THE OTHER IRAQI CRISIS
Jill Koyama, PhD
Anthropologist
Educational Policy Studies and Practice
“THE CRISIS”: ISIS
 Despite Tikrit Loss, ISIS Still Holds Large Swaths of
Iraq
Institute for the Study of War
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-iraq-isis-conflict-in-maps-photos-and-video.html?_r=0
 Getting ISIS Out of Iraq

NYTimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/opinion/getting-isis-out-of-iraq.html
 ISIL takes body blows in Iraq while affiliates grow
elsewhere
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/04/21/isil-isis-taking-body-blows-while-arms-grow-elsewhere/26134545/
DIALOGUE OF DISPLACEMENTS
Displacement of Iraqis
Displacement of anthropological research
Displacement of “risk”
DISPLACEMENT OF IRAQIS
3.5-5 million displaced due to the Iraq War
• Majority of those externally displaced fled to Jordan and Syria
• Since 9/11-2014, nearly 115,000 Iraqis have been
admitted to the US
• 2011-2013, included both a dip in 2011 (9,388, down from
18,000 in 2010) and the highest number of 19,000 in 2013
• 400 Iraqi refugees resettled in study area
(US Refugee Admissions Program, US State Report 2015, UNHRC, refugee
resettlement agencies)
50,000 Iraq and Afghan Nationals worked with the US military
• Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) for Iraqis - Who Were Employed
by/on Behalf of the U.S. Government
• Of 29,500 SIV allotted between 2008 and 2014, only 12, 233
have been awarded
• 42 resettled in study area, 5 secondary resettlement
(US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Iraqi Refugee Project,
Resettlement agencies in study)
DISPLACEMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL METHODS:
PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION CONUNDRUMS
 How to study people, things, and ideas on the move, or in
action, across geographic and political borders
 How to think about the “field” when:
 Interactions are often not face-to-face
 Sites not necessarily local
 Contexts are fluid global assemblages of people, things, and
discourses
Studying through (Reinhold)
Studying up (Nader)
Shuffling around the value we place on participant observation and
long-term engagement in one or multiple discrete locations (Marcus)
Reconsider displacement: the removal from the familiar need not be
best understood and practiced as a matter of physical location
To displace is to situate (Haraway; Lave and Wenger)
To displace is to question, challenge, and critically engage with
norms and deviations that are taken-for-granted
ACTOR NETWORK PERSPECTIVES
Emergent assemblage of people, material objects,
and discursive ideas (Latour, Callon, Law)
Human-non-human symmetry
No bounded context or priori site(s)
Translation
THE STUDY STUDIES
• 26 month ethnography (1/2011-5/2013)
Aim: to trace and examine the network of services
accessed by immigrants and refugees in a WNY
city to better understand the relationships
between services utilized and educational choices
and work opportunities
Case Study of an elementary school (Discourse)
Refugee women working in the US and the construction of
gender (Journal of Refugee Studies
Social mobility of refugees in the US (British Journal of
Sociology of Education)
The relationship between refugees learning English and risk
discourses (Policy Futures in Education)
Iraqi Refugees and Iraqi Veterans (????)
DISPLACEMENT OF “RISK”
 Risk Theory and Sociocultural Inquiry (Douglas, Giddens,
Foucault)
 Some convergence between AN and Foucault’s ideas of heterogeneity,
contingency, incompleteness that inform risk analysis
 Emerged in interviews with Iraqi refugees
 Focus on the cultural enactment of risk
 Examine notions and discourses of risk as a way in which US construct
and maintain cultural boundaries
 Who to blame, who is risky, who is dangerous
REFUGEES AT-RISK
 Mental, physical, economic, social, and cultural losses and stresses
of violence and war
 Fear of persecution, abduction, death
 Eligibility for SIV or refugee status
 Iraqi citizens who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S.
government for one year or more between March 20, 2003
and September 30, 2013, and who have experienced or are
experiencing an ongoing serious threat due to that
employment (US Department of State)
 Xenophobia, Racism, Linguicism
REFUGEES AS RISK-TAKERS
“Mahmoud saved my life. How many times I can’t say. Maybe more than I
want to count….He was shot, but he didn’t fall. He kept up with us until
we got cover.”
(Iraqi army veteran)
“It is my country….I needed to fight for it even for I might die or my family
might be killed….But, there is no more my country.”
(Iraqi refugee)
“You can’t imagine what these people have seen, have done. They risked it
all for us and we aren’t paying back our debt. The SIV Iraqis are among the
bravest I know.”
(caseworker, refugee resettlement)
REFUGEES AS RISK-TAKERS
“The Iraqi refugees have overcome so much, risking their lives to help our
military stabilize their country…Working their way up here will seem like
cake compared to what they’ve already risked and achieved.”
(director, refugee vocational program)
“I have lost everything-my wife, my children, my religion, my country…I
can’t take any risks bigger than ones I’ve already taken…I might have lost.”
(Iraqi refugee)
To Iraqi refugees during an orientation: “Risking your life to get a new life
will pay off with a new life and work here.”
(instructor, refugee resettlement)
REFUGEES AS RISKS TO THE ECONOMY
“Job stealers”
“Welfare scammers”
“ I know lots of people who
lost jobs in the recession and
lots who’ve left to find other
work, but I see those Iraqis
working here….We shouldn’t
be hiring the enemy in jobs that
hard working people need…
Don’t blame me. I didn’t hire
them…The guy before me did.”
“Listen, I know they’re
educated. I see it….how they
speak English and act better
than us…they could so
work, but they won’t take
entry level positions. They’d
rather just take tax payer
money with food stamps,
disability, you know.You
name it, they take it”
(HR manager)
(business owner)
REFUGEES AS RISKS TO THE ECONOMY?
“Population stabilizers”
“Entrepreneurs ”
“ The population of [city
name] has steadily decreased
the past few decades. All the
young leave. If we didn’t have
the refugees then we
couldn’t keep businesses
going…And they work hard”
“Have you eaten the food
cooked by Amsah? It is the
most delicious stuff ever and
she’s started a catering
business….The Iraqis are
changing the west side and
bringing new businesses, new
food, new culture.”
(Community leader)
(Pastor, west side church)
~The
overall US unemployment rate that year was 7.6%, the
Iraqi unemployment rate was 22.6% (up from 40% or so in
some previous years).
~The average hourly wage for Iraqis who were working was
$9.79 per hour
~60% were on Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance; 33.6%
not looking for work had poor health or disabilities
~82% were receiving food stamps
~58% were receiving some sort of cash assistance
~36% were getting SSI (Supplemental Security Income)
(Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) 2012 Annual Report to
Congress)
REFUGEES PUT NATIONAL IDENTITY AT
RISK?
 “All of these refugees, especially the ones from the Middle East, threaten
our national identity.”
(OpEd, local newspaper)
 “Americans can’t really handle, stand for, having these people here. We
went to war with those people and now some of them are my
neighbors. I just don’t buy it that these Iraqis need to be here.”
(Community member)
 “They are us. I can’t make a division at this point. We stood side by side.
We tried to save their country…They are here to make our country
theirs now and we owe them that chance.”
(Iraqi army veteran)
REFUGEES ENDANGER NATIONAL
SECURITY
 “It’s hard, harder for us now because of ISIS. So many of us [SIV eligible
Iraqis] are being killed and taken and no trace. They are our enemies and
they are killing us but Americans don’t understand….We are these
(touching his own face) looking people. “
(Refugee)
 “Many resettlement agencies won’t accept Iraqis now…There’s too much
fear about their reputation. The SIVs are angry and many have become
violent, well, mostly with their wives….They’re frustrated and want to go to
college as they were promised the military…Who can blame them…And
now ISIS and militant factions and Boko Haram and its just getting too
much attention to some of our refugee groups like Iraqis.”
(Director, refugee resettlement)
REFUGEES ENDANGER NATIONAL
SECURITY?
 “We are jihadis? That’s why we saved their lives and risked our own.
And our families and neighbors. ..All that so we could come and make
war here.”
(Refugee)
 I work with them everyday and I can tell you, without a doubt, that Iraqi
refugees are not a threat to our security. We don’t have any militants
here, except that they worked with the US military….They’re with us,
not against us.”
(Director, refugee resettlement)
CONSTRUCTIONS OF RISKY/AT-RISK IRAQI
REFUGEES
Enactment of risk served to:
 provide both a map and an explanation for events that will or
have occurred (e.g. Iraqi war and economic recovery)
 substantiate nationalistic identities, belonging, and American
pride (and alternatively, support “othering”)
 offer ways to situate Iraqi refugees in contemporary discourses
of ISIS and violence in Syria
CLOSING/OPENING THOUGHTS
Research Collaborations
 How might those of us studying refugees and immigrants from the
Middle East and North Africa work with Middle East and North
African scholars to produce more robust comprehensive research?
 Educational studies?
 Policy studies?
 Migration studies?
What resources/information/references/contacts do I
have that you might find useful?
REFERENCES TO MY WORK ON REFUGEES
 Koyama, Jill. Forthcoming 2015. “Learning English, Working Hard, and Challenging Risk
Discourses.” Policy Futures in Education. Special Issue: Social Policy, Risk and Education
13(15).
 Koyama, Jill. 2014. “When Things Come Undone: The Promise of Dissembling
Education Policy.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36(4). First
published online December 3, 2014, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2015.977012
 Koyama, Jill. 2014. “Entangling Gender: Refugee Women Working in the United
States.” Journal of Refugee Studies. First published online September 30, 2014, DOI:
10.1093/jrs/feu026.
 Koyama, Jill P. 2013.”Resettling Notions of Social Mobility: Situating Refugees as
‘Educable’ and ‘Employable.’” British Journal of Sociology of Education 34(5/6):947-965.
First published online September 12, 2013, DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2013.816033.
THANK YOU
Jill Koyama, PhD
jkoyama@email.arizona.edu
(520) 626 1862 office