community in Ethiopia"; and Lucia Ann McSpadden -- "Assessing Essential Qualities of Communities: Eritrean Refugees' Resistance and Return."

Refugees and Immigrants: Education and Other Issues. Organized by Juliene Lipson. Papers by: Gautam Ghosh -- "Survivals and Civilization: Elite Displacement and Indigenous Development Since the 1947 Partition of India"; Elzbieta Gozdziak -- "Teaching About Refugees and Immigrants: Challenges and Options"; Pamela DeVoe -- "A Look at Refugee Education: Fighting Stereotypes and Bureaucracy"; Anne Ballenger -- "Vietnamese Women Refugees: Illness Narratives"; Doreen Indra -- "Space, Place and Empowerment Among Environmentally-Forced Migrants in Rural Bangladesh"; Julia Lydon -- "Finding Their Way: K-12 Students in Nashville, Tennessee"; and D.A. Duchon -- "Refugee Policy in Practice."

After the Wave: Cultural Issues Among Non-Southeast Asian Refugees. Organized by Juliene Lipson. Papers by: Ann Rynearson -- "The Wave: Southeast Asian Refugees in the U.S."; Yewoubdar Beyene -- "Caught in the Storm of Body Politics: Dilemmas of African Refugees in the U.S."; Juliene Lipson -- "Bosnian Refugees in California: Health Issues"; Dianna Shandy -- "Nuer Refugees in America: Mobility, Entitlements, and Welfare Reform"; Wanda Carlile -- "New Identities and Community Development: Al Rafeedian Soccer Team"; and Annette Busby -- "The Problem Is Their Culture: The Integration of Kurdish Refugees in Sweden."

Forced Diasporas and the Construction of Suffering

Organized by Ann Rynearson (International Institute, St. Louis) and Don Seeman (Harvard Medical School). Session, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 1998

Abstract:

This session seeks to understand the communal suffering of populations forced to leave their homelands (diasporas). We explore the multiple ways in which the experiences of such migrants become the object of cultural or religious discourse, as well as a tool of political and institutional management. How do group members (and outsiders) conceive and even manipulate the communities created by shared suffering? How is "suffering" defined or appropriated in the elaboration of policies for the management and care of refugees and other displaced peoples? What are the contingencies which help to define the lived experience of forced migrant populations? How are these related to national and international political institutions? These and other issues will be addressed for populations ranging from European to Ethiopian Jews and from Afghan to Guatemalan Mayan refugees.

Papers:

The Comparison of Gender Empowerment Through Individual and Organizational Agency by Refugee and Immigrant Women: Local and Transnational Contexts and Consequences

Organized by Ruth Krulfeld (George Washington University). Session, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 1998

Abstract:

The subject of this session is gender self-empowerment by transnational migrant women through individual and group agency. Much research on gender focuses on women's disempowerment, which is important to consider. But of increasing concern are the more positive aspects of empowerment. It is important to discover the ways immigrant, refugee, and migrant women negotiate power and when and why they do so during various stages of the transmigration process, including: residence in original homelands; uprooting and interim resettlement; during adaptation in resettlement; and, when relevant, in repatriation. These stages represent a dynamic in which no part of the migration process is likely to be cut off from the others permanently. They also represent different opportunities for re-creating, newly creating, manipulating, and negotiating new gender roles and positions in gender hierarchies.
Presenters in this session examine agency by women operating as individuals and through groups in terms of such negotiations, compare these two forms of agency, and seek to explain successes and failures for both. The session will examine the affects of achievements on studied communities in terms of restructuring of gender hierarchies, new access to public positions, opportunities for exercising power not previously available to women and will investigate whether the affects of this empowerment are lasting, resulting in actual changes in power, or are transitory, limited only to individuals for brief periods or to talk about empowering activities without producing lasting change in the gender relations of power. If either or both forms of agency are found to be successful in empowering the women who employ them and in changing the dominant gender hierarchies, the understanding of these processes of negotiation and change in refugee and immigrant life will have important implications for applied anthropology in public policy and the provision of services in terms of what can or will not work, and what people in minority communities can achieve on their own. It will further alert us to the dangers of treating refugees and other migrants as if they were powerless and must rely on outside intervention. Should neither individual nor collective attempts at gender empowerment be found to have transformative effects on existing gender structures, the session explores why they do not, and whether and how existing structures of power are supported by these efforts.
To augment our understanding of the transnational contexts within which local affairs operate and how local processes affect gender behavior beyond local contexts and are affected by them, the session will also explore the affect of women's empowerment through individual and organization agency as this plays out transnationally, through Internet, conferences, and other means, and its effects on efforts at empowerment in both local and transnational contexts. Presenters examine these issues for Brazilian Japanese women migrant workers in Japan, Somalian, Rwandan, Saharawis, Lao, and Afghan refugee and immigrant women in diaspora.

Papers:

Scenes from a Marriage: Blending Ethnography and Survey Research in the Study of Mexico-U.S. Migration

Organized by Nancy Foner (SUNY-Purchase). Session, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 1998

Abstract:

This session features demographer Douglas Massey and his anthropologist collaborator Jorge Durand. The focus is on their large-scale project on Mexico-U.S. migration. As part of the project, detailed interviews were conducted with nearly 5,000 returned U.S. migrants in 25 Mexican communities during 1987 through 1994, as well as with several hundred outmigrants from these same communities in U.S. destination areas. The project has special relevance since Mexico is the largest single source of immigrants to the United States. Indeed, at last count, more than a quarter of the foreign born population in the United States was from Mexico.
Massey and Durand will reflect on the surprising things that they have learned from collaborating with each other on their Mexico-U.S. migration research. The session thus offers an opportunity to understand the many benefits--methodological as well as theoretical--that can come from joint projects on migration between anthropologists and demographers that blend ethnography and survey research. The discussants, each of whom has been involved in other collaborative research on Mexican migration to the United States, will make comments in light of their own experiences.

Papers:

Discussants:

Violence, Racism, and Population Dynamics

Organized by Elzbieta Gozdziak (Refugee Mental Health/SAMHSA). Session, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 1998

Abstract:

Traditionally, violence has been examined within the criminal justice discourse. Moreover, when confronted with issues of violence, the legal professions tend to examine them at the level of individual perpetrators or victims. In this session, we will demonstrate the increasingly more prominent role of anthropology and public health in providing alternative insights into the area of violence. Moreover, we will discuss issues of violence at the population level by demonstrating the effects of violence not only on individuals but also on their families, communities, ethnic groups, and whole populations. Various types of violence will be examined, including physical, structural, and political violence, both in the United States and internationally.
The papers will explore a broad range of dimensions of violence, including interethnic violence, fighting for resources and self-determination; the interplay between population dynamics and group identity with collective violence; the changes in the role of women in society and the construction of self brought about by the violence of war; the effects of torture on the victims, their family members and the community at large; the examination of the gendered, cultural and economic consequences of violence; the relationship between bureaucratic symbolic violence and physical violence; the impact of gun-detection technologies on community and police relations and the fragile balance between residents' desire for a safe community and personal freedom and civil rights; the perception of crime and violence, and police activities by urban adolescents. The discussions will focus on different ethnic and racial groups, including African Americans, Native Americans, Tamils, Mayans, and distinct geographic areas, including American inner cities, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Israel, Ireland, the Sudan, and the former Yugoslavia. Both US-born groups as well as refugees and immigrants will be included in the discourse. Program and policy recommendations as well as suggestions for further research will be provided.

Papers:

Discussants:

CORI at SfAA: Tucson 1999

Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, Tucson, Arizona, April 1999

Contemporary Migration and Public Policy: A Review and Prospectus. Organized by David Haines. Papers: "Immigrants, Refugees, and Displacees: A Place for Policy" (David W. Haines, George Mason); "An Integrated Approach to Health Care Policy for Immigrants and Refugees" (Lawrence A. Palinkas, UC-San Diego); "Interdisciplinary Policies for Mental Health Services" (Elzbieta M. Gozdziak and John J. Tuskan, Refugee Mental Health Program, CMHS, SAMHSA); "Illegal Immigrants, Borders, and the Canadian Nation" (Norman Buchignani and Doreen Indra, Lethbridge); "Immigration Policy in Europe: Current Challenges and Future Directions" (Deborah Altamirano, SUNY-Plattsburgh); "Measuring Mobility: Nuer Secondary Migration" (Dianna Shandy, Columbia); "Rethinking Mobility and Mobile Populations" (Lynellyn Long, Population Council); "Common Ground and the People Without Ground: Displaced Peoples, Global Economies, and Practical Imperatives" (James Phillips, Southern Oregon); "Planning for Displacement" (Art Hansen, Clark Atlanta).

Refugees, Migrants, and Housing. Organized by Jeffery MacDonald (IRCO). Papers: "Housing the Placeless in Border Colonias: The Policies of Prejudice and Fetish" (Duncan Earle, UTEP); "Displacement from Public Housing: Hmong, Lao, and African-Americans in Minneapolis" (Marline Spring, Minnesota); "Housing and Homeownership for Refugees in Portland, Oregon" (Jeffery MacDonald, International Refugee Center of Oregon). Discussant: Ken C. Erickson (Kansas).

Refugees, Immigrants, and Displacees: Current Developments. Organized by Ann Rynearson (International Institute-St. Louis). Informal discussion section.

Anthropologists Working with Refugees: Career Paths and Professional Development. Organized by Elzbieta Gozdziak (Refugee Mental Health Program-CMHS, SAMHSA). Papers: "The Evolving Role of a Refugee Group Advocate" (Robert Harman, CSU-Long Beach); "Fieldwork with Student Interns in Bosnia" (Peter W. Van Arsdale, Center for Cultural Dynamics); "Refugees, Resettlement, and Health Care: Anthropologist as Coordinator or Peacemaker?" (Lance Rasbridge, Parkland Hospital).

Refractions of Reality: Displacement, Integration, and the Negotiation of "Truth."

Organized by Dianna Shandy (Columbia U) and Ann Rynearson (International Institute-St. Louis). Session, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Illinois, November 1999

Abstract:

This session draws on the experiences of resettled and repatriated refugees to explore the construction, negotiation, and deployment of "truth" during times of transition and upheaval. Collective and individual pasts become powerful commodities in the struggle for asylum or third country resettlement as well as the repatriation and reintegration of former refugees. Information in these contexts is strategically manipulated by and for refugees to encourage refugees to adapt to their new environs, to return home, or to secure third country resettlement. Refugees also negotiate details of kinship, events, and other "truths" in the struggle to construct new lives from fragmented pasts.

Papers:

Discussant:

Refugees and Human Rights: The Emerging Agenda

Organized by Lucia Ann McSpadden (Life & Peace Institute). Session co-sponsored by the Committee for Human Rights and the Committee on Refugees and Immigrants, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Illinois, November 1999.

Abstract:

The international refugee system set in place to deal with displaced persons after WWII is in a crisis as it faces situations it was not set up to handle. Intrastate conflicts, movement of large number of refugees, the inability of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to protect those same large groups of people in flight, mixing of refugees with combatants, the use of rape as a weapon of combat, criminalizing of asylum, emphasizing national sovereignty rather than protection are just some of the issues. State power is pervasive. Anthropologists are challenged to use our work on the ground—methodologically and theoretically--to reveal and to understand the threat to human rights faced by refugees globally. Such knowledge can provide the basis for informed advocacy and increased protection.
This special event has two parts: anthropologists who have worked for years with refugees, often in the midst of conflict, will briefly (5-6 minutes) present their analyses of issues which anthropologists need to examine in regard to human rights and refugees. This will be followed by an open discussion between the presenters and the audience. The overall goals of the session are several: 1) to encourage further research and informed advocacy; 2) to suggest relevant topics for scientific sessions at future AAA meetings; 3) to explore the research agenda and to question who is setting it; 4) to reveal the ethical issues inherent in anthropological research with and for refugees; 5) to offer suggestions for protecting the human rights of refugees in the midst of our research.

Presenters:

Culture, Health, and Illness: In Search of Culturally Competent Health and Mental Health Services for Refugees and Immigrants

Organized by Juliene Lipson (UC San Francisco) and Elzbieta Gozdziak (SAMHSA). Invited Session, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Illinois, November 1999.

Abstract:

Suffering, trauma, stress, grief, loss, and pain are all part of the human condition. Medicalization is the tendency in contemporary societies to expand the meaning of medical diagnosis and the relevance of medical care as well as a way of ordering thoughts about life, death, and human suffering. In the spirit of a modernist responsibility to act and respond to human suffering, contemporary society has reframed and medicalized traumatizing experiences, conceptualizing them as illness and establishing the sufferer as a victim in need of medical and/or psychological treatment. Using the example of refugees and torture survivors, the presenters discuss the role of culture and spiritual/ religious beliefs in coping, managing, and accommodating stressful and traumatic events, both at the personal and group levels. Moreover, they argue that the modern or Western framework for understanding and managing suffering, may be very different from that of the refugee and torture survivor. Unfortunately, this may have serious negative consequences for the refugee and trauma survivor. Recommendations are given for reconstructing current approaches for understanding and responding to the suffering of refugees and torture survivors.

Papers:

Illegal Immigration: Problematic Labels and Volatile Issues

Organized by David W. Haines and Karen E. Rosenblum (George Mason). Roundtable, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Illinois, November 1999.

Abstract:

Illegal immigration as a subject covers a wide range of actual migration situations, every-shifting legal statuses, and even more varied individual experiences--whether of visa over-stayers, illegally working tourists, unrecognized refugees, or trafficked labor. Being undocumented is a thorny, interstitial condition and generally an unpleasant one both for migrant and non-migrant. Often called "uncontrolled," it is nevertheless one major segment of the American experience that is quite directly the result of specific economic and political actions. Those actions are often directed by the U.S. government and inevitably at least mediated by it.
In this session, the editors and selected chapter authors of the just published Illegal Immigration in America: A Reference Handbook discuss the political, economic, and personal dimensions of undocumented migration to the United States. Central to the discussion are the conceptual problems with the labels used (illegal, undocumented, irregular); the way in which the subject often hits raw nerves in the body politic; the specific effects of legal status on different sets of migrants; and undocumented migration as a perduring current in American society--the shadow and close relative of the regular documented immigration that has been so central to America's economic growth and cultural development.

Comments by:

The Role of Religion and Spirituality in Refugee Resettlement and Adaptation

Organized by Elzbieta M. Gozdziak (Refugee Mental Health Program, SAMHSA). Session, Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, San Francisco, California, March 2000.

Abstract:

Despite the diversity of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices that sustain many refugees and immigrants in their process of displacement, migration, and adaptation to the host society, contemporary considerations among both social scientists and policy makers have tended to neglect the role of religion and spirituality as a source of emotional and cognitive support, a form of social and political expression and mobilization, and a vehicle for community building and group identity. Although faith-based organizations provide emergency relief to refugees, facilitate the settlement of refugees and immigrants, and provide them with a wide range of social services, public debates about migration and displacement on an international and national level have tended to ignore religious issues. This session aims at facilitating a paradigm shift in both scholarly and public debates on the importance of religious and spiritual beliefs as well as the role of spiritual leaders and faith-based organizations in the resettlement and adaptation of refugees. The presentations will focus on the role of funders in organizing and coordinating research on religion and immigration; examination of the spiritual and political contexts of suffering that provide the foundation for understanding and response to the suffering of refugees; analysis of the dual aspects of faith and group membership in a context of religion; and the comparison of the process and content of different Christian theologies as cultural resources used by refugees.

Papers:

Manifest Destinies: America, Immigration, and the Collision of Local and Global Histories

Organized by David W. Haines (George Mason) and Carol A. Mortland (Columbia Gorge Museum). Session, Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, San Francisco, California, March 2000

Abstract:

This session considers how the seemingly contrary processes of globalization (of which immigrants are an important part) and "Americanization" (of which immigrants are a major focus) will play out in the United States over the next decades. The panelists, based on their previous work on the processes of globalization and Americanization in selected U.S. cities, here take a more prospective look at where American society may be headed in terms of perhaps its most perduring theme--immigration--and what the practical implications of that are for both academic and applied anthropologists. The presentations will focus on a broad range of localities: Tacoma, Washington; Dallas, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; Garden City, Kansas; Richmond, Virginia; and West Palm Beach, Florida. That range, which goes beyond the frequent emphasis on major "gateway" cities, permits an inclusive examination of immigration in America and the way in which global and local histories interlink and sometimes collide within what is a highly variable, yet still coherent, nation.

Papers:

U.S. Immigration Law and the Human Rights of Immigrant and Refugee Communities: Can Anthropologists Make a Difference?

Organized by Lucia McSpadden (Life & Peace Institute). Session, Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, San Francisco, California, March 2000.

Abstract:

In 1996, riding the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, believing that national borders were "out of control," that undocumented workers were flooding into the country, and that many asylum claims by refugees were fraudulent, the U.S. Congress enacted the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. This act allows for the rapid removal from the U.S. of persons without "proper papers" or who are not judged to have a credible claim for refugee protection. It eliminates judicial review, causes long-time, non-citizen residents to be deported for long-ago crimes or to be imprisoned without charges for indefinite periods of time. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused the U.S. of being in violation of international treaties. This panel of human rights experts and legal advocates will present the consequences of the IRIRA for these non-citizen communities and suggest ways in which applied anthropologists can help to protect the human rights of the people with whom we work. There will be extended time for discussion.

Presenters:

Pedagogy, Publics, and Politicized Places

Organized by Dianna Shandy (Macalester). Invited Session, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, California, November 2000.

Abstract:

The papers in this panel approach the topic of 'teaching migration' from diverse angles within an anthropological context. Perhaps most succinctly summarized as pedagogy "by, for, and about immigrants," the panel explores the multifaceted nature of diverse audiences within an anthropological public. Undergraduate, graduate, professional, mainstream, and migrant publics are all consumers and producers of knowledge about migration, which takes place in an increasingly politicized setting. Schools and universities emerge, not surprisingly, as key, yet not exclusive, sites for these pedagogical activities. Graduate, undergraduate, secondary, and primary schools are prime locales for both socialization of and about immigrants. Embedded in this context are opportunities to re-frame the study of anthropology by drawing upon transnational realities that render the global local. In addition, given the ways in which immigration has come to the forefront of American politics, information for the general public and professionals about immigrants assumes vital significance in both brokering acceptance and providing culturally competent services and care.

Papers:

Migrants, Low-Wage Labor, and Public Policy

Organized by Janet Benson (Kansas State). Session, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, California, November 2000.

Abstract:

The expansion of global trade, communication, and transportation networks, coupled with a thirty-year low in the U.S. unemployment rate, has led to strong labor demands from American employers and the growth of Latino-origin (primarily Mexican) populations in the United States. Government policy has been inconsistent, caught between different policy currents. On the one hand, employers (particularly those in agriculture) want to maintain a steady supply of docile, low-wage labor, while on the other hand, public pressure exists to control borders and curb criminal activities such as drug-dealing. Confirming the legal status of workers is difficult due to impersonation and fraudulent documents, while undocumented status often confines workers to dangerous, relatively low-paying occupations. Although the Immigration and Naturalization Service attempts to apply sanctions to some of the larger employers of undocumented workers, it is difficult or impossible for the agency to reach the many small-scale employers who utilize undocumented labor. At the same time, legal immigrants who have become permanent residents or citizens may face discrimination from employers who think they are undocumented. In spite of much circular migration, and due in part to unprecedented employer demand, the Latino-origin U.S. population is growing. A number of researchers indicate a new Latino presence in regions of the country, such as the northeast and the southeast, where they were formerly not common. The panel will present recent findings on Latino migrants and immigrants in low-wage labor from both a Mexican and a U.S. perspective, and will discuss current policy issues raised by immigration. We argue that the fine-grained data collected by anthropologists can contribute significantly to public policy decisions.

Papers:

Predicament of Place, Freedom of Movement, and Flexible Capital: An Anthropology of Mobility

Organized by Lynellyn D. Long (Population Council) and Allison Truitt (Cornell). Session, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, California, November 2000.

Abstract:

Two recent events, the Asian currency crisis and the WTO negotiations in Seattle, have pointed to the need for more sophisticated analyses of global capital and labor flows in relation to people's sense of place and community. This panel will address the public policy aspects of an "anthropology of mobility." The panel aims to: characterize and describe different forms of mobility; address why mobility is problematic for policy makers and social policies and yet so intrinsic to the free movement of labor, goods, and capital (as well as processes of globalization); analyze how different forms of mobility facilitate flexible capitalism yet become sites (and processes) of resistance; and discuss anthropology's contribution to an understanding of the temporal, spatial, and relational aspects of mobility. The specific papers address the issues of the relation between virtual and diasporic communities, ports cities as sites of control of and opportunity for mobility, floating populations and public policy responses, and overseas remittances and economic development. These studies are based on ethnographic work carried out in Brazil, Vietnam, and the United States.

Papers:

Discussants:

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