Are We Entering a New Age of Global Apartheid?: The Immigration Debate in Maine

Refugees from states devastated by civil war and terrorism pose a challenge to the international community, which creates 'humanitarian' practices to contain and monitor refugees in order to deliver charitable assistance while reducing the risks refugees are perceived as posing to the international order and individual nation-states. Somali refugees throughout the world are caught in a set of risk-management practices, which incarcerate some in refugee camps and define others — those resettled in the US — as potential security threats to their new communities. How does the hostility engendered by fears about risk inflect the perspectives in Maine of Somali immigrants?

This lecture is part of Making Migration Visible: Traces, Tracks & Pathways, a state-wide initiative featuring events by dozens of partnering organizations offering parallel exhibitions, film screenings, performances, lectures, community dinners, poetry, and more. Making Migration Visible aims to promote the actions, passion, and creativity of organizations throughout Maine that are working to improve understandings about migration.