Edward Said’s summation that “we live in a period of migration, of forced travel and forced residence, that has literally engulfed the globe” (Culture and Resistance 2003) is particularly apt with this panel. Some of the world’s highest levels of urbanization and socioeconomic inequalities are in the Middle East, which is also now a premier displacement region due to bilateral containment policies of externalization and national policies of refusing refugees from the region by European and North American governments. Displaced persons of all types and categories in this region typically prefer to settle in cities and towns. For refugees, this includes bypassing or leaving formal camps, thus further blurring the categories of “migrant,” “refugee,” "resident," "citizen," and • in the Middle East • temporary visitor or “guest.” On-going research on urban displaced in the region shows that settlement patterns are influenced by previous knowledge, kinship, social networks, religion/denomination preferences, and security considerations, as well as imaginaries of possibility and potential. Typically, Middle Eastern settlement processes are iterative, with multiple resettlements, which may render any individual visible or invisible, “guest” or “resident”, which is often based on political expediency. While cities offer economic opportunities, education, and access to other necessary municipal services, displacement crises often become protracted, thus defining the (im)possibilities for onward migration or voluntary repatriation. Long-term residence of displaced persons can strain local infrastructure, service provision, and social relations with host communities. What are the impacts of these demographic, economic, and socio- cultural changes posed by the urbanization movements of displaced persons on different forms and levels of governance? And what are the impacts of such shifts on the displaced persons' subjectivities? The papers in this panel address these questions through ethnographic research with displaced Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, and Syrians in major urban areas of five Middle Eastern countries • Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Sudan, and Afghanistan. The papers each take on major theoretical and empirical questions of visibility, mobility, labor and livelihoods, kinship and social networks, the governing bodies of civil society and (I)NGOs as well as bureaucratic policies that define the contours of possibility, and their impacts on subjectivities. While over the past decade academic research on displacement in the Middle East has often focused on refugee camps, the historiography of forced displacement and relief, and country specific studies of Middle East refugee crises, rarely have they had a specific urban focus or lens. This panel seeks to expand this scholarship and engage some of the most pressing questions of anthropology of migration in the urban Middle East.

"Present Absentees": Statelessness, Personhood, and Mixed-Nationality Kinship in Jordan

Urban Displaced in the Middle East: New Movements, New Governance, and New Subjectivities

technical paper

Truth and Responsibility
“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

Many consider anthropology to be a holistic social science dedicated to cross-cultural understanding as a way to reduce bigotry and more fully comprehend “what it means to be human.” Others push against this readily circulated origin story, arguing that “human” remains a highly contested, political category—evident as the presumed set of rights and protections associated with the “human” continue to be stripped away violently in the communities in which some of us live and work. Which violent histories and epistemologies must anthropologists take responsibility for in telling truth(s) about the discipline’s development? How do the dual histories of settler colonialism and slavery continue to influence anthropological thought and practices? In these political times, how can anthropologists throughout the globe work to secure a capacious, progressive vision of the human? How might movements for anti-racism, decoloniality, queer liberation, and healing such as #BlackLivesMatter, #ProtectMaunaKea, and #MeToo push a future anthropology out of the ashes of the anthropological past? Finally, what are the limits and possibilities of the anthropological imagination?

Across subfields, we find truths in patterns of human behavior, language, evolution, and cultural worlds. Industry-positioned anthropologists do this by extending the boundaries of the discipline not as an administrative solution to job shortages but as a source of intervention and knowledge production. Increasingly, anthropologists who make use of the scientific method question how status and identity help to decide which facts come to represent truth. How might quantitative researchers use our methods to identify patterned truths, and what responsibility do we hold in challenging conventional wisdom about these patterns? What responsibility do we have to both our colleagues and larger publics, to push toward increased transparency and ethical grounding in our data collection, analysis, and presentation?

Pedagogy is a key medium for the communication of anthropological truths. Which (and whose) truths are foregrounded in our curricula? What are the possibilities for a liberatory pedagogy in a precarious, “post-truth” era? Conferences, museums, organizing spaces, and classrooms are sites where pedagogy and various forms of communication can help us interrogate the performativity of truth. How might anthropologists conceive of truth performances? Might visual, aural, and choreographic performances during AAA sessions offer anthropologists alternative genres for truth-telling and truth-making that provoke discussions about responsibility?

In accordance with the urgency of the year’s theme, the questions posed in this call for papers do not have easy answers. The hope is that those who submit proposals will take up these questions and engage in collective thinking and imagining about the truths we hold, the truths we challenge, and the responsibilities we bear in co-creating a free and more equitable world. All panel proposals should have a statement about how the panel has incorporated the goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion, and/or analysis of power.

Executive Session proposals have already been selected and speak directly to the theme “Truth and Responsibility.” To practice the critical reflexivity this call for papers invites, we asked that Executive Session submissions explicitly address the diversity of session participants, such as organizational/institutional affiliation, career stage, race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, class, religion, national identity, and gender. Proposals for Executive Sessions that demonstrated a commitment to equity and inclusion and/or a clear analysis of power (i.e. anti-imperialist, anti-white supremacist, decolonial, anti-ableist, feminist, anti-transphobic, anti-xenophobic, etc) were given priority. We are excited to be in conversation with residents of the Baltimore region and look forward to the discussions, performances, and actions generated by the dynamic group of anthropologists attending the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting.

AAA Annual Meeting 2021

“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

Eda Pepi

1

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"Present Absentees": Statelessness, Personhood, and Mixed-Nationality Kinship in Jordan

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