Refugee Families in the Era of Global Security | Sophia Balakian

Ottoman History Podcast

E469 | Resettling refugee families sounds like a straightforwardly noble goal. But what happens when a particular definition of the family is used to restrict opportunities for resettlement? In this episode, we speak to anthropologist Sophia Balakian about how the concerns of governments and refugee organizations with "family composition fraud" have impacted refugee families that do not fit a normative definition of what constitutes a family unit. We talk about her fieldwork between East Africa and the United States, examining the spaces of refugee resettlement and their increased securitization since the beginning of the War on Terror. We discuss how genetic testing is being used to exclude certain individuals or families from resettlement programs. And Balakian reflects on how her work involving survivors of war, genocide, and migration today relates to her own questions about the past as a member of the Armenian diaspora. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2020/07/family-reunification.html Sophia Balakian is an anthropologist, and Assistant Professor of Social Justice and Human Rights in the School of Integrative Studies at George Mason University. Her current work deals with refugee resettlement between eastern Africa and the United States, and the intersections of humanitarianism and national security. Chris Gratien is Assistant Professor of History at University of Virginia, where he teaches classes on global environmental history and the Middle East. He is currently preparing a monograph about the environmental history of the Cilicia region of the former Ottoman Empire from the 1850s until the 1950s. CREDITS Episode No. 469 Release Date: 29 July 2020 Recording Location: Cambridge, MA Music and Audio Elements (by order of appearance): A.A. Aalto - Entonces; Pictures of the Floating World - Waves; Komiku - Un désert; Pictures of the Floating World - Softest Fabric; Silicon Transmitter - Badlands; A.A. Aalto - Canyon; Soft and Furious - So What? Sound production by Chris Gratien Additional credits to Sam Dolbee Bibliography and images courtesy of Sophia Balakian available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2020/07/family-reunification.html