Nathalie Peutz

The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement

This important collection examines deportation as an increasingly global mechanism of state control. Anthropologists, historians, legal scholars, and sociologists consider not only the physical expulsion of noncitizens but also the social discipline and labor subordination resulting from deportability, the threat of forced removal. They explore practices and experiences of deportation in regional and national settings from the U.S.-Mexico border to Israel, and from Somalia to Switzerland. They also address broader questions, including the ontological significance of freedom of movement; the historical antecedents of deportation, such as banishment and exile; and the development, entrenchment, and consequences of organizing sovereign power and framing individual rights by territory. Whether investigating the power that individual and corporate sponsors have over the fate of foreign laborers in Bahrain, the implications of Germany’s temporary suspension of deportation orders for pregnant and ill migrants, or the significance of the detention camp, the contributors reveal how deportation reflects and reproduces notions about public health, racial purity, and class privilege. They also provide insight into how deportation and deportability are experienced by individuals, including Arabs, South Asians, and Muslims in the United States. One contributor looks at asylum claims in light of an unusual anti-deportation campaign mounted by Algerian refugees in Montreal; others analyze the European Union as an entity specifically dedicated to governing mobility inside and across its official borders. The Deportation Regime addresses urgent issues related to human rights, international migration, and the extensive security measures implemented by nation-states since September 11, 2001. Contributors : Rutvica Andrijasevic, Aashti Bhartia, Heide Castaneda , Galina Cornelisse , Susan Bibler Coutin, Nicholas De Genova, Andrew M. Gardner, Josiah Heyman, Serhat Karakayali, Sunaina Marr Maira, Guillermina Gina Nunez, Peter Nyers, Nathalie Peutz, Enrica Rigo, Victor Talavera, William Walters, Hans-Rudolf Wicker, Sarah S. Willen

Embarking on an Anthropology of Removal

This article calls for an ethnographic and theoretical investigation of removal (and specifically, deportation) that would broaden our understanding of the significance of this purportedly routine state practice. Based on fieldwork conducted in Somaliland in 2002 and 2003, it takes as its text the narratives of a group of Somalis deported from the United States and Canada following the events of September 11, 2001. As criminal aliens, the majority of these men (and one woman) had been incarcerated both as prisoners and as administrative detainees before being deported unexpectedly to stateless Somalia. Yet, the somewhat exceptional nature of this particular deportation highlights the various political and social exclusions that might be overlooked in the more regular instances of deportation (e.g., that of illegal immigrants and rejected asylum seekers). By following the trajectories of these Muslim deportees from incarceration in the host state to reincorporation/alienation at home, it points to the legal and financial domains that underpin presentday practices of deportation and the embodied and chronotopic experiences they effect. Further, this article outlines how future anthropological work on removal might proceed while underscoring the relevance of this field to the studies of citizenship and transnationalism, globalization, and governmentality.

Heritage in (the) Ruins

First-time European and American visitors to the United Arab Emirates, where I live, are often surprised by the prevalence of heritage villages, festivals, and sports in hypermodern Abu Dhabi and Dubai. “Heritage” in the Arab Gulf, as elsewhere in the Middle East, is a central and growing industry, attracting the attention of scholars as well as investors and tourists. At the same time, much of the regions—and the worlds—invaluable cultural heritage has been and continues to be obliterated by insurgents and governments alike. Spectacular assaults on historical sites, cultural institutions, and symbols of cultural-religious diversity in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Yemen demonstrate that the “new wars” of the 21st century are being fought on the terrain of cultural heritage as much as they are over other precious resources. And yet, the interconnections between this heritage construction and destruction remain underexplored. In much of the scholarship produced in the burgeoning field of critical heritage studies, the duplexity of these processes is ignored. Instead, most edited volumes and “global” analyses of the field look to the Middle East and other Muslim-majority nations only in so far as they present case studies of heritage destruction—the bombing of the Bamyan Buddhas in Afghanistan and the looting of the National Museum of Iraq being iconic examples.