Chrysalis Spring 2023 Issue

Spring | 2023 | Printemps

Vol. XV

The Journal of the International Development Studies Students’ Association of McGill University

Le journal de l’association des étudiant.e.s en développement international de l’Université McGill

COPYRIGHT

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Chrysalis is annually published by the International Development Studies Students’ Association (IDSSA) of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Chrysalis est publié annuellement par l’AEDI de l’Université McGill à Montréal, Canada.

To view electronic copies of the journal, visit www.idssamcgill.com/publications.

Pour voir une copie électronique de ce journal, visitez www.idssamcgill.com/ publications.

ISSN(Print) : 1198-6123

ISSN(Web) : 2369-8624

The opinions expressed in Chrysalis are those of the authors and contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial board, the peer review board or McGill University.

Les opinions présentées dans Chrysalis représentent celles des auteurs.rices et des contributeurs.trices, et non celles des éditeurs.rices, de l’AEDI ou de l’Université McGill.

Land Acknowledgement

McGill University is situated on land that has long been a site of meeting and exchange among Indigenous peoples. Today, we are in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), on the larger Turtle Island (North America). We recognize that we are on unceded traditional territory, where the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations, specifically the Kanien’kehá:ka peoples, also known as the Keepers of the Eastern Door, are the traditional stewards of these lands and waters. We acknowledge the enduring presence and resilience of Indigenous peoples and their cultures and commit to working toward reconciliation and decolonization. It is important that we remain mindful of this history and context, and actively resist neocolonialism in all its forms.

Reconnaissance des Terres

L’Université McGill est située sur des terres qui ont longtemps servi de lieu de rassemblement et d’échange entre les peuples autochtones. Nous résidons actuellement à Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) qui est située sur la plus grande Île de la Tortue (Amérique du Nord). Nous reconnaissons que nous nous sommes rassemblé.es sur un territoire traditionnel non cédé où les nations Haudenosaunee et Anishinabeg, en particulier les peuples Kanien’kehá:ka, également connus comme les gardien. nes de la porte de l’Est, sont les gardien.nes traditionnel.les de ces terres et de ces eaux. Nous reconnaissons la présence durable et la résilience des peuples autochtones et de leurs cultures. Nous nous engageons à œuvrer à la réconciliation et la décolonisation. Il est important que nous restions conscient.es de cette histoire et de ce contexte, et que nous résistions activement au néo-colonialisme sous toutes ses formes.

Table of Contents

IV | Our Team | Notre équipe

V | Editor’s Note | Lettre du rédacteur en chef by Eli Remis

VII | Foreword | Avant-propos by Professor Erik

Kuhonta

1 | The Emancipatory Creation of Spaces by Black Women During the Struggle Against Apartheid in South Africa by

Karina Vandenhoven

11 | Bridgetown: The Colonial City and Geographies of Domination

by Isabella Frymoyer

23 | Israel’s Slow Squeeze of Palestinian Autonomy: The Manifestation of Spatial Violence Through Checkpoints and Infrastructure Laws by

Stephanie Munn

31 | A Western Design: The ICEM and South American Dictatorships by Elisa

Gilliet

45 | Humanizing the Refugee Experience: How Experimental Ethnographic Films Challenge Mainstream Representations by Sophia

Nemeth

55 | “I Never Want to Go Back”: Gendered Experiences of Migrant Labor during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar by

Claudia Velimirovic

64 | Meet the Authors | Rencontrez nos auteur.rices

66 | Meet the Editors | Rencontrez nos éditeur.rices

68 | Submission & Review Process | Processus de soumission et de révision

Our Team | Notre Équipe

Editor-in-Chief | Rédacteur en chef

Eli Remis

Editorial Board | Comité éditorial

Trang Do

Aviva Futornick

Emaline Gonzalez

Ryan Kim

Katherine Squitieri

Wilson Symons

Ava Torkaman

Eden Wilson

Peer Review Board | Comité de révision

Peer Reviewers | Réviseurs

Alixia Brule

Stephanie Lee

Madeleine Loh

Camille Perdriaud

Victoire Thierry

Mahnoor Zaman

Mentors

Dr. Daniel Douek

Dr. Kazue Takamura

Prof. Timothy Hodges

Dr. Megan Bradley

Dr. Khalid Medani

Layout Editor | Éditrice de mise en page

Mia Advensky

IDSSA VP Publications | VP publication AEDI

Sarah St-Pierre

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dear reader:

Welcome to the 15th edition of Chrysalis, the academic journal of the McGill University International Development Studies Students’ Association. Within these pages, you will find outstanding work by undergraduate students on topics related to international development. This 15th edition reflects the diverse interests of the International Development Studies community and our unity in pursuit of exposing and confronting injustice. The world faces pressing challenges, including pandemics, wars, police brutality, and climate change. Despite the gravity of these challenges, the articles in this issue remind us that positive change is possible. They demonstrate the power of scholarship and activism to illuminate systemic injustices and inspire action toward a more equitable world.

This journal would not be possible without the contributions of many individuals. I extend my gratitude to all those who submitted articles, the peer reviewers and faculty mentors who scrutinized each submission, and the editorial board for their invaluable insights and attention to detail. I also wish to thank my predecessors, Robin Vochelet and Kai Scott, for their exemplary leadership during my years with Chrysalis. Thanks to Mia Advensky for her meticulous layout and design work. Finally, thank you to Sarah St-Pierre and the rest of the International Development Studies Students’ Association for their unwavering support of Chrysalis.

To all readers: I urge you to critically engage with the world around you, seek diverse perspectives and knowledge, and advocate for marginalized and silenced communities. It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of systemic issues, but every voice matters. Do not succumb to hopelessness; let us work together in demanding justice and equity. Draw inspiration from these young scholars and act to create a more equitable future. Take risks, lead with empathy, and speak truth to power. Together, we can make a positive impact on the world.

Warmly,

Eli Remis Editor-in-Chief, Chrysalis 2022-2023

NOTE DU RÉDACTEUR

Cher lectorat:

Bienvenue à la 15e édition de Chrysalis, le journal académique de l’association des étudiant.e.s en développement international de l’Université McGill. Dans ces pages, vous trouverez des travaux exceptionnels réalisés par des étudiant. es de premier cycle sur des sujets liés au développement international. Cette 15e édition reflète les divers intérêts de la communauté étudiante en développement international, ainsi que notre unité dans la poursuite de l’exposition et de la confrontation de l’injustice. Le monde est confronté à des défis pressants, notamment les pandémies, la guerre, la brutalité policière et le changement climatique. Malgré la gravité de ces défis, les articles de ce numéro nous rappellent qu’un changement positif est possible. Ils démontrent le pouvoir de la recherche et de l’activisme pour mettre en lumière les injustices systémiques et inspirer des actions en faveur d’un monde plus équitable.

Cette revue ne serait possible sans les contributions de nombreuses personnes. J’exprime ma gratitude à celles et ceux qui ont soumis des articles, les pairs examinateur.trices et les professeur.es mentors qui ont examiné minutieusement les articles proposés, et le le comité de rédaction pour leurs perspicacités inestimables et leur souci du détail. J’aimerais aussi remercier mes prédécesseurs, Robin Vochelet et Kai Scott, pour leur direction exemplaire pendant mes années avec Chrysalis. Merci à Mia Advensky pour la mise en page méticuleuse et le travail de conception. Enfin, merci à Sarah St-Pierre et le reste de l’association des étudiant.e.s en développement international pour leur soutien indéfectible de Chrysalis.

À tous les lecteur.rices : je vous conseille vivement de vous engager avec le monde autour de vous, de chercher de nouvelles perspectives et connaissances diverses, et de défendre les communautés marginalisées et ignorées. Face aux problèmes systémiques, il est facile de se sentir impuissant.e, mais chaque voix compte. Ne succombez pas au désespoir; travaillons ensemble à exiger la justice et l’équité. Inspirez-vous de ces jeunes universitaires et agir pour créer un avenir plus équitable. Prenez des risques, dirigez avec empathie, et dites la vérité aux pouvoirs. Ensemble, nous pouvons avoir un impact positif sur le monde.

Chaleureusement,

Eli Remis

Rédacteur en Chef, Chrysalis 2022-2023

by: Professor Erik Kuhonta

I am delighted to have been asked by the editors of Chrysalis to write a foreword for their journal. Publishing an undergraduate journal is not easy. Having been involved with newspapers and journals in my high school and university, I know that it takes a lot of patience, perseverance, and diligence. Now into the 15th issue of their journal, the editors and staff of Chrysalis have proven their staying power and capacity to consistently produce excellent work.

The articles in this year’s issue speak to broad concerns that motivate McGill’s undergraduates in the field of international development: female migration, dictatorships in South America, apartheid in South Africa, Palestinian autonomy, colonialism, and the refugee experience. While diverse in topics, they most clearly reflect McGill undergraduates’ abiding interest in questions of social justice.

Having taught at McGill for over 18 years, I have come to know hundreds of IDS and Political Science students. What has struck me most in my teaching of these students is their passion for social change, their desire to understand questions deeply, and their ability to think critically. Indeed, one of the greatest pleasures I have experienced as a professor at McGill is the opportunity to engage year after year with such smart, inquisitive, and interesting young minds. This journal— its editorial staff and its authors—reflects that erudite and idealistic spirit.

Congratulations!

Erik Martinez Kuhonta Director, McGill University Institute for the Study of International Development

par: Professeur Erik Kuhonta

Je suis ravi d’avoir été invité par le comité de rédaction de Chrysalis à écrire une préface pour leur revue. La publication d’une revue de premier cycle n’est pas facile. Ayant participé à de nombreux journaux et revues au lycée et à l’université, je sais qu’il faut beaucoup de patience, de persévérance et d’assiduité. Actuellement à leur 15e édition, les rédacteur.rices et les collaborateur.rices de Chrysalis ont démontré leur endurance et leur capacité de réaliser un travail d’excellence.

Les articles de l’édition de cette année parlent de grandes préoccupations qui motivent les étudiant.es de premier cycle de McGill dans le domaine du développement international : la migration féminine, les dictatures en Amérique de Sud, l’apartheid en Afrique de Sud, l’autonomie Palestinienne, le colonialisme et l’expérience de refugié.es. Bien que les sujets des articles soient variés, ils reflètent le plus clairement l’intérêt durable pour les questions de justice sociale des étudiant.es de McGill.

Ayant enseigné à McGill depuis plus de 18 ans, j’ai fait la connaissance de centaines d’étudiant.es en développement international et en sciences politiques. Ce qui m’a le plus frappé dans mon enseignement reste la passion des étudiant.es pour le changement social, leur envie de comprendre les questions en profondeur et leur capacité à penser de manière critique. En effet, l’un des plus grands plaisirs que j’ai en tant que professeur à McGill est d’avoir l’occasion de m’engager année après année avec de jeunes esprits débordant d’intelligence, de curiosité et d’intérêt. Cette revue, avec ses éditeur.rices et ses auteur.rices, reflète cet esprit érudit et idéaliste.

Félicitations !

Erik Martinez Kuhonta Directeur, L’Institut d’Étude du Développement International de l’Université McGill

The Emancipatory Creation of Spaces by Black Women During the Struggle Against Apartheid in South Africa

by: Karina Vandenhoven

Abstract

Historical narratives surrounding the struggle against apartheid in South Africa most often rely on the impacts of Nelson Mandela as a figure of the African National Congress as a complete representation of the movement. Gendered approaches in this field are often undervalued, and as such, this paper seeks to center Black women in the resistance to apartheid through an intersectional lens. Black women during apartheid faced unique difficulties and, as a result, created important spaces to combat the racialized and gendered oppression that they faced. These physical, literary, and rhetorical spaces played a key role in Black women’s organization in the apartheid period. This paper analyzes both historical and contemporary retellings of Black women’s reclamatory efforts during the apartheid period. In drawing upon various forms of media, one is invited to dig deeper into an understanding of the intersectional manner through which Black women in South Africa were able to mobilize in advancement of their own unique goals and ideals.

Résumé

Les récits historiques concernant la lutte contre l’apartheid en Afrique de Sud s’appuient souvent sur l’influence de Nelson Mandela, personnalité du Congrès national africain, comme étant une représentation complète du mouvement anti-apartheid. Dans ce domaine, les approches genrées sont souvent sous-estimées et de ce fait, cet article cherche à placer les femmes noires au centre de l’opposition à l’apartheid sous un angle de l’intersectionnalité. Pendant l’apartheid, les femmes noires ont dû affronter des difficultés singulaires, et par conséquent, ont créé des espaces importants dans la lutte contre l’oppression à caractère raciale et genrée qu’elles ont affrontée. Ces espaces matériaux, littéraires et rhétoriques ont joué un rôle fondamental dans l’organisation des femmes noires pendant l’apartheid. Cet article fait l’analyse à la fois de récits historiques et contemporains des efforts de récupération des femmes noires pendant l’apartheid. En faisant référence aux formes de médias variés, on nous invite à approfondir notre compréhension de la manière intersectionnelle par laquelle les femmes noires en Afrique de Sud ont pu se mobiliser pour faire avancer leurs propres objectifs et idéaux uniques.

Introduction

The struggle against apartheid is most often thought of as having been led and shaped almost entirely by Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC). A neglected field in the history of the fight against apartheid has been the role that Black women had in centring the unique difficulties they faced not only as racialized people but in a gendered capacity as well. Even in the contemporary context of South Africa, historiography often reduces Black women during apartheid to the connections they had with male-oriented revolutions as mothers or wives. While apartheid certainly had a racialized aspect, a frequently ignored facet of this phenomenon was its gendered components.1 Given this, a feminist critique of apartheid is required in order to give a full picture of the effects of the violence that apartheid perpetuated on Black women specifically. This paper thus seeks to conduct a thorough investigation of how Black women worked to combat the view of being “meek and mild” held not only by the white world but by their fellow Black revolutionaries as well.

As spaces are understood within scholarly literature to be the predominant avenues through which Black women were able to “take back” their own struggle, this essay explores the important role physical, literature, and rhetorical spaces played in their organization. Here, “spaces” are understood as the areas in which Black women could exist and speak, in the literal or metaphorical sense, to the nuances of their identity and their positionality with regard to apartheid. While recognizing the value of analyzing primary sources in this endeavour, I will also evaluate contemporary retellings and analysis of the work that Black women did to legitimize their struggle against apartheid.

This paper will first provide an overview explaining why the myth of Charlotte Maxeke, one of the most prolific Black female activists of the 1920s and 1930s and the “Mother of the ANC,” denotes an inaccurate picture of her goals, ideals, and interests. Such is an example of the broader issue of defining the “Black Women’s Struggle” solely as women’s cooperation with male efforts. This paper shall continue to dispel this myth by demonstrating in more nuanced terms how Black women were able to create spaces for themselves materially, through literature, and in rhetoric. In terms of material spaces, the structural separation and legitimation of organizations such as the Bantu Women’s League, Daughters of Africa, and Zenzele Clubs provided Black women with a strong sense of solidarity and the means to identify which aspects of the system of apartheid most affected their daily lives. For literature spaces, there existed two ways in which Black women used the practice to center their struggle.

In the press, the works of Charlotte Maxeke and Nontsizi Mgqwetho as critics of the ANC present a compelling argument for how women used language to point out the issues with male-led organizations. Works such as Laurette Ngcobo’s And They Didn’t Die aim to widen the Black women’s struggle, dismantling the commonly-held notion that apartheid only existed upon entering the city. Finally, with rhetorical spaces, it is crucial to explore how Black women used religion and traditional norms to construct a new image of the revolutionary Black woman. Meanwhile, various authors deconstructed whiteness and race through Black women’s struggle against apartheid in writing that brought Black women from the realm of the objective into the realm of subjective “humanness.”2 In general, an examination

1 Hannah Britton, “Organising against Gender Violence in South Africa,” Journal of Southern African Studies 32, no. 1 (2006): 148, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25065071.

2 Ntfonjeni S. Dlamini, “‘Comrades in Their Own Right’: Women’s Struggle Against Apartheid in the South African Novel,” (master’s thesis, Stephen F. Austin State University, 2017), 9, https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/133.

of space allows for a complex building of the “Black Women’s Struggle” from the bottom up, recognizing their unique positionality in South Africa during the struggle against apartheid.

Dispelling the Myth: Charlotte Maxeke and the ANC

Charlotte Maxeke, a prominent Black female activist, has often been solely remembered in contemporary South African society based on her work with the ANC.3 Maxeke as a figure is oversimplified in historical retellings of her story, with many scholars praising her as the “Mother of the Struggle” in recognition of her as an ANC leader.4 This was despite women at the time being barred from not only leadership but membership as well.5 This legacy is problematic, as it fails to consider any of her other areas of focus, including gender inequality, “native womanhood” (that is, to be an African woman), justice, education, health, and employment.6 While Maxeke’s work with the ANC should not be diminished, it should also not be used to dictate her entire legacy. Indeed, Maxeke often criticized the fact that tensions between men in the ANC were projected onto women, writing: “the men will never rest until they see friction amongst the women.”7

As such, a strong look into how Black women were able to depart from the ANC with the recognition that it did not fulfill their needs is war-

3 Thozama April, “Charlotte Maxeke: A Celebrated and Neglected Figure in History,” in One Hundred Years of the ANC: Debating Liberation Histories, eds. Arianna Lissoni et al. (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2012), 104, https://doi.org/10.18772/22012115737.

4 April, 104.

5 April, 104.

6 April, 97.

7 Charlotte Maxeke, “Ukubiwa kweLeague,” Umteleli waBantu (June 1920), quoted in Athambile Masola, “The Politics of the 1920s Black Press: Charlotte Maxeke and Nontsizi Mgqwetho’s Critique of Congress,” International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 13, no. 2 (2018): 68, https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2018.1522933.

ranted; however, in the creation of their own revolutionary spaces, they could serve to nuance the view of its most prolific leaders like Maxeke. Despite this, it is important to be cautious of an essentialization of the “Black Women’s Struggle” with the ANC with Charlotte Maxeke. While she did incredible work in legitimizing the specific concerns and goals that Black women had during the struggle against apartheid, Maxeke also occupied somewhat of a privileged state compared to most other Black women. Maxeke was well-educated, elite, and urbanized, which allowed her to write and speak in a way that the majority of Black women in South Africa at the time did not have access to.8 As such, it is vital to remember that the spaces created by Black women were not solely constructed by activists like Charlotte Maxeke, even though the dominant narrative paints the movement in that way.

Black Women Creating Material Spaces: Organization and Mobilization

The creation of material space for Black women was incredibly helpful for the centring of their struggle in two ways: first, it sought to structurally separate these organizations from those simply aiming for racial justice, and second, it provided the ability for Black women to mobilize on the basis of how they were specifically affected by Pass Laws.9 Organizations such as the Bantu Women’s League were one of the first attempts to organize African women politically into a national organization.10 Meanwhile, groups such as the

8 Masola, “The Politics of the 1920s Black Press,” 66.

9 “Pass Laws in South Africa 1800-1994,” South African History Online, last modified August 27, 2019, https:// www.sahistory.org.za/article/pass-laws-south-africa-1800-1994. The Pass Laws Act of 1952 required Black South Africans to carry a pass book at all times. These passes were similar to passports, although they often contained much more information than a passport. These laws were specifically designed to segregate the population and to control how many Africans could enter urban areas.

10 April, “Charlotte Maxeke,” 104.

Daughters of Africa and Zenzele Clubs, which focused mainly on domestic training, began to allow for stronger political participation of its members in the 1920s and 1930s. For example, various urban Zenzele clubs had members who were actively involved in the trade union movement, arguing that white mothers did not have to face “breadline problems” as often as Black mothers.11 These problems included access to a healthy diet, to child care, and to money raised from the sale of crops or handmade clothing.12

These movements were incredibly significant. Although many of these organizations took on the goal of self-improvement of Black women, they additionally served as a material space of organization for Black women to speak of their issues and struggles. This was especially important when it came to rural Black women, who often had fewer institutionalized means of gathering with one another.13 The ability of these organizations to pursue courses separate from the ANC demonstrates not only the independence of many Black women’s fight against apartheid structures of domination but a strong commitment to the bettering of the lives of Black women. As they gained the ability to organize with one another materially, Black women subsequently gained the resources to mobilize against apartheid on their own terms. For many Black women, one of the most pressing issues with the apartheid system was that of Pass Laws, which mandated the carrying of a passport-like document by Africans to be able to enter urban ar-

11 Catherine Higgs, “Zenzele: African Women’s SelfHelp Organizations in South Africa, 1927-1988,” African Studies Review 47, no. 3 (2004): 122, https://www.jstor. org/stable/1514945.

12 Higgs, 122.

13 Thozama April, “Theorising Women: The Intellectual Contributions of Charlotte Maxeke to the Struggle for Liberation in South Africa,” (Ph.D. diss., The University of the Western Cape, 2012): 25, https://core.ac.uk/display/58914007.

eas.14 Various amendments and changes to Pass Laws made them the central target of Black women’s movement against apartheid. Such would come to a head in 1956 when the Women’s March to the Union Buildings in Pretoria saw more than twenty thousand women protest the proposed amendments to the Urban Act.15

These amendments would have required Black women to carry a pass whenever they went into the cities, whereas before, only African men were required to carry a pass. This march is crucial to the understanding of Black women’s role in the struggle against apartheid, as it directly combats the notion of Black women at the time being politically inept, immature, and tied to the home. Dora Tamana’s speech to the crowd in Pretoria emphasizes the sheer importance of Pass Laws to Black women. She declared: “We, women, will never carry these passes. . . . These passes make the road even narrower for us. We have seen unemployment, lack of accommodation and families broken because of passes Who will look after our children when we go to jail for a small technical offence – not having a pass?”16 This, too, is a product of the ways in which women created material spaces to have their struggles and voices heard more broadly.

Black Women Creating Spaces in Literature: The Printing Press and Rural Struggle

The use of language and writing was a strong tool for Black women, both at the time and presently, to be able to publicize their goals and ideals to a

14 Frene Ginwala, “Women and the African National Congress 1912-1943,” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, no. 8 (1990): 82, https://doi. org/10.2307/4065639.

15 “The 1956 Women’s March in Pretoria,” South African History Online, accessed on 6 August 2021, https://www. sahistory.org.za/article/1956-womens-march-pretoria.

16 South African History Online, “The 1956 Women’s March in Pretoria.”

larger audience. The advent of the printing press resulted in a myriad of Black newspapers beginning to circulate through South Africa, facilitating this outreach. One of the most famous of these was Umteteli wa Bantu [Mouthpiece of the People], where both Charlotte Maxeke and Nontsizi Mgqwetho wrote on various issues pressing upon Black women. This was crucial for them to do in Black newspapers, as Daymond writes in Athambile Masola’s “The Politics of the 1920s Black Press”: “Gender is silenced by race, as it so often is because of nationalism, apartheid, and colonialism.”17 Indeed, there were no newspapers at the time that directly advocated for Black women’s struggle. Writing in the Black press was equally important as it sought to shatter the view of Black women as incapable intellectuals, especially with regard to their political works.

Both Charlotte Maxeke and Nontsizi Mgqwetho published criticisms of the ANC, which was virtually unheard of for women to do at the time. Mgqwetho did this through poetry, writing about leadership in the League: “You’re no leader, Mvabaza/And you will never be,/All you can claim/ Is the status of shopkeeper, who named you a leader?”18 Mgqwetho, especially, is often erased from the narrative of Black women’s struggle due to her political writing through poetry, which was not seen as the kind of work that a woman did. The Black press was also multi-lingual, providing for the lifting of revolutionary consciousness in both Black elites who spoke English and more rural Africans who most often

17 Margaret Daymond et al., eds., introduction to The Women Writing Africa Project (New York: Feminist Press), 1:2, quoted in Masola, “The Politics of the 1920s Black Press”, 62, https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2018.1 522933.

18 Nontsizi Mgqwetho, “Imbongikazi NoAbantu-Batho” [The Woman Poet and Abantu-Batho], in The Nation’s Bounty: The Xhosa Poetry of Nontsizi Mgqwetho, ed. Jeff Opland (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2007): 27, quoted in Masola, “The Politics of the 1920s Black Press,” 72, https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2018.1522933.

did not. The use of language, then, is a crucial way through which Black women were able to deconstruct the dominant view of their character while additionally serving as an avenue through which the critique of the male-oriented lens of the racial liberation movement could take place.

The work of Lauretta Ncgobo in And They Didn’t Die provides another compelling contemporary account of how language can describe the ways in which Black women resisted apartheid, especially in rural areas. The book depicts how women’s oppression in South Africa was not only a product of apartheid but was rooted in patriarchal African traditions.19 Ngcobo criticizes the trend that focuses on apartheid as solely an urban problem, demonstrating the grip apartheid had on women in rural areas through instances of harassment and sexual violation.20 The novel ends with the main character Jezile, recounting to her husband how she had to kill the soldier in order to save her child from sexual violation, saying: “I had to kill him. They’ve destroyed our marriage, they broke our life here at Sabelweni, and they’ve broken all our children’s lives and killed many.”21 Works such as these provide a historical account of how South African women played leadership roles in their families and communities, acting against the role that they are often portrayed as having as side characters in the lives of revolutionary men. In all, press and publication heavily impacted the ways in which Black women were able to write about their struggle, giving them a new language through which to express their grievances.

Black Women Creating Rhetorical Spaces: Religion, Tradition, and Race

The first way in which Black women built rhe-

19 Lauretta Ngcobo, And They Didn’t Die (New York: Feminist Press, 1999): 245, quoted in Dlamini, “Comrades in Their Own Right,” 20-21, https://scholarworks.sfasu. edu/etds/133.

20 Dlamini, “Comrades in Their Own Right,” 23. 21 Dlamini, 27.

torical spaces in the struggle against apartheid was to associate their liberation with religious and traditional norms. This religious association is quite common throughout much of Africa and has been elaborated on quite heavily throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Most compellingly, Anne Nasimiyu-Wasike describes the association of Jesus with African motherhood, writing: “Jesus takes on the qualities of mother. He is a nurturer of life, especially that of the weak.”22 The association of Black women’s emancipation with religious doctrine was especially common during the early struggles of apartheid, with Maxeke and Mgqwetho both often appealing to God and religious ideals of safety and liberation to frame their movement as one that fits in conjunction with religious teachings. Maxeke, in a speech given at the Conference of European and Bantu Christian Student Associations at Fort Hare in 1930, spoke of how the liberation of Black women was essential so as to prevent them from falling into a life of sin and crime.23 As such, there was a strong religious framing within Black women’s struggle against apartheid that created new rhetorical associations between Black women and their religious connections.

Such connections were also present in the re-shaping of traditional norms and customs, where Black women have been reconstructed through their involvement in the movement as having abandoned the domestic sphere to fight for emancipation. Caesarina Kona Makhoere’s account in No Child’s Play as compared to Amandla by Muriel Tlali provides strong evi-

22 Anne Nasimiyu-Wasike, “Christology and an African Woman’s Experience,” in Liberation Theology: An Introductory Reader, eds. Curt Cadorette et al., (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1992): 99.

23 Charlotte Maxeke, “Social Conditions Among Bantu Women and Girls,” (speech, Fort Hare, South Africa, [June 27-July 3, 1930?]), South African History Online, https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/social-conditions-among-bantu-women-and-girls-address-charlotte-maxeke-conference-european.

dence for this, writing of how “Tlali’s fictive Felleng waits by the sink, loyally dreaming of her lover Pholoso, the revolutionary student leader; Makhoere, by contrast, reveres ‘the sisters who threw away the kitchen apron for cold steel in their hand—the hands that were capable of caressing and loving, oh so well.’”24 The rhetorical framing of Black women’s liberation as mothers provides a compelling account of how rhetoric played into the creation of spaces for them.

Black women would also deconstruct ideas of race in the South African novel in the more contemporary sense through writing about how they experienced apartheid. Ngcobo does this incredibly well, using the phrase “pink people” to challenge the normativity of whiteness. In assigning whiteness a colour rather than the “nothingness” that the colour white often incites in the psyche, one is forced to reconsider the standpoint from which white people are viewed, de-reifying the concept.25 In a similar vein, she writes of the character Sindisiwe, who, throughout the novel Cross of Gold, is transformed from a “creature” of essentialized racism to “humanness” and subjectivity. In using the rhetorical device of the “shadow,” Ngcobo is able to illustrate this reconfiguration of Sindisiwe as one of the Black women.26 The deconstruction of race allows for Black women to be analyzed not through the dominant view of them as passive and silent but through an active lens of their experiences.

Conclusion

The many ways Black women resisted the apart24 Caesarina Kona Makhoere, No Child’s Play: In Prison Under Apartheid (London: Women’s Press, 1988): 18, quoted in Margaret Miller, “Forms of resistance: South African women’s writing during apartheid,” Hecate 24, no. 1 (1998): 122. ProQuest.

25 Ruth Frakenberg, The Social Construction of Whiteness: White Women, Race Matters (London: Routledge and Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1993): 1, quoted in Miller, 120-121. ProQuest.

26 Miller, “Forms of resistance,” 120-121.

heid regime in South Africa can by no means be simply attributed to collaboration with the ANC. Analyzing the ways in which Black women were able to centralize their own struggles serves to demystify their role, describing them as active and independent participants rather than solely ascribing to those ideals and goals that their husbands or fathers did. Black women were able to centralize their struggle against apartheid in three key ways: through the creation of material spaces, literary spaces, and rhetorical spaces. This essay has demonstrated how Black women were revolutionaries in their own right, organizing and working to gain recognition and emancipation in a society that viewed them as politically immature and inherently tied to the home and their male counterparts. The work that many have additionally done to construct the historical narrative of apartheid around the unique struggles faced by Black women was also noted. The creation of these spaces by Black women during the struggle against apartheid allowed for a strong re-definition of what it meant to be a Black woman during a time of great resistance.

References

April, Thozama. “Charlotte Maxeke: A Celebrated and Neglected Figure in History.” In One Hundred Years of the ANC: Debating Liberation Histories, edited by Arianna Lissoni, Jon Soske, Natasha Erlank, Noor Nieftagodien, and Omar Badsha, 97-110. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2012. https://doi.org/10.18772/22012115737.

April, Thozama. “Theorising Women: The Intellectual Contributions of Charlotte Maxeke to the Struggle for Liberation in South Africa,” Ph.D. diss., The University of the Western Cape, 2012. https://core.ac.uk/display/58914007.

Britton, Hannah. “Organising against Gender Violence in South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies 32, no. 1 (2006): 145-163. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25065071.

Daymond, Margaret, Dorothy Driver, Sheila Mintjes, Leloba Molema, Chiedza Musengezi, Margie Orford, and Noban tu Rasebotsa, eds. Introduction to Women Writing Africa: The Southern Region. Vol. 1 of The Women Writing Africa Project. New York: Feminist Press, 2003. Quoted in Athambile Masola, “The Politics of the 1920s Black Press: Charlotte Maxeke and Nontsizi Mgqwetho’s Critique of Congress,” International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 13, no. 2 (2018): 59-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2018.1522933.

Dlamini, Ntfonjeni S. “‘Comrades in Their Own Right’: Women’s Struggle Against Apartheid in the South African Nov el.” Master’s thesis, Stephen F. Austin State University, 2017. https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/133.

Frankenberg, Ruth. The Social Construction of Whiteness: White Women, Race Matters. London: Routledge and Min neapolis; University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Quoted in Margaret Miller, “Forms of resistance: South African women’s writing during apartheid,” Hecate 24, no.1 (1998): 118-144. ProQuest.

Ginwala, Frene. “Women and the African National Congress 1912-1943.” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, no. 8 (1990): 77-93. https://doi.org/10.2307/4065639.

Higgs, Catherine. “Zenzele: African Women’s Self-Help Organizations in South Africa, 1927-1998.” African Studies Review 47, no. 3 (2004): 119-141. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1514945.

Makhoere, Caesarina K. No Child’s Play: In Prison Under Apartheid. London: Women’s Press, 1988. Quoted in Mar garet Miller, “Forms of resistance: South African women’s writing during apartheid,” Hecate 24, no.1 (1998): 118-144. ProQuest.

Masola, Athambile. “The Politics of the 1920s Black Press: Charlotte Maxeke and Nontsizi Mgqwetho’s Critique of Congress.” International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 13, no. 2 (2018): 59-76.

https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2018.1522933.

Maxeke, Charlotte. “Social Conditions Among Bantu Women and Girls.” Address Given at the Conference of European and Bantu Christian Student Associations at Fort Hare, [June 27-July 3, 1930?]. South African History Online, https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/social-conditions-among-bantu-women-and-girls-address-charlotte-max eke-conference-european.

Maxeke, Charlotte. “Ukubiwa kweLeague.” Umteleli waBantu (June 1920). Quoted in Athambile Masola, “The Politics of the 1920s Black Press: Charlotte Maxeke and Nontsizi Mgqwetho’s Critique of Congress,” International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 13, no.2 (2018): 59-76.

https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2018.1522933.

Mgqwetho, Nontsizi. “Imbongikazi NoAbantu-Batho” [The Woman Poet and Abantu-Batho]. In The Nation’s Bounty: The Xhosa Poetry of Nontsizi Mgqwetho, edited by Jeff Opland. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2007:

27. Quoted in Athambile Masola, “The Politics of the 1920s Black Press: Charlotte Maxeke and Nontsizi Mgq wetho’s Critique of Congress,” International Journal of African Renaissance Studies 13, no. 2 (2018): 59-76.

https://doi.org/10.1080/18186874.2018.1522933.

Miller, Margaret. “Forms of resistance: South African women’s writing during apartheid.” Hecate 24, no. 1 (1998): 118144. ProQuest.

Nasimiyu-Wasike, Anne. “Christology and an African Woman’s Experience.” In Liberation Theology: An Introductory Reader, edited by Curt Cadorette, Marie Giblin, Marilyn Legge, and Mary Hembrow Snyder. Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1992. 92-103.

Ngcobo, Lauretta. And They Didn’t Die. New York: Feminist Press, 1992. Quoted in Ntfonjeni S. Dlamini, “‘Comrades in Their Own Right’: Women’s Struggle Against Apartheid in the South African Novel,” master’s thesis, Ste phen F. Austin State University, 2017, https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/133.

South African History Online. “Pass Laws in South Africa 1800-1994.” Last modified August 27, 2019.

https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pass-laws-south-africa-1800-1994.

South African History Online. “The 1956 Women’s March in Pretoria.” Accessed August 6, 2021.

https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/1956-womens-march-pretoria.

Bridgetown: The Colonial City and Geographies of Domination

by: Isabella Frymoyer

Abstract

Urban development is an aspect of colonialism that exists in both the metropole and the colonies. A particular form of colonial city in British slavery-based colonies emerged to ensure domination over the enslaved population. This colonial city is closely connected to geographies of domination as urban slavery manifested differently from other colonial cities in the northern British colonies. To explore this relationship, Bridgetown, Barbados is first understood as a port city with economic dependence on slavery. This will be explored first through the social hierarchy that was found in the city, then through the mechanisms of domination that manifested in a physical form through containment and punishment. Through these mechanisms, the white minority was able to maintain power over the enslaved population. Ultimately, colonial cities in this context were entirely dependent on enslavement and geographies of domination to ensure continued colonial function.

Résumé

Le développement urbain est un aspect du colonialisme qui existe à la fois dans la métropole et dans les colonies. Une forme particulière de ville coloniale dans les colonies britanniques fondées sur l’esclavage est apparue pour assurer la domination sur la population asservie. Cette ville coloniale est étroitement liée aux géographies de la domination du fait que l’esclavage urbain s’est manifesté différemment des autres villes coloniales dans les colonies britanniques du Nord. Pour explorer cette relation, Bridgetown à la Barbade est d’abord considérée comme une ville portuaire dont l’économie dépend de l’esclavage. La hiérarchie sociale qui y a été intégré sous sa forme urbaine, ainsi que les mécanismes de domination utilisés pour maintenir cette hiérarchie sociale seront à l’étude, incluant les mécanismes de confinement et de punition. Grâce à ces mécanismes, la minorité blanche a pu maintenir son pouvoir sur la population asservie. Les villes coloniales dans ce contexte dépendaient entièrement de l’esclavage et des géographies de la domination pour assurer la continuité de la fonction coloniale.

Introduction

City development in the context of colonialism is often understood in one of two ways when referencing the metropole and the colonies. In the metropole, urbanization is connected to industrialization fueled by resource production in the colonies. On the other hand, urbanization in the colonies is understood as depending on the development of outward-oriented cities built to maximize metropole profits. Colonial cities in the British Caribbean and Southern United States were intrinsically connected with Trans-Atlantic chattel slavery—a form of slavery where the plantation system was closely tied to urban development even as these cities existed as sites of varied economic activity.1 This city type is often overlooked in North American urban discourse where the emphasis is commonly put on pre-industrial cities.

In this essay, I will explore how Bridgetown, Barbados functioned as a colonial city which required elements of geographic domination to maintain social and economic order in its urban enslavement. First, I will outline the characteristics of British colonial Caribbean cities and how they depend on geographies of domination. Then, I will introduce the port city of Bridgetown before investigating the social hierarchy and urban slavery necessary for its function. Finally, I will consider the mechanisms of domination used to maintain social hierarchy in the city. Ultimately, I argue that geographies of domination were essential in preservering slave subordination during the creation of Bridgetown.

Introducing British Colonial Caribbean Cities

The colonial city in the West Indies is often

1 Trevor Burnard, “Towns in Plantation Societies in Eighteenth-Century British America,” Early American Studies 15, no. 4 (2017): 835, https://www.jstor.org/stable/90014826.

overlooked in urban discourse regarding North America. Common historiography assumes the North to be urban and industrial compared to the rural and agricultural economy of the South.2 Not only does this overlook a specific type of city model in the U.S. South, but it also ignores the British Caribbean as a site of urbanization. In the British Caribbean, the urbanization ratio was around 10% to 20%—higher than most other Atlantic colonies until the 20th century.3 Also, Bridgetown’s population and urban form was on par with Boston’s in the early 1700s.4 This follows the tradition of British urban planning in the New World that based its urban development on European models, evident in the similarities between Boston, Charleston, and Bridgetown.5 Regardless, urban theorists like Sylvia Fries argue that cities tend to be understood conceptually in terms of industrialization,6 which leaves Anglo-Caribbean cities out of the discourse.

Many theorists have tried to understand the socio-economic conditions of the colonial city. Economic historian Jacob Price created four functional profiles for colonial cities, one of which is centred on maritime transport and external commercial exchange.7 Like much of the Anglophone Caribbean, Bridgetown’s urban economy was dominated by the commercial and

2 Pedro Welch, Slave Society in the City: Bridgetown, Barbados 1680-1834 (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2009), 25-31. ProQuest Ebook Central.

3 Karwan Fatah-Black, “Introduction: Urban Slavery in the Age of Abolition,” International Review of Social History 65, no. S28 (April 2020): 3, https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0020859020000085.

4 Burnard, “Towns in Plantation Societies,” 842.

5 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 42.

6 Sylvia D. Fries, The Urban Idea in Colonial America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977), xv.

7 Jacob M. Price, “Economic Function and the Growth of American Port Towns in the Eighteenth Century,” Perspectives in American History, no. 8 (1987): 130, quoted in Welch, Slave Society in the City, 28.

maritime industries.8 This dependency on mercantilist trading impacted urban development in regional linear-coastal development patterns,9 which were also highly influenced by the plantation economy. As explored by sociologist Malcolm Cross, the plantation economy and lack of existing urban centres led to a rural colonization that had at its core the mercantilist city.10 Therefore, the city was not the initial point of colonization; however, cities like Bridgetown would quickly grow as ports, making them important points of analysis in New World societies. As part of the British trade in sugar, these colonial cities were also sites of enslavement and racial hierarchy. Urban geographer Ronald Horvath argues that the colonial city is distinguishable from both the industrial and the pre-industrial city, with its key variable being domination.11 He states that the colonial city needs to be contextualized within the theory of colonialism, placing residents from the metropole—often of a different race—as the exogenous elite, leading to the establishment of social and racial hierarchy in a summarizable stratification system.12 However, Horvath’s system of stratification does not consider worldwide variation and overlooks the way that the non-European slave population in the Caribbean created forms of domination specific to their location.13 These systems of slave-based domination were essential to the British production of sugar and were consequently woven into city development through a maintained racial hierarchy.

8 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 29.

9 Welch, 29.

10 Malcolm Cross, Urbanization and Urban Growth in the Caribbean (London: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 9-10.

11 Ronald J. Horvath “A Definition of Colonialism.” Current Anthropology 13, no. 1 (1972): 46.

12 Ronald J. Horvath, “In Search of a Theory of Urbanization: Notes on the Colonial City,” East Lakes Geographer, no. 5 (1969): 72-76, quoted in Welch, Slave Society in the City, 26.

13 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 26-27.

Additionally, slavery is considered a geography of domination in itself, referring to a visible spatial project that organizes and distinguishes social differences before creating social order.14 If geographic distributions from the production of space are hierarchical, these hierarchies become naturalized, and practices of domination repetitively distinguish where nondominant groups physically belong.15 Transatlantic slavery exposed a new concept regarding the struggle for freedom in the formation of Black space, contributing to the oppositional geographies of Black subjectivity, resistance, and possession.16 These geographies of domination were essential in maintaining order within Caribbean cities and are visible in the case study of Bridgetown, Barbados.

Understanding the Role of Slavery in the Growth of Bridgetown

As a port city, Bridgetown depended on local urban enslavement, as well as the existence of the broader network of the Trans-Atlantic slave market. Barbados served as an entrepôt for sugar production that connected the Anglophone Caribbean.17 Originally known as the town of St. Michael, it was built to focus on the intensive shipping and trade industries coming from the island as dependency on sugar began to rise. The first recorded settlement was the “Indian Bridge Town” in 1628.18 This site was chosen because of the natural harbour of Carlisle Bay, and it quickly became the economic capital of the colony of Barbados.19

14 Katherine McKittrick, Demonic Grounds: Black Women And The Cartographies Of Struggle (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), xiv, http://muse.jhu. edu/pub/23/monograph/book/31692.

15 McKittrick, xv.

16 McKittrick, xi.

17 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 29.

18 Marisa Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 30-31, https://doi. org/10.9783/9780812293005.

19 Fuentes, 31.

From the beginning of its urban growth, Bridgetown was dependent on slavery. Formally planned urban growth began in 1657 with the “Act for ye appointing and nomination of Streets, Lanes, Alleys, Wharfs, and other passages convenient in and about yet towne of St Michael” that was passed to support the rising merchant class. During the same time, enslavement was introduced to the city to support these lifestyles,20 meaning that the institution of slavery has existed for almost as long as urban development in the country. Bridgetown continued to develop slowly and became the second most populous British American city outside of Boston, reaching some 3,000 inhabitants by the late seventeenth century.21 At that time, Bridgetown accounted for 60% of the value of English exports to the British Caribbean,22 and it became the most profitable British colony in the region until the 1720s.23

All early developments were based on and inspired by urban areas in the metropole.24 For example, Cheapside, based off the Cheapside district in London, became the commercial centre with storehouses, the Customs House, and houses for all major planters.25 Visual accounts of the early town vary based on source and throughout time. Pere Labat, a French priest and engineer, said in 1703 that “Bridgetown is a fine large town and the streets are straight, wide, and clean.”26 This viewpoint, however, was not shared by all visitors. Almost a century later, in 1807, colonist John Waller described Bridgetown as being “ill-built with crooked and

20 Fuentes, 20.

21 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 31.

22 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 53-54.

23 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 32.

24 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 37-42.

25 Welch, 37-42.

26 Jean-Baptiste Labat. The Memoirs of Père Labat 1693-1705, ed and trans. John Eaden (1743; Reprint. London: Frank Cass, 1970), 120, https://doi. org/10.4324/9781315033709.

unpaved streets,”27 focusing instead on the pollution of the early urban center. The difference in viewpoints suggests that Bridgetown’s role in the world economy transformed it into a lively city with ample urban change and growth. The slave trade is at the root of Barbados’s early economic successes. Early Bridgetown was a central site for people from other metropoles to purchase slaves due to the volume and geographic location of trade, and consequently required urban spaces to function.28 African captives were sold through flesh markets, in public auctions, individually on ships, and through liquidated estates.29 There were also scrambles where buyers would race around a holding yard, grabbing as many slaves as they could.30 The slave trade dwarfed all other trades in British America, and before 1807, the total number of slaves shipped to Barbados was 500,000—a number greater than the rest of British North America combined.31

Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America offers statistics on the slave trade from 1698 to 1737 and demonstrates that between 1698 and 1707, there were 170 ship arrivals with over 34,000 slaves, yielding duties greater than £7,400. Then, from 1708 to 1725, there were 52,005 slaves brought in on 321 ships with duties over £10,000. Finally, from 1730 to 1737, there were 173 ships carrying 11,827 slaves of duties of around £3,000.32 These slaves would then go either to plantations or stay in the city where they continued to contribute to urban socio-economic life.

Cities in slave societies had several common

27 John Augustine Waller. A Voyage in the West Indies (London: Sir Richard Phillips, 1820), 1, HathiTrust.

28 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 27.

29 Fuentes, 32.

30 Fuentes, 32.

31 Burnard, “Towns in Plantation Societies,” 844.

32 Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America, vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century (Washington: Carnegie Institute, 1931), 26-32, 428-31.

traits, as outlined by Fatah-Black.33 First, most urban labour was done by slave women, and slaves of landowning elites would engage in maritime and mercantile labour. Some examples of household labour include emptying chamber pots and other garbage34—a job that was particularly gruesome considering the pollution experienced by early cities. Moreover, African artisans were the main constructors of the buildings and their embellishments.35 Additionally, urban white women, who accounted for most of the population, set a precedent for renting out their slaves for economic profit through jobs such as prostitution.36 It is evident from these examples that urban slaves were essential to the life of the early city.

The differences in economic demand in Bridgetown created different kinds of opportunities for freedmen and slaves compared to those working under brutal agricultural conditions on plantations. Still, while this relative degree of freedom and mobility might have challenged ideas of chattel slavery and threatened control of rural landowners,37 urban enslavement was still dangerous and degrading. The exposure to disease was more common with urban slaves due to their increased relative mobility. Combined with their labor and overall maltreatment, they quickly became the most vulnerable population to disease.38 Slaves would similarly suffer the worst impacts of war and natural disasters.39 These circumstances combined made urban enslavement especially dangerous, even though their demands differed from that of the plantation economies.

33 Fatah-Black, “Introduction,” 4-5.

34 Barry Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 232.

35 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 42.

36 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 50.

37 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 86.

38 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 32-33.

39 Fuentes, 34-36.

Exploring Bridgetown as a Slave Society With Hierarchies

When considering the social impacts of slavery on the urban form, much is tied to the presence of hierarchy and domination in the construction of space in the city. During Bridgetown’s sugar boom of the 1640s, the enslaved population increased rapidly. While more slaves lived in the countryside, they were also highly visible in towns, especially compared to other North American urban areas where whites outnumbered slaves.40 The minority white population needed an urban social hierarchy to maintain control.

The urban hierarchy in Bridgetown was based on factors including race, occupation, and property ownership.41 The top-tier included senior government officials who controlled the maritime trade, followed by the varied group of minor officials, merchants, and small-scale retailers. Then, there were the free(d) colored merchants, artisans, and hoteliers, and at the bottom-tier were the black slave labor. This urban hierarchy can be traced spatially throughout the city.

The wealthy elite largely resided in the Cheapside district, where there were heavy efforts at planning a comprehensive urban identity through the construction of buildings that fit together aesthetically. The 1766 Act, introducing the Single House pattern, was one of many efforts implemented to bring uniformity to the town.42 According to observer John Waller, this pattern of housing had “superior taste and elegance.”43 This housing was similarly appreciated by Pierre Labat when he commented on the “air of propriety, opulence, that does not exist in other islands and would be difficult to find elsewhere.”44

40 Burnard, “Towns in Plantation Societies,” 845.

41 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 69-70.

42 Welch, 45-6.

43 Waller, A Voyage, 9.

44 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 23.

Free(d) blacks who were able to penetrate the Cheapside district and acquire business property challenged the spatial hegemony of the white elite. Several notable names include merchants Joseph Rachel and London Bourne, and hotelier Rachel Pringle Polgreen.45 Polgreen was a former slave who ran a well-known brothel and owned slaves herself, which speaks towards attitudes on prostitution being a viable livelihood for free(d) people of colour who were restricted from other occupations.46 In this manner, Polgreen was able to challenge the hierarchy both socially and spatially.

When it comes to residence districts, there were instances where poor whites lived next to free(d) slaves in and outside of the Cheapside district. However, in these cases, they were described to have lived “in the meanest hovels,”47 demonstrating that while there were certain elements of wealth and race-based spatial hierarchy, legally based segregation did not exist. Further residential segregation based on race is hard to determine since slaves largely lived with their masters,48 and consequently would not have housing to call their own. By requiring that their slaves live with them, the white population was able to ensure an element of domination through lived-in proximity. When slaves did live in their own housing, it was described as dilapidated and “wrecks of houses that would otherwise be deserted.”49 Overall, social hierarchy is illustrated in Bridgetown by examining the residential living patterns.

Outside of where they lived, slaves had spaces within the city that they navigated, showing a clear

45 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 48.

46 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 47-8.

47 Frederick W Bayley, Four Years Residence in the West Indies (London: William Kidd, 1833), 62.

48 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 31.

49 Daniel McKinnen, A Tour Through the British West Indies in the Years 1802 and 1803 (London: J White Publishers, 1804), 14-6.

interaction with their environment. For example, thousands of enslaved peoples worked in domestic capacities in white homes or on the docks at the Cheapside market.50 Slave women were similarly known to frequent Polgreen’s Royal Navy Hotel, where they were rented out as prostitutes to Polgreen by white female owners who wanted to make more money.51 By evidence of their interactions with their environment, their existence should not be ignored in the urban social space.

Understanding space navigated by slaves extends beyond that of the developed city center. For example, there was the swamp on the Molehead, which, to the white population, was a space of unproductive land where slaves would bury their kin.52 The enslaved population transformed the land around them to create a space that was, to some degree, for them, even if it was only made available because the white population did not want it.

While these examples show that slaves were offered certain degrees of mobility and influence over inhabiting the urban space, they were still restricted by their enslaved status. There is no truly liberated space where slavery exists, as power is mobilized through every function that space can take.53 Ultimately, geographies of domination materialize in a variety of ways to ensure slave subordination, existing as part of the urban form.

Urban Mechanisms of Geographies of Domination

The social hierarchy of Bridgetown manifested in the need for mechanisms to exercise control over enslaved populations, as explored by historian Marisa Fuentes. This can be seen through the use of military and state authority, punishment, and confinement. White populations were fearful

50 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 28.

51 Fuentes, 29.

52 Fuentes, 28-9.

53 Fuentes, 14-5.

of unrest within the urban enslaved communities and what an uprising would mean for them. For example, in 1757, a fire ignited on High Street and burned 418 buildings in Cheapside; the statements from Governor Charles Pinfold blamed it on the “[l]ust for [r]evenge” of the urban slaves.54 To ensure that there would be no riots, local authorities solidified their stance on using geographies of domination to maintain control. Geographies of domination manifested in several urban mechanisms, as specific sites of punishment were important in maintaining slave subordination (Figure 1). First, military fortifications,

constant threat of colonial authority was thus a major mechanism of symbolic power in the urban environment that contributed to slave subordination. It is for that reason that James Fort was also an ideal site for execution, as noted by Governor James Spry who described it as a place “where [s]laves have frequently [s]uffered [d]eath.”57 Slaves were often executed in central locations and in front of large audiences, enduring more public attention during their massacres than what was experienced by freedmen. This separation in the execution of slaves and freedmen was important as it underlined their inherent

including James Fort, were symbolic examples of colonial power and militias that would serve to defend against slave rebellions.55 Slaves were also often recruited to build and defend these military fortifications. While they were sometimes free(d) for their loyalty to the crown, they often had no choice in their service.56 The

54 “Governor Charles Pinfold’s Speech,” March 14, 1758, quoted in Fuentes, 26.

55 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 33-4.

56 Fuentes, 33-4.

difference.58 If convictions were overturned— often at the expense of the owner who wanted to preserve his property—the slave would still be punished, and often in hyper-visible ways.59

Before the completion of James Fort in 1701,

57 Barbados Minutes of Council, 20 June 1769, Lucas MSS: 227, BPL (Barbados Public Library), quoted in Fuentes, 25.

58 Fatah-Black, “Introduction” 2-3.

59 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 43.

Figure 1. Map of Bridgetown circa the 1780s showing sites of punishment and confinement. Map by Sebastian Araya © 2015. In Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, fig. 4. Reproduced with permission.

Egginton’s Green served as another site of slave punishment where the courthouse, town hall, stocks, and a whipping post were located.60 Having a site connected to the central city authorities was important in symbolically linking the colonial government to the subordination of the slave population. In fact, the regimentation and standardization of punishment by colonial state authority, through flogging laws, for example, was practiced earlier than post-emancipation legislation implies.61 Punishments would also happen at the Customs House, responsible for regulating trade activity. Connecting a built symbol of their enslavement to their punishment shows that it not only sets an example but reinforces commodification status.62 All of these sites come together to ensure that slave punishment is woven into the urban fabric and is closely connected with the symbolic threat of colonial authority.

Moreover, sites of confinement existed alongside sites of punishment, providing a more passive form of retribution through urban mechanisms. The Cage was the most well-known example of structure confinement. Originally built to confine white sailors, the Cage shifted to being a place to hold runaway slaves. In 1657, it was moved next to a public boardwalk, and runaways would wait there until they were either tried and executed or claimed by their owners.63 Its central location made it a highly visible structure that served as a threat to slaves who tried to run away from plantations. In 1688, an act was ratified which specified that slaves would be “kept in the Cage at the Stepping-Stones, by the Provost Marshall,

and not in the goal,”64 reinforcing the notion of racial difference by creating a punitive space just for them. Furthermore, according to accounts within the Barbados Minutes of Assembly, the conditions were deadly, as the structure that was built to hold twelve people would confine up to eighty-five.65 This was a clear emphasis on the disposability and chattel status of the enslaved person. The structure was so impactful that in 1817, leading merchants would petition the town to move the Cage to a less populous street because they were afraid of offending strangers.66

Most significantly, punishment in the urban environment went beyond specific geographic sites of subordination to affect the body and, therefore, slave mobility. The scars from punishments like flogging served as a body memory that transferred the meaning of enslavement, helping to form a person’s socially subordinate identity and acted as a representation of unfreedom.67 Therefore, these scars on the geography of the body were essential in the preservation of slavery. These mobile punishments, used for slave discipline, were performed by white men who were appointed constables to represent the white population.68 The slaveholder would then have to pay for the captivity of their property and the whipping itself, regardless of where it occurred.69 Since these punishments could be carried out anywhere, they restricted slave mobility and ensured that white power over the

60 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 23.

61 Diana Paton, No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race, and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780-1870 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 6-7.

62 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 38.

63 Fuentes, 39.

64 Moore, The Public Acts in Force; Passed by the Legislature of Barbados, From May 11th 1762 to April 1800 (Barbados: Published for the Legislature of Barbados, 1801), 121. Quoted in Fuentes, 40.

65 Minutes of the Barbados House of Assembly April 15, 1811 (BDA), quoted in Welch, Slave Society in the City, 165. See also Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 41.

66 Welch, Slave Society in the City, 47.

67 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 16.

68 Higman, Slave Populations, 242.

69 Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives, 37-8.

slave population permeated all urban space.70 Hence, domination and Black slave subordination were intrinsically woven into the urban fabric of Bridgetown beyond specified locations.

Conclusion

Geographies of domination existed in colonial cities, arising out of a need to maintain social hierarchy and the slave institution responsible for Bridgetown’s economic growth and urban development. While this essay considers the key function of domination that existed in Bridgetown, similar cases like Kingston in the British Caribbean and Charleston in the American South can be explored under this framework. This paper does not consider other racial variations and specific events in time, like the hurricane of 1780,71 which had significant impacts on the lives of urban slaves in Bridgetown. Additionally, Fuentes explores the ways that geographies of domination were not just limited to the city or the slave body, but also extended into the archive and the preservation of history.72 There is limited knowledge of the many ways that slaves shaped their urban environments, but it remains clear that they had real impacts on urban growth. Ultimately, Bridgetown remains an example of how one of the key components of the colonialism project, trans-Atlantic chattel slavery, had lasting impacts on the urban form.

70 Fuentes, 37-8.

71 Fuentes, 21.

72 Fuentes, 14-5.

References

Araya, Sebastian. “Map of Bridgetown circa 1780s. ” Composite map. In Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive, by Marisa Fuentes, figure 4. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. De Gruyter.

Barbados Minutes of Council, June 20, 1769, Lucas MSS: 227, BPL (Barbados Public Library). Quoted by Marisa Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl vania Press, 2016). De Gruyter.

Bayley, Frederick W. Four Years Residence in the West Indies. London: William Kidd, 1833.

Burnard, Trevor. “Towns in Plantation Societies in Eighteenth-Century British America.” Early American Studies 15, no. 4 (Fall 2017): 835–59. https://www.jstor.org/stable/90014826.

Cross, Malcolm. Urbanization and Urban Growth in the Caribbean. London: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Donnan, Elizabeth, ed. The Eighteenth Century. Vol. 2 of Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade to America Washington: Carnegie Institute (1931), 26–32, 428–31.

Fatah-Black, Karwan. “Introduction: Urban Slavery in the Age of Abolition.” International Review of Social History 65, no. S28 (April 2020): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859020000085.

Fries, Sylvia D. The Urban Idea in Colonial America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977.

Fuentes, Marisa J. Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812293005.

“Governor Charles Pinfold’s Speech.” March 14, 1758. Barbados Minutes of Council, CO 31/30: 140–41. National Archives of the United Kingdom. Quoted in Marisa Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). De Gruyter.

Higman, Barry W. Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1834. Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.

Horvath, Ronald J. “A Definition of Colonialism.” Current Anthropology 13, no. 1 (1972): 45–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2741072.

Horvath, Ronald J. “In Search of a Theory of Urbanization: Notes on the Colonial City.” East Lakes Geographer no 5 (1969): 69–82. Quoted in Pedro L. V. Welch, Slave Society in the City: Bridgetown, Barbados 1680–1834 (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2009). ProQuest Ebook Central.

Labat, Jean-Baptiste. The Memoirs of Père Labat 1693–1705. Edited and translated by John Eaden. 1743. Reprint; London: Frank Cass, 1970. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315033709.

McKinnen, Daniel. A Tour Through the British West Indies in the Years 1802 and 1803. London: J White Publishers, 1804.

McKittrick, Katherine. Demonic Grounds: Black Women And The Cartographies Of Struggle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. http://muse.jhu.edu/pub/23/monograph/book/31692.

Minutes of the Barbados House of Assembly April 15, 1811 (BDA). Quoted in Welch, Pedro L. V. Slave Society in the City: Bridgetown, Barbados 1680–1834. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, 165.

Moore, Samuel, ed., The Public Acts in Force; Passed by the Legislature of Barbados, From May 11th 1762 to April 1800 (Barbados: Published for the Legislature of Barbados, 1801). Quoted by Marisa Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl vania Press, 2016). De Gruyter.

Paton, Diana. No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race, and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780–1870. Next Wave. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.

Price, Jacob M. “Economic Function and the Growth of American Port Towns in the Eighteenth Century.” Perspectives in American History, no. 8 (1987): 160–74. Quoted in Pedro L. V. Welch, Slave Society in the City: Bridgetown, Barbados 1680–1834 (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2009). ProQuest Ebook Central.

Sjoberg, Gideon. The Preindustrial City: Past and Present. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1960.

Waller, John Augustine. A Voyage in the West Indies. London: Sir Richard Phillips and Co., 1820. HathiTrust.

Welch, Pedro L. V. Slave Society in the City: Bridgetown, Barbados 1680–1834. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publish ers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Israel’s Slow Squeeze of Palestinian Autonomy: The Manifestation of Spatial Violence Through Checkpoints and Infrastructure Laws

by: Stephanie Munn Abstract

The progress achieved by the State of Israel is commendable. In less than a century, a group of people once persecuted for their religion have become pioneers in technological innovation and military strategy supported by the United States. However, the development of the Israeli state comes at the cost of the de-development of the Palestinian state and economy. The Israeli use of biopower as a method of control is a detriment to the psychological well-being and physical autonomy of the Palestinian people. This essay explores how Israel’s use of spatial violence, demonstrated through physical checkpoints and control of technological and infrastructural networks, results in the dependence and dehumanization of the Palestinian people. The contribution of this spatial violence to the de-development of the region is also examined.

Résumé

Les progrès accomplis par l’État d’Israël sont louables. En moins d’un siècle, un peuple autrefois persécuté en vertu de sa religion est désormais devenu un chef de file en matière d’innovation technologique et de stratégie militaire soutenu par les États-Unis. Toutefois, le développement de l’état israelien se fait au détriment du développement de l’État Palestinien et de son économie. L’utilisation israélienne du biopouvoir en tant que méthode de contrôle nuit au bien-être psychologique et à l’autonomie physique du peuple palestinien. Cet essai explore comment l’utilisation de la violence spatiale par Israël, démontrée par des points de contrôle physiques ainsi que par le contrôle des réseaux technologiques et infrastructurels, résulte en la dépendance et la déshumanisation du peuple palestinien. La contribution de cette violence spatiale envers le dé-développement de la région est aussi examinée.

Introduction

By Western standards, the spectacular progress made by Israel in the eighty years since its foundation can be applauded as the ideal model of development. It has successfully integrated into global economic and political systems, leading the world in technological advancements and military strategy while receiving strong backing from the United States. However, this model of development has come at a cost to Israel’s predecessor and neighbour: the economically underdeveloped and politically unstable Palestine,1 whose people have been simultaneously displaced from their ancestral home and occupied in their new territory.

As Israel moves to control even larger sections of traditionally Palestinian land, it employs various tools of spatial violence to limit the people’s movement and access to the critical resources needed to successfully promote internal economic growth. Notably, the lack of basic resources not only puts the population in hazardous physical conditions but also has a sociological impact by creating a power hierarchy between the neighbouring peoples. Israel exercises biopower in regulating everyday aspects of Palestinians’ lives. Therefore, the Palestinian Territory is today experiencing economic and humanitarian de-development. This process weakens the society’s ability to engage with available resources to sufficiently expand the economy,2 thereby contributing to ethnic and cultural deterioration. In this essay, I argue that Israel is practicing biopolitical propagation of spatial violence, leading to the dependency and dehumanization of the Palestinian people on Israel and contributing to the de-development of the area. This spatial violence is manifested through

1 The essay uses “Palestine” and “Palestinian Territory” to refer to the Occupied Territories of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

2 Sara Roy, “The Gaza Strip: A Case of Economic De-Development,” Journal of Palestine Studies 17, no. 1 (1987): 56, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2536651.

physical checkpoints and the monopolization of technological and infrastructural networks. I will first explore the definitions of and interrelation between biopower, spatial violence, and de-development, focusing on the theoretical frameworks of Foucault and Roy. The following section will analyze the physical exertion of this violence through the Israeli installment of checkpoints within the Palestinian Territory. Finally, the third section will investigate the effect of the codification of spatial violence through Israeli laws on Palestinian infrastructure and technology. Each section will determine that Israel’s physical and legal constraints limit Palestinian autonomy and national development.

Application of Biopower Through Spatial Violence

Interactions between states are based on inherent power relations between the dominating party and its subjugated minority. States maximize their power by acquiring resources and land to boost economic activity and political status within the global system. While this Western notion of development is normalized and encouraged within the borders of states, the expansion of states into other territories places the system in a precarious position due to the often adverse implications on the conquered peoples. They are displaced from their homes and subjugated to foreign laws of living. The colonizing states employ a range of tools to control the population, including biopower and the closely related use of spatial violence.

Michel Foucault coined biopower as a state’s ability to strategically coordinate power relations with its citizens to “extract a surplus of power from living beings.”3 The occupied people lack the legal status of citizens, which may have given them some benefits of welfare and representa-

3 Maurizio Lazzarato, “From Biopower to Biopolitics,” The Warwick Journal of Philosophy 13, (2002): 105, https://plijournal.com/volumes/13/.

tion. However, they are still in a constant state of biopolitical domination by the government. For example, regulations can ensure that the occupied people’s work contributes to the economy of the colonizing state, draining the territory’s human and physical capital.4 They thus become dependent on the occupier for supplying basic resources back to the population and for constructing functional economic and infrastructural systems. Their lives and deaths become controlled by a foreign government. They are deprived of freedom of choice regarding their political future and the use of resources off their land. Essentially, their path to development is hindered. Ultimately, a state’s application of biopower creates asymmetric power relations that limit the autonomy of the occupied people to develop according to their own conceptions of progress.

Spatial violence is a key apparatus employed by governments to exert biopower over occupied peoples by manipulating their space and freedom of movement through both physical and legal means. These two methods of control enable the government to target not only the tangible aspects of individuals’ lives but also the imperceptible sociological conditions that govern a society. Spatial violence in the form of bodily control—through checkpoints, arbitrary arrests, or violent interactions between police forces and individuals—condemns the occupied peoples to a “bare life.”5 While Stevenson attributes this concept to her idea of “anonymous death,”6 it also describes the lives of subjugated peoples who do not receive rights from the government that controls their territory. The lack of political rights and representation characterizes people as non-citizens; the lack of human rights to

4 Roy, “The Gaza Strip,” 62.

5 Lisa Stevenson, “The psychic life of biopolitics: Survival, cooperation, and Inuit community,” American Ethnologist 39, no. 3 (2012): 605, http://www.jstor.com/ stable/23250787.

6 Stevenson, 598.

mobility and freedom implies that they are not human. A physical form of spatial violence contravenes explicitly Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which codifies the freedom of movement within a person’s state of origin and through its borders.7 Therefore, a state that physically restrains people’s activities infantilizes them and affects their ability to productively contribute to society and the economy.

The legal manifestation of spatial violence is likewise harmful to human and economic development as it restricts the maximum capacity of a population’s liberties. Spatial violence does not break pre-written laws as much as it re-writes them to make the societal manipulation permissible. The codification of occupation justifies it and allows the colonizing state to continue its operations. Consequently, it fabricates the perception of a responsible settler state that guides the development of the occupied society through laws created by settlers themselves. The modern conception of the ‘transformation’ of society is not so much clear as it is disguised; rather than applied forcefully through conversion camps, it is applied subtly through entire legal systems. Still, such systems reinforce settler colonialism while mitigating the visible presence of occupation forces.8 It enables a state to maintain claims of morality on the global stage while perpetuating spatial violence against the target population.

The people are then impacted in a sociological manner: these laws are socialized into everyday expectations, reinforcing a hierarchy between the dominating state and occupied subjects. The latter lack a legal avenue to resist and pursue their free-

7 United Nations, 1948, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, accessed April 12, 2022, https://www.un.org/sites/ un2.un.org/files/2021/03/udhr.pdf.

8 Joseph Weiss, “Not Built to Last: Military Occupation and Ruination under Settler Colonialism,” Cultural Anthropology 36, no. 3 (2021): 486, https://doi.org/10.14506/ ca36.3.10.

dom. Palestinians must therefore live under the system created by the colonizing state—Israel— and depend on it for access to rights and resources. Through its governance structure, the state can execute a slow erasure of a target population.

Checkpoints: The Physical Manifestation of Spatial Control

The Israel-Palestine conflict is an effective case study of how the use of biopower—specifically spatial violence—can result in adverse humanitarian conditions for a population. The Israeli-controlled checkpoints in Palestine are a microcosm of the inherent power relations between Israel and the occupied territory: they perform the dual purpose of limiting the movement of people and the flow of goods in the territory, thus leading to dehumanization and economic dependence. Since 2005, when Israel signed the Oslo II Accord and made a commitment to pull out of Palestine, the checkpoints have been remodelled into modern terminals instead of the pop-up roadside pit stops of the past.9 Cementing the terminals into land and law externally legitimizes the checkpoints and the control of Palestinian movement.

The purpose of checkpoints is to restrict the flow of people both within Palestinian communities and to Israeli cities, where many Palestinians work. A critical aspect of the checkpoints is the pass system that Palestinians must apply for, which classifies them with “a colour code or a biometric identification card.”10 Such labelling of people by their hereditary characteristics is reminiscent of the passes forced onto Black South Africans by the Apartheid government, as both systems restrict the movement of a target pop-

9 Nihal Nagamey, Limor Goldner, and Rachel Lev-Wiesel, “Perspectives on Social Suffering in Interviews and Drawings of Palestinian Adults Crossing the Qalandia

Checkpoint: A Qualitative Phenomenological Study,” Frontiers in Psychology 9, art. 1591 (2018): 2, https://doi. org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01591.

10 Nagamey, Goldner, and Lev-Wiesel, 2.

ulation, jeopardizing their economic independence.11 The pass system dehumanizes Palestinians and turns them into objects to be sorted at the crossing points. A hierarchy of power, consequently, emerges between the Israeli soldiers or border agents and the Palestinians. Victims of the abuse report the real effects of this hierarchy through interviews; the soldiers show a lack of morality in their treatment of Palestinian travellers, which creates feelings of psychological entrapment and learned helplessness.12 The inhumane treatment of Palestinians is exemplified by the story of twenty-nine-year-old Rula Astia, who recalls delivering her premature baby “in the dirt, like an animal” when agents refused her passage to an Israeli hospital.13 The baby died in her arms hours later at the same checkpoint. As the Palestinians must obey soldiers’ orders to secure passage, Israeli control and regulations become ingrained. The population starts to lose sense of the future as their lives revolve around successful daily checkpoint crossings, which can take up to three hours at the Qalandia location for the nearly twenty-six thousand individuals coming through every day.14 While this clearly impacts the psychological well-being of Palestinians, it also influences the development of their society. Palestinians interviewed about their experiences at the checkpoints reported feelings of dehumanization and helplessness, with notable coping mechanisms being “avoidance and

11 Adrian Guelke, “Ethnic Rights and Majority Rule: The Case of South Africa,” International Political Science Review/Revue Internationale de Science Politique 13, no. 4 (1992): 424, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1601247; See also Karina Vandenhoven’s article in this issue for additional information on the pass system of South African Apartheid.

12 Nagamey, Goldner, and Lev-Wiesel, “Perspectives on Social Suffering,” 5.

13 Hagar Kotef and Merav Amir, “(En)Gendering Checkpoints: Checkpoint Watch and the Repercussions of Intervention,” Signs 32, no. 4 (2007): 977, https://doi. org/10.1086/512623.

14 Nagamey, Goldner, and Lev-Wiesel, “Perspectives on Social Suffering,” 3.

dissociation.”15 Therefore, people increasingly withdraw from public gatherings and events, causing society to fragment. Workers and students who wait to cross the checkpoints lose valuable time earning money and receiving an education, limiting the potential growth of the economy and educated individuals, thereby reducing Palestinians to being dependents of Israel.

Spatial violence likewise restricts the flow of goods into Palestine through the use of checkpoints. While the economy is clearly affected, another key consequence of the physical blockades is the lack of construction materials in Palestine. Due to the blockade, the raw materials used for houses are more expensive than many Palestinians can afford and are diminished in quality and choice.16 This affects the architectural integrity of the structures, making them less physically secure and not matching the cultural norms and needs. In this, Israel again obstructs Palestinians from realizing “the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for [their] dignity and the free development of [their] personality.”17 By curtailing the resources required for Palestinians to control the aesthetics of their space or to make it appeal to their cultural norms, Israeli regulations are robbing them of the creativity that is essential to humanity. The resultant bare box structures, therefore, are yet another mechanism of depriving Palestinians of their human worth. They reinforce the perception of Palestinian helplessness to the outside world, which sees the lacklustre structures as a result of Palestinian failures in knowledge and capabilities rather than Israeli spatial violence. Checkpoints thus regulate the slow humanitarian collapse

15 Nagamey, Goldner, and Lev-Wiesel, 4-5.

16 Salem Al Qudwa, “Architecture of the Everyday,” in Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope, eds. Michael Sorkin and Deen Sharp (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2020), 27, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2ks71tx.

17 United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 22.

of the Palestinian Territory through the physical suffocation of the population’s autonomy.

Technology and Infrastructure: The Slow Squeeze

Infrastructure and technology networks in Palestine, like checkpoints, are co-opted by Israel to become mechanisms through which Israel applies spatial violence—as “biopolitical tools to regulate and suppress life.”18 Israeli control of the networks has a dual purpose. First, it allows the state to remove most physical factors of control, such as the military, from Palestine. In doing so, Israel appears to follow the internationally signed agreements to disengage from the Gaza Strip. Second, through the codification of the operations of these networks, Israel is able to frame any Palestinian corporation or person as criminal for breaking the law—regardless of whether the laws themselves are virtuous. As a result, the norms of limited resources are socialized into the fearful population and reinforce the power dynamic between occupier and occupied. The Oslo II Accord stipulates the transfer of infrastructure controls to Palestine, but its intentional vagueness allows Israeli administrators to be the decision-makers on the “suitable” flow of supplies such as water and gas to Palestine.19 This implies that Palestinians cannot make accurate decisions for themselves, thereby infantilizing the population by making them dependent.

Yet another element of Israel’s biopower is its ability to withhold the resources or limit their supply as a bargaining tool with the Palestinian Authority. The power politics between the two governments thus make the infrastructure networks and public utilities a tool of war.20

18 Omar Salamanca, “Unplug and Play: Manufacturing collapse in Gaza,” Journal of Human Geography, no. 1 (2011): 23, https://doi.org/10.1177% 2F194277861100400103.

19 Salamanca, 27. 20 Salamanca, 25.

Despite the notion that Israel disengaged from Palestine in 2005, their legal controls over life in the Palestinian Territory still perpetuate ruination among the communities.21 The organization of the infrastructure networks, therefore, leads Palestine to depend on Israel for survival and allows the latter to slowly suffocate and divide the population through limited supplies.

The telecommunications networks in Palestine are likewise controlled by Israel, which restricts the population’s privacy and autonomy. The United States, Israel’s biggest backer, is a key player in the scenario; their promotion of a neoliberal economic system influenced the region’s laws regarding the business models behind the networks. Specifically, the neoliberal agenda allowed the monopolization of the telecommunication system by PALTEL in 1995, whose private management created restrictive and exclusive services.22 Instead of increasing access to education and rights, the private networks increased the wealth gap among Palestinians. As the internet provides a connection to the outside world, those who have access prosper over those who are cut off. This divide weakens Palestinian solidarity and potential for resistance, which accomplishes Israel’s primary goal in regulating the networks: protecting their national security. Palestinian unity is also weakened through the functioning of the networks themselves. Connections, from phone calls to internet messages, between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are all routed through Israeli networks, subjecting these communications to surveillance techniques.23

Israeli claims that Palestinian telecommunication networks are a security concern stem from the use of information technology in driving the

21 Weiss, “Not Built to Last,” 486.

22 Helga Tawil-Souri, “Digital Occupation: Gaza’s HighTech Enclosure,” Journal of Palestine Studies 41, no. 2 (2012): 33, https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2012.xli.2.27.

23 Tawil-Souri, 28.

Arab Spring protests.24 This claim legitimizes Israeli control over its territory and vindicates the intelligence forces’ forceful actions when suspicious materials are intercepted. Tawil-Souri uses the word “frictionless” to characterize the ambiguousness of the de-occupation and Israel’s switch towards surveillance of Palestinians from outside the Palestinian Territory.25 The term accurately describes the nature of Israeli control of both networks, as the avenues used to pursue the security goals are non-physical and, therefore, less visible. It takes international pressure off Israel. Despite the discrete control, this legal manifestation of spatial control in the technological sphere still harms Palestinian development as it limits their collective connectivity to the outside world and restricts their autonomy.

Conclusion

Spatial violence is at the intersection of two contradicting forces: Westphalian sovereign power, embodied through the Israeli control of Palestinian Territory and autonomy, and economic colonialism, which creates a biological and economic reliance on Israel. To reinforce its covert occupation of Palestine, Israel utilizes spatial violence through physical and legal mechanisms. The checkpoints in the Palestine Territory restrict the free flow of people and resources in the territory. Such controls create a dependence on Israel for basic needs and, more importantly, infringe on Palestinians’ human rights—in essence, dehumanizing them. The population lives in “an open-air prison” to which Israel holds the keys.26 The legal manifestation of spatial violence likewise fosters a Palestinian reliance on Israel by limiting their autonomy in creating their own infrastructure and technology networks. This infantilizes the Palestinian population as they cannot learn how to create their own systems.

24 Tawil-Souri, 29.

25 Tawil-Souri, 31.

26 Tawil-Souri, 27.

A continuation along this path will further contribute to the de-development of the Palestinian state through human capital flight. Therefore, the Israeli application of spatial violence in Palestine sets a dangerous precedent for the cultural and societal erasure of the population.

References

Al Qudwa, Salem. “Architecture of the Everyday.” In Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope, edited by Michael Sorkin and Deen Sharp, 26–41. The American University in Cairo Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2ks71tx.

Guelke, Adrian. “Ethnic Rights and Majority Rule: The Case of South Africa.” International Political Science Review / Revue Internationale de Science Politique 13, no. 4 (1992): 415–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1601247.

Kotef, Hagar and Merav Amir. “(En)Gendering Checkpoints: Checkpoint Watch and the Repercussions of Intervention.” Signs 32, no. 4 (2007): 973–96. https://doi.org/10.1086/512623.

Lazzarato, Maurizio. “From Biopower to Biopolitics.” The Warwick Journal of Philosophy 13, (2002): 100–110.

https://plijournal.com/volumes/13/.

Nagamey, Nihal M., Limor Goldner, and Rachel Lev-Wiesel. “Perspectives on Social Suffering in Interviews and Drawings of Palestinian Adults Crossing the Qalandia Checkpoint: A Qualitative Phenomenological Study.”

Frontiers in Psychology 9, art. 1591 (2018): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01591.

Roy, Sara. “The Gaza Strip: A Case of Economic De-Development.” Journal of Palestine Studies 17, no. 1 (1987): 56–88. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2536651.

Salamanca, Omar. “Unplug and Play: Manufacturing collapse in Gaza.” Journal of Human Geography, no. 1 (2011): 22–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/194277861100400103.

Stevenson, Lisa. “The psychic life of biopolitics: Survival, cooperation, and Inuit community.” American Ethnologist 39, no. 3 (2012): 592–613. http://www.jstor.com/stable/23250787.

Tawil-Souri, Helga. “Digital Occupation: Gaza’s High-Tech Enclosure.” Journal of Palestine Studies 41, no. 2 (2012): 2 7–43. https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2012.xli.2.27.

United Nations. 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Accessed April 12, 2022. https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2021/03/udhr.pdf.

Weiss, Joseph. “Not Built to Last: Military Occupation and Ruination under Settler Colonialism.” Cultural Anthropology 36, no. 3 (2021): 484–508. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca36.3.10.

A Western Design: The ICEM and South American Dictatorships

by: Elisa Gilliet

Abstract

The Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM), now the International Organization for Migration (IOM), was established by the United Nations in 1951 to resettle European refugees displaced by World War II. Under the auspice of benevolence, it served as a Western tool to shape and sustain dictatorial regimes in South America, a region deemed vulnerable to communism between the 1950s and the 1980s. Press releases and correspondence between ICEM delegates and government officials reveal an institutional promotion of “migration as development,” departing from the goal of resettling people in need. The organization endorsed the movement of white European settlers between decolonizing African countries and South American governments. This movement reinforced the exchange of exclusionary and authoritarian ideas. With 19,381 European skilled workers occupying positions of power in dictatorial regimes, this article questions the legitimacy of international organizations’ operations during the Cold War and global decolonization, whose role ought to have promoted democracy over authoritarianism.

Résumé

Le Comité intergouvernemental pour les migrations européennes (CIME), devenu l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), a été créé par les Nations Unies en 1951 pour réinstaller les réfugiés européens déplacés par la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Sous le couvert de la bienveillance, il a servi d’outil occidental pour façonner et soutenir les régimes dictatoriaux d’Amérique du Sud, une région jugée vulnérable au communisme entre les années 1950 et 1980. Les communiqués de presse et la correspondance entre les délégués de l’ICEM et les responsables des pays révèlent une promotion institutionnelle de la “migration comme développement”, s’écartant de la réinstallation des personnes dans le besoin. L’organisation a encouragé les mouvements de colons européens blancs entre les pays africains en voie de décolonisation et les gouvernements sud-américains. Ce mouvement a renforcé l’échange d’idées excluantes et autoritaires. Comme 19 381 travailleurs qualifiés européens ont fini par occuper des postes de pouvoir dans des régimes dictatoriaux, l’étude remet en question la légitimité des opérations des organisations internationales pendant la guerre froide et la décolonisation mondiale, dont le rôle devrait être de promouvoir la démocratie plutôt que l’autoritarisme.

Introduction

While the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a key agency within United Nations, very little is known about the activities of its predecessor organizations, the Provisional Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe (PICMME), the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM), and the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration (ICM). Although this organization has been functioning for seventy years, finding documentation pertaining to its first forty-five years of activities is not an easy task. The organization’s narrative and scholars indicate that it was created out of the UN system to exclude communist countries; however, few sources reveal the impact of this migration administered under the auspices of the ICEM.

This paper mainly refers to the organization as the ICEM, given that the period studied corresponds to its period of activity under this title. Between the 1950s and 1980s, the ICEM supervised the migration of European settlers to Latin America, helping them manage postwar overpopulation and stimulating development. However, this paper examines how the ICEM responded to a Western agenda and strengthened right-wing dictatorial regimes in South America by facilitating the movement of European migrants according to their technical skills and political ideas. It highlights the impact of the ICEM in shaping the political destiny of Latin American countries, particularly South American dictatorial regimes. It is important to note that eight of the ten South American countries were members of the ICEM while under authoritarian leadership. Namely, Argentina (1966–1973 and 1976–1983), Bolivia (1964–1970 and 1971–1982), Brazil (1964–1985), Chile (1973–1990), Ecuador (1972–1979), Paraguay (1954–1989), Peru (1968–1980) and Uruguay (1973–1984). This paper first offers an overview of migration

history in modern South America to contextualize the ICEM’s intervention in the region. It proceeds to provide a deeper comprehension of the context within which the ICEM was created. Next, the paper examines the policies of the ICEM in the subcontinent within the Cold War spectrum and how it influenced the selection of migrants to promote “migration as development.” It also shows the organization’s role in political resettlement, which involved the selective migration of people according to their political ideologies. Finally, the paper elaborates on the ICEM’s role in moving white European settlers from newly independent African nations and apartheid regimes to South American nations, contributing to the promotion of exclusionary and authoritarian ideas. This paper results from the study of secondary literature. It is also the fruit of archival research in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Centre des Archives diplomatiques du ministère des Affaires étrangères and La Contemporaine library.

History of Migration in South America

Beginning in the nineteenth century, South America positioned itself as the precursor of open borders for migrants.1 Countries guaranteed newcomers the same protective and equal rights their citizens received within their constitutions. This policy was meant to attract migrants to the continent, which had long been excluded from the migration flux. The South American attitude regarding immigration changed when the region attracted millions of migrants between the 1870s and the 1930s. At the end of the nineteenth century, all ten South American countries adopted racial and ethnic exclusion policies, following the United States’ lead. The adoption of such policies was not surprising as the “purity of blood”

1 Diego Acosta, The National versus the Foreigner in South America: 200 Years of Migration and Citizenship

Law in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018): 4, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108594110.

has been prioritized since colonial times.2 People affected by these new restrictive laws were mostly Roma, Jewish, Black, Japanese, Chinese and Middle Eastern groups. The first two decades of the twentieth century saw the exclusion of immigrants based on political ideologies. This trend coincided with the rise of South American “Order and Progress” regimes, which concentrated powers in the Executive, enabling them to better squash social and labour demands.3 The regimes also implemented regulations based on moral inadequacies which limited the arrival of sick and disabled people, prostitutes, and beggars.4 Most of these restrictions were lifted after the Second World War, as South American countries became democratic and embodied a progressive human rights agenda. Governments were also eager to promote immigration for development while Europe was rebuilding from the war.

However, these South American democracies’ economic and social reforms generated fear among the wealthiest segments of the population, the army, and foreign investors, that their countries could descend into communist chaos amidst the Cold War. Beginning in the 1950s, successful military coups deposed these democratic regimes, many of which remained in power until the end of the Cold War. As a result, immigration policies became restrictive in the 1970s and 1980s. The right-wing regimes limited new arrivals, as foreigners were seen as threats to stability. Some countries, including Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Argentina went so far as to criminalize immi-

gration.5 Interestingly, these countries were still in close cooperation with the ICEM during these periods of authoritarianism. The Committee thus embodied a rare—if not unique—means of immigrating to most South American countries. For instance, between 1970 and 1980, 19,381 European skilled workers were transported under the auspices of the ICEM to Latin America.6 Despite being just a fraction of the total, these 19,000 are still consequential; most were qualified workers in positions of power close to the repressive regimes, such as in universities and major industries. In total, the ICEM moved 362,430 people to Latin America between 1952 and 1987.7

The Creation of the ICEM

Although the ICEM counted superpowers among its member states and contributed to the relocation of millions, it remains understudied. Little research involved postcolonial or decolonial approaches to the ICEM and its successors because of the general belief that international organizations are apolitical and serve, rather than shape, states’ interests. Thus, international organizations are not acting as agents of neocolonialism, but neither are they engines of decolonization.8 Their confusing roles, especially during the Cold War and global decolonization, merit analysis to determine how they impacted states and shaped the world as we know it today. International organizations, such as the ICEM, had and continue to have an agenda of their own. Given the lack of research and resources on the ICEM and its successors, narratives concerning their actions

5 Acosta, 103.

2 Mara Loveman, National Colors: Racial Classification and the State in Latin America (London: Oxford University Press, 2014), 61–71, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199337354.001.0001.

3 Roberto Gargarella, Latin American Constitutionalism, 1810–2010: The Engine Room of the Constitution (London: Oxford University Press, 2013), 85, https://doi. org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199937967.001.0001.

4 Acosta, The National versus the Foreigner, 97–98.

6 ICM, Réalisations 1980, (Geneva: ICM, 1981): 15. Contemporaine, Nanterre, France, F(delta) 2014/3 (13) : Documents Réfugiés.

7 ICM, Réalisations 1986, (Geneva: ICM, 1987): 61. Contemporaine, Nanterre, France, F(delta) 2014/3 (13) : Documents Réfugiés.

8 Eva-Maria Muschik, “Special Issue Introduction: Towards a Global History of International Organizations and Decolonization,” Journal of Global History 17, no. 2 (2022): 190, http://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022822000043.

are significant. For example, the IOM narrates its story in glorious humanitarian terms and masks its colonial and racist practices.9 This “colonial unknowing” obscures the ongoing colonial relationship, as practices are not challenged.10

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Western world was preoccupied with two issues: the expansion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the overpopulation of Europe. Since 1918, ethnic persecution, economic hardship and fascist regimes had displaced many Europeans, including Armenians, Germans, and Spaniards. By the end of the Second World War, eleven million Europeans were displaced.11 The chaos caused by the Second World War exacerbated the need to resettle these people. This phenomenon of displacement generated a sense of overpopulation, which was understood as preventing economic prosperity and social peace.12 In 1946, the United Nations created the International Refugee Organization (IRO), and in 1950, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Their

9 Megan Bradley, “Colonial continuities and colonial unknowing in international migration management: the International Organization for Migration reconsidered,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 49, no. 1 (2023): 25, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2127407.

10 Manu Vimalassery, Juliana Hu Pegues, and Alyosha Goldstein, “Introduction: On Colonial Unknowing,” Theory & Event 19, no. 4 (2016), https://muse.jhu.edu/ article/633283.

11 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organizations, A specialized Agency of the United Nations. Its History and Work 1946–1952 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), 20, quoted in Marianne Ducasse-Rogier, The International Organization for Migration: 1951–2001 (Geneva: IOM, 2001), 11, ProQuest Ebook Central.

12 Yannis Papadopoulos and Nikos Kourachanis, “Overall European Overseas Outflows and Internationally Assisted Movements (1945–1960): Who Was Helped to Move? Where To?” In International Migration Management in the Early Cold War, ed. Lina Venturas (Corinth: University of the Peloponnese, 2015), 145, https://laemiceppac. files.wordpress.com/2019/10/overall-european-outflows-and-icem-assisted-movements-1945-1960-1.pdf.

creation revealed a new multilateral approach to immigration, which was previously administered by countries rather than international actors.13

The US quickly questioned the efficiency of these new structures. Not only were their bureaucratic institutions an obstacle to the moving of people, but the US also wanted to sideline the USSR and gain control of the issue of migration. Indeed, the US opted for the resettlement of displaced people outside of Soviet influence. However, the USSR argued for the repatriation of the refugees to their countries of origin within its sphere.14 Furthermore, the US believed that instability and poverty linked with overcrowding could push Europe under communist influence. Moving people to overseas countries was, therefore, a solution to contain the communist threat and supply the workforce to settler countries. Thus, in 1951, sixteen nations—Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Türkiye, and the US—opted for the creation of PICMME, which quickly became the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM).

The Politics of the Relationship between Latin America and the ICEM A Give and Take

The ICEM promptly defined South America as an adequate destination for European migration. The year after the ICEM’s creation, its director, Hugh Gibson, travelled to South America. He returned with a certainty that Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and “maybe Argenti-

13 Marianne Ducasse-Rogier, The International Organization for Migration: 1951–2001 (Geneva: IOM, 2001): 9–10, ProQuest Ebook Central.

14 Ducasse-Rogier, 14.

na” would fill the ranks of the ICEM.15 According to the French Ambassador to the US, who shared Gibson’s words with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ICEM needed to “give these countries, which lack agricultural manpower, the assurance that Europeans admitted as farmers will not, a few years later, turn to urban activities.”16 According to the ICM 1987 report, there were more than 362,430 people who departed to Latin America under the auspices of the organization between 1952 and 1987, which represents more than a third of the total number of settlers who used the ICEM’s services.17 Programs from Europe to South America were framed as reciprocal. Indeed, Europe was overcrowded and faced massive unemployment. For instance, Malta’s population was highly concentrated, with 2,000 people per square kilometre in 1962.18 At the same time, South America needed a labour force to accelerate the agricultural and industrial sectors.

Land settlement programs were considered an optimal solution to relocate Europeans arriving in Latin America in 1953 but were just getting

15 Henri Bonnet to Robert Schuman, telegram, October 1, 1952, Archives Diplomatiques, Affaires Étrangères (La Courneuve), 12QO/219: Cabinet du Ministre, Maurice Couve de Murville (1958–1968), «peut-être l’Argentine.»

16 Henri Bonnet to Robert Schuman, telegram, October 1, 1952, Archives Diplomatiques, Affaires Étrangères (La Courneuve), 12QO/219: Cabinet du Ministre, Maurice Couve de Murville (1958–1968), «La difficulté la plus sérieuse à surmonter pour que cet intérêt se traduise en résultats concrets lui paraît être de pouvoir donner à ces pays, qui manquent de main-d’œuvre agricole, l’assurance que les Européens admis en qualité d’agriculteurs, ne s’orienteront pas, quelques années plus tard, vers des activités urbaines.»

17 ICM, Réalisations 1986, 61. Contemporaine, Nanterre, France, F(delta) 2014/3 (13) : Documents Réfugiés, «population comprend près de 350.000 habitants répartis sur une superficie de 176 km2, soit une densité de quelques 2.000 personnes par kilomètres carré.»

18 ICEM, “Press Release, November 12, 1962,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1957–1964).

started in 1958, according to Ducasse-Rogier.19 Latin American countries and the US saw these programs as an opportunity for intervention and pushed them forward. In October 1955, the US claimed it was ready to invest in Latin America through agricultural settlement. It is worth noting that “agricultural colonization” often replaced “settlement,” hinting at the colonial intentions of the ICEM in the sub-continent. In May 1955, George Warren, the US Representative to ICEM, explained that, for the US, the ICEM was meant “to serve as a catalyst, a stimulant; to give advice, technical information, but not to create and administer an international fund for agricultural colonization.”20 The ICEM was imagined as an intermediary between countries—in this case, from Europe to Latin America. However, in October 1956, an ICEM press release revealed that Francis E. Walter, the US delegate, claimed that the Congress had voted for agricultural colonization in Latin America.21 Interestingly, the delegate also claimed that the settlement initiative must originate from Latin American countries and receive support from the ICEM; however, the US did not have the authority to develop such plans. According to him, “The ICEM will be able to assist and advise both the receiving and the sending countries on technical matters and will be a sort of centralizing body that will receive the agricultural colonization projects.”22 Seeing that the US was the biggest sponsor of the ICEM, the organization, by extension, served as one of its tools to shape, manage, and control the migration flux in South America. The notion of the ICEM as

19 Ducasse-Rogier, The International Organization for Migration, 34.

20 ICEM, “Press release, May 3, 1955,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1952–1956), «servir de cataliseur, de stimulant; donner des conseils, des informations techniques, mais non-point de créer et d’administer un fonds international destiné à la colonisation Agricole.»

21 ICEM, “Press Release, October 3, 1956,” BNF, 4-GW821 (1952–1956).

22 ICEM, “Press Release, October 3, 1956,” BNF, 4-GW821 (1952–1956).

a Western neocolonial tool began to take shape.

Migration as Development

European migration officially shifted in 1960 when it became associated with development. During this time, South American countries began seeking a qualified labour force. For instance, in 1959, Alfredo R. Vitolo, the Argentinian Interior Minister, argued that his government needed a skilled workforce to stimulate its stagnated economy.23 Between 1952 and 1959, Argentina received more than 100,000 European migrants via the ICEM, highlighting a shift in migration management. This new vision moved away from the original aim of the ICEM, which was about resettling the surplus of the European population. Not every ICEM member appreciated this emphasis on a qualified labour force. Denmark, Israel, and Norway thought that the ICEM existed primarily to resettle European refugees, which justified their membership to the organization in the first place.24 The ICEM’s departure from its original purpose led Sweden to leave the agency in 1961 and concentrate on other forms of refugee aid.25

The changing conditions in the two regions encouraged the ICEM to develop new policy guidelines. While Europe experienced rapid economic growth during its reconstruction period, South America’s economy stagnated. Thus, the Council opted to provide technical assistance to the immigration administration in Latin America to increase the movement of qualified European workers. This new immigration framework emerged in South American countries because they were less reluctant to welcome European settlers than newly independent African and Asian countries aiming to emancipate them-

23 ICEM, “Press Release, November 17, 1959,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1957–1964).

24 ICEM, “Press Release, April 12, 1962,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1957–1964).

25 ICEM, “Press Release, May 17, 1961,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1957–1964).

selves from European rule.26 This dynamic was fructified in 1964 after the ICEM launched the Selective Migration program, which targeted the needs of the workforce in South America and provided assistance for placement services.27 The program succeeded in the following years, achieving and quickly outpacing its annual target of 1,000 skilled workers sent to the continent by 1967. During the 1960s and 1970s, the ICEM transported 25,114 specialized workers.28

From Land to Political Settlement An American Design

The ICEM activities primarily aligned with US foreign policy, which financed half of the organization.29 The new organization used the fleet of the IRO, which ceased its activities in 1952. Out of the sixteen first ships used by PICMME, the US Army owned five and the US Navy another five.30 The ICEM seemed to be driven similarly to a business, attempting to satisfy both the demand and supply of labour rather than fulfilling its original purpose of resettling Europeans after the war. Because of the significant US contribution to the ICEM, the organization’s director was often a US diplomat. Even non-American directors had affinities toward US foreign policy, such as Dr. Bastiaan Wouter Haveman, who remained in office from 1962 to 1969. Prior to serving as the director, Dr. Haveman authored a memorandum that shared similarities with one written by President John F. Kennedy, both discussing the importance of economic growth and migration in Latin America, highlighting

26 Ducasse-Rogier, The International Organization for Migration, 47.

27 Ducasse-Rogier, 49.

28 Ducasse-Rogier, 51.

29 Emmanuel Comte. “Waging the Cold War: the origins and launch of Western cooperation to absorb migrants from Eastern Europe, 1948–57,” Cold War History 20, no. 4 (2020): 461–481, https://doi.org/10.1080/14682745.2020 .1756781.

30 Comte, 473.

their interdependence and mutually reinforcing nature. An ICEM press release highlights President Kennedy’s concern over the ICEM’s job in South America, citing the President as writing that “a major priority should also be given to colonization projects and the development of agricultural land in Latin America.”31 This rhetorical shift concerning European migration to South America was not out of benevolence regarding accelerating development and improving living conditions. Rather, due to Europe’s economic improvement, the West believed that it was less likely to fall to the communist threat. Meanwhile, South America was suffering from economic stagnation. In the eyes of the US and their allies, this stagnation made the continent “easy prey” for communist countries. ICEM Director Marcus Daly (1958 – 1961) declared that:

Latin America, which is currently at the most critical point of its development, needs skilled labour—trained and qualified European immigrants—to raise its national technical level. Without this base, the benefits expected from foreign capital investment in Latin America will not be achieved.32

These activities underscored the vision that migration was not only a tool to stimulate growth in developing countries but would also benefit foreign economies, including the US. Importantly, in the 1960s, the US State Department’s interests were

31 ICEM, “Press Release, October 24, 1961,” BNF, 4-GW821 (1957–1964), «Le Président des États-Unis écrit: ‘une priorité majeure devrait être aussi accordée aux projets de colonisation et à la mise en valeur des terres agricoles en Amérique Latine.’»

32 ICEM, “Press Release, December 7, 1960,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1957–1964), «l’Amérique Latine, qui se trouve actuellement au point le plus critique de son développement, a besoin de main-d’œuvre qualifiée - immigrants européens formés et qualifiés- afin d’élever son niveau technique national. Sans cette base, a-t-il ajouté, les bénéfices espérés grâce à l’investissement de capitaux étrangers en Amérique Latine ne pourront pas être obtenus.»

so entangled with American corporations that Latin Americans hardly made the distinction between the US political and economic activities.33

Interestingly, this invisible line could also be found in the US and the ICEM’s relationship. The organization’s policies responded to the superpower’s agenda, which instated its pawns as directors. Thus, in the context of the Cold War, most South American countries’ membership in the ICEM established their position within the Western bloc. It also highlighted the agreement that the migrants would align themselves with a liberal ideology. More importantly, the specialized workers arriving in Latin America were meant to occupy positions of power with anti-communist and pro-US influence. In the following years, the ICEM provided the sub-continent with skilled labourers, such as teachers and administrators, within the framework of Technical Co-operation with Latin America. The ICEM focused so much on the public servant category that, by 1980, it represented the number one socio-professional category moving from Europe to Latin America—49% of migrants were university professors.34 The Selective Migration Programme aimed at bringing these qualified workers to South America to “promote in a pragmatic way the economic and social development of the countries that benefit from their services.”35 This perfectly aligned with the right-wing dictatorships’ vision of modernizing the continent.

The US-backed ICEM also aimed to shape Latin America’s political destiny. Documents on the implications of the ICEM in sustaining

33 H. A. Holley, “Latin America in the 1960s,” Bulletin of the Society for Latin American Studies, no. 13 (1971): 40, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44746668.

34 ICM, Réalisations 1980, 15.

35 ICEM, “Press Release, May 4, 1976,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1968–1979), «favoriser de manière pragmatique le développement économique et social des pays qui bénéficient de leurs services.»

right-wing authoritarian regimes in Latin America are difficult—in truth, nearly impossible—to find. The IOM’s ancestor is under-documented, and one must rely on the organization’s chosen words. It is, therefore, a complicated task to find critical opinions on these matters. However, an ICEM press release from August 1961 reveals that “Mr. Daly drew attention to the fact that European migrants not only make a dynamic contribution to development from an economic point of view but ‘constitute a stable, conservative and democratic element from a social point of view, which is inherently resistant to political and disruptive conceptions.’”36 These words confirm that the ICEM had other prerogatives than purely economic ones and had an active role in designing South American countries according to Western liberal standards.

The election of President Kennedy coincided with the advent of the “political settlement,” which clarified the West’s aim regarding rural settlement in South America.37 Indeed, Dr. Haveman proposed another way of integrating migrants. The director provided payment for small groups of European migrants to settle alongside locals in farming communities, in which the former would teach the latter about their knowledge and skills.38 Migrants would be selected for the trip based on their work skills. However, one of Dr. Haveman’s goals was to “rapidly create a middle class of farmers in Latin American countries where the

agrarian population is politically vulnerable.”39 Not only does this reveal the pursuit of colonization in a theoretically independent region, but it also portrays the will to politically shape the sub-continent in favour of the West. Indeed, migrants were not only selected based on the mastery of their work but on their political affiliations. Forty-five such projects were proposed the day after this statement was issued.40 Dr. Haveman quoted President Kennedy in describing these projects, arguing that their main goal was to form the local population through skilled migration. Still, these projects had underlying political goals.

The Impact of Foreign Decolonization in Latin America

The 1960s also saw a rapprochement between South America and Southern Africa. Indeed, both subcontinents self-identified as barriers against communism within their respective regions. For instance, Argentinean general and geopolitical scientist Alberto Marini pushed for establishing an alliance with South Africa in case Europe fell into communism.41 Argentina saw itself as a potential final rampart to communism. The military regime globally supported South Africa and its apartheid system, explaining why Argentina increased its contacts with South Africa after the 1976 coup.42 Argentina’s Armada immigration policy focused on the idea that it needed a skilled white population of European descent to create settlements in depopulated areas.43 The migration needed by the Armada completely subscribed

36 ICEM, “Press Release, August 16, 1961,” BNF, 4-GW821 (1957–1964), «Mr. Daly a attiré l’attention sur le fait que les migrants européens non seulement apportent, du point de vue économique, une contribution dynamique au développement, mais “constituent du point de vue social, un élément stable, conservateur et démocratique, qui résiste par nature aux conceptions politiques et disruptives.»

37 ICEM, “Press Release, August 16, 1961,” BNF, 4-GW821 (1957–1964).

38 ICEM, “Press Release, November 13, 1962,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1957–1964).

39 ICEM, “Press Release, November 13, 1962,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1957–1964), «créer rapidement une classe moyenne d’agriculteurs dans les pays d’Amérique Latine où la population agraire est politiquement vulnerable.»

40 ICEM, “Press Release, November 14, 1962,” BNF, 4-GW-821 (1957–1964).

41 Juan Carlos Moneta, “La Inmigracíon Blanca Desde Sudáfrica al Cono Sur Latinoamericano: Su Dimensión Social y Política,” Estudios de Asia y Africa 16, no. 3 (49) (1981): 402, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40312034.

42 Moneta, 404. 43 Moneta, 404.

itself to the ICEM work. Brazil was also close to South Africa between 1964 and 1972. While distancing itself from newly independent African nations, Brazil became closer with South Africa over its fight against communism and desire to spread occidental ideals.44 Though Brazil refused to make formal agreements to avoid international criticism, it maintained contact with South Africa, enabling the pursuit of economic and politico-military links. General Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled over Paraguay for thirty-five years, also pushed for the welcoming of skilled South Africans.

The South American press supported this alliance with South Africa. The Argentinean newspaper Nación praised South Africa as a “masterpiece” for the West and presented the country as a significant player in the fight against communism.45 The newspaper also argued that Argentina should lead in changing other countries’ communist tendencies. The Uruguayan newspapers El País and La Maraña supported an alliance with South Africa, going so far as to praise the Apartheid system. Indeed, these publications argued that the divisive system was a noble endeavour by the white minority seeking to improve the livelihood of the Black majority. The newspapers’ arguments subscribed to the larger picture of fighting the “Marxist insurgence.”46

Nevertheless, the ICEM played a role in shaping the relationship between Africa and South America. One example of this is the ICEM programs that aimed to relocate white settlers from newly independent African nations to South America. In 1961, uprisings in Algeria and the Republic of the Congo forced France and Bel-

44 Anani Dzidzienyo, and L. Michael Turner, “Relaciones Entre África y Brasil: Una Reconsideración,” Estudios de Asia y Africa 16, no. 4 (50) (1981): 654, http://www.jstor. org/stable/40312060.

45 Moneta, “La Inmigracíon Blanca Desde Sudáfrica,” 402.

46 La Maraña, 7/8/77, quoted in Moneta, 402.

gium to seek assistance to extract their nationals. The then-French delegate approached the ICEM and required the organization’s help “only with the express approval of the French government.”47 Argentina welcomed these “French ousted out of Algeria.”48 That same year, the twenty-nine-member Committee unanimously voted to supply assistance for the resettlement of national Belgians “who had fled from the Congo.”49 Not only did Argentina declare that it would issue a special decree to favour their entry during this meeting, but South Africa also revealed that it had already provided assistance to Belgians and was willing to receive more.50

In April 1975, the ICEM political migration scheme revealed itself in an even brighter light. General Hugo Banzer Suarez, the Bolivian dictator who participated in Operation Condor— alongside Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay—began talks with the ICEM in Geneva. The organization and Bolivia agreed to assist in the moving of the “retornados”—Portuguese settlers forced to leave Angola after the nation achieved independence.51 A delegation of retornados visited Bolivia and the places intended for them. The plan, designed by the ICEM, eventually failed because of backlash in Bolivia and internationally.52 Nevertheless, according to representatives from Bolivia in Geneva and South 47 ICEM. “Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration.” International Organization 16, no. 3 (1962): 663.

48 ICEM, 663.

49 ICEM. “Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration.” International Organization 15, no. 1 (1961): 207.

50 ICEM, 208.

51 Armand Mattelart and Michèle Mattelart, “Les colons de l’apartheid,” Le Monde Diplomatique, September 1977, https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1977/09/MATTELART/34407.

52 Daniel Waksman Schinca, “El eje entre Sudáfrica y el Cono Sur Americano,” Nueva Sociedad 39, (1978): 103, https://static.nuso.org/media/articles/downloads/491_1. pdf.

Africa at the end of this meeting, “the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and France are said to have agreed to set up a $2 billion fund to compensate whites who would ‘leave Rhodesia, where they will not be able to resist total Africanization, as there are only 265,000 of them against a majority of six million blacks.”’53 These words were said in the context of increasing racial tensions in Namibia, Rhodesia, and South Africa. Latin America planned to welcome 30,000 families or 150,000 people. Argentina and Uruguay accepted the proposition, and Brazil declared that it would only receive 2,000 experts in sciences and technology. Bolivia placed itself as the leading receiving country and claimed it was ready to begin the program with 5,000 families as of March 1977.54 The government was expected to build housing, schools, and hospitals for these arrivals.55

These discussions never came to fruition, and internal and international pressures forced the Bolivian dictator to step back. Still, these talks reflected the collective desire of the ICEM and the dictatorships in South America and Southern Africa to assist the migration of white settlers. Even though the plan failed, white Rhodesians and South Africans were gladly welcomed in South America. These arrivals were necessary for the ICEM because they contributed to bringing people with the liberal political mindset praised by its directors. Because these newcomers were wealthy, conservative, and skilled labourers, they fit into the military regimes of the Southern Cone. El País even claimed that “white South Africans, like Rhodesians, have a perfect right

53 Mattelart and Mattelart, “Les colons de l’apartheid,”«quitteraient la Rhodésie, où ils ne pourront résister à l’africanisation totale, vu qu’ils ne sont que deux cent soixante-cinq mille contre une majorité de six millions de Noirs.»

54 Moneta, “La Inmigracíon Blanca Desde Sudáfrica,” 411.

55 Mattelart and Mattelart, “Les colons de l’apartheid.”

to something as sacred as the defence of their homeland and nationality, not resigning themselves to the terrible fate of persecution, dispossession and extermination reserved for the rest of the inhabitants of the former African colonies.”56

The impact of white settlers on South American right-wing dictatorships was not only technological but also political. In 1971, wealthy German immigrants played a role in the overthrow of Bolivian General Juan José Torres. They supported General Suarez, who then began discussions with the ICEM to import white settlers from Rhodesia into Bolivia.57 German migrants also played a crucial role in southern Chile prior to the 1973 coup. The death squad Alianza Anticomunista Argentina, the infamous Triple A responsible for up to 2,000 killings during the dictatorial regime according to the 1986 Argentinian Truth Commission, was composed of right-wing members of European descent.58 The ICEM’s methodology regarding its activities in South America was also ambiguous regarding political refugees. Even though it intervened in Latin America to assist in the moving of political dissidents, the rhetoric of the ICEM highlights the political bias regarding the nature of this moving:

In Latin America, ICEM continues the program from Chile, which includes prisoners who can be released on condition that they emigrate. This program is a unique demonstration of international solidarity and mutual aid, as fifty countries have received displaced persons from

56 Schinca, “El eje entre Sudáfrica y el Cono,” 104, “los blancos sudafricanos, como los rhodesianos, tienen perfecto derecho a algo tan sagrado como la defensa de su patria y de su nacionalidad, no resignándose al terrible destino de persecución, de despojo y de exterminio reservado al resto de los habitantes de las ex-colonias africanas.”

57 Mattelart and Mattelart, “Les colons de l’apartheid.”

58 “Truth commission: Argentina,” United States Institute of Peace, December 16, 1983, accessed November 18, 2022, https://www.usip.org/publications/1983/12/ truth-commission-argentina.

By referring to the political refugees as “displaced persons,” the ICEM obscured the agency of the Chilean right-wing dictatorship and prevented accountability. This population movement, largely facilitated by the ICEM, certainly contributed to shaping and strengthening the Southern Cones authoritarian regimes that claimed the lives of thousands of people.

Conclusion

From the XIXth century, South American countries had a complex and changing migration history, opening their borders depending on their labour force needs or internal politics. Selectivity in migration policies based on race, ethnicity, and ideology increased when South American countries cooperated with the ICEM. The Selective Migration (SM) program in the 1960s officially promoted the arrival of skilled migrants who could contribute to the subcontinent’s economic development and political alignment..

The ICEM was a tool of the West in the Cold War, responding to a Western agenda, sidelining communist countries, and promoting liberal values. The organization not only deliberately selected people based on their labour skills, but also chose its participants based on their political alignments. The European white settlers who were moved out of newly independent African nations or Europe to Latin America played by the ICEM’s liberal rules, which helped maintain the Southern Cone right-wing dictatorships. These settlers were expected to share their labour

59 ICEM, “Press Release, November 16, 1977,” Contemporaine, F(delta) 2014/3 (13) : Documents Réfugiés, «En Amérique Latine, le CIME poursuit le programme au départ du Chili, qui comprend des prisonniers susceptibles d’être libérés à condition d’émigrer. Ce programme constitue une démonstration unique de solidarité et d’entraide internationale, puisque cinquante pays ont accueilli des personnes déplacées du Chili.»

skills and liberal values with South Americans. Despite their small numbers, these specialized workers occupied positions of power in their countries of arrival and contributed to the legitimacy and functioning of the oppressive regimes.

While the extent of the ICEM’s influence on the liberal political destiny of South America may be questioned, it was still an influential actor in the sub-continent. This paper questions the legitimacy of international organizations’ operations during the Cold War and global decolonization and the extent of their interference within authoritarian regimes. It also interrogates whether these organizations continue to operate for the interests of the migrants and receiving countries. The ongoing impact of descendants of the European migrants transported by the ICEM between the 1950s and 1980s is also up for debate, considering that their families were privileged over the local population.

This paper also questions the role of the modern IOM in regulating global migrations and its past actions in South America and decolonizing Africa. The organization joined the UN’s body in 2016 and continues to be under-reviewed, obscuring whether its selective political migration efforts continue. The full disclosure of the IOM’s past actions in South America and decolonizing Africa appears essential to the credibility of its future actions, for history to avoid repeating itself, and for the victims’ memoirs. It is now clear that the idea of “migration” endorsed by the ICEM in Latin America during the Cold War was closely linked to neo-colonization, reinforcing and endorsing South American dictatorships.

Acknowledgments

I thank Professor Megan Bradley for her trust, guidance, and insightful advice throughout this research.

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Humanizing the Refugee Experience: How Experimental Ethnographic Films Challenge

Mainstream Representations

by: Sophia Nemeth Abstract

The dehumanizing representation of refugees in mainstream media remains a problematic result of documenting the so-called “crises” of migration that drive anti-refugee rhetoric and policies. This paper contends that experimental ethnographic films offer a counter-narrative to humanize the imagination of refugees and foster empathy, challenging biases and harmful stereotypes. Using a comparative approach, this paper analyses two categories of films with corresponding case studies: autoethnography, represented by Purple Sea (2020), and animation, represented by Flee (2021). Through an analysis of film methodology, This paper will argue that these experimental ethnographic films achieve a level of intimacy between the storyteller and the viewer that is lost in other forms of ethnography and purposefully ignored by journalists. These findings also highlight the limitations of academic ethnographic practices in film; they reveal the institutional and physical barriers enacted by the nation-state system that manifests as a ‘refugee regime’ and create a status quo of political exclusion.

Résumé

La représentation déshumanisante des réfugiés dans les grands médias reste un résultat problématique de la documentation des soi-disant “crises” de la migration qui alimentent la rhétorique et les politiques anti-réfugiés. Cet article soutient que les films ethnographiques expérimentaux offrent un discours alternatif qui humanise l’imagination des réfugiés et favorise l’empathie en remettant en question les préjugés et les stéréotypes nuisibles. En utilisant une approche comparative, cet article analyse deux catégories de films avec des études de cas correspondantes : l’auto-ethnographie, représentée par Purple Sea (2020), et l’animation, représentée par Flee (2021). À travers une analyse de la méthodologie cinématographique, ces films ethnographiques expérimentaux atteignent un niveau d’intimité entre le conteur.rice et le spectateur.rice qui est perdu dans d’autres formes d’ethnographie et volontairement ignoré par les journalistes. De même, ces résultats soulignent les limites des pratiques ethnographiques académiques dans le domaine du cinéma ; ils révèlent les barrières institutionnelles et physiques promulguées par le système de l’État-nation qui se manifestent sous la forme d’un “régime de réfugiés” et créent un statu quo d’exclusion politique.

Introduction

The portrayal of refugees in mainstream media is overwhelmingly dehumanizing. As a result, the widespread consumption of articles, film, and photography depicting refugees degrades individuals through the massification and victimization of their stories. Conversely, experimental films have the power to individualize these experiences of forced displacement and synthesize a particular emotional reaction from the audience. For example, they can utilize innovative methods to represent memories in the film’s ethnographic storytelling, such as jarring cinematography, unscripted footage, and animation. This essay will argue that experimental ethnographic film is an important tool for humanizing the refugee experience and fostering empathy. This paper will first introduce the issue of refugee stereotypes in media, followed by an exploration of two categories of experimental ethnographic films using two case studies. The first case study is the film Purple Sea (2020), in the category of autoethnography. The second is the film Flee (2021) which represents the animation category. Finally, I will compare these categories, seeking to understand how different documentary film styles uniquely report the refugee experience. I will further consider the strengths and limitations of documentary film as an ethnographic tool.

Contextualizing Mainstream Discourse of Forced Migration

Smets et al. state that anti-refugee rhetoric can consistently be traced back to two main stereotypes that circulate mainstream media: “the refugee as a (political, economic, religious or cultural) threat, and the refugee as a victim.”1 On the

1 Kevin Smets et al., “Beyond Victimhood: Reflecting on Migrant-Victim Representations with Afghan, Iraqi, and Syrian Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Belgium,” in Images of Immigrants and Refugees in Western Europe, eds. Leen d’Haenens, Willem Joris, and François Heinderyck (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2019), 178, http://doi. org/10.1353/book.65934.

one hand, the first stereotype justifies exclusionary immigration policy, presented as a political response to appease xenophobic and nationalist concerns about security and the financial burden associated with refugees. On the other hand, victimization misplaces blame on individual helplessness rather than recognizing the institutional mechanisms that perpetuate refugeehood. Equally, this stereotype disregards the positive value refugees bring to society—a contribution constantly undermined as they navigate the “refugee regime.”2 While it is imperative to acknowledge the physical, emotional, and bureaucratic traumas experienced by non-citizens, ignoring their immense perseverance, bravery, and agency only reinforces the dehumanizing stereotype associated with refugees. As such, these stereotypes respectively reinforce a binary between the “good” and the “bad” refugee, thus measuring who is “deserving” or “undeserving” of support. In turn, the good and consequently “‘real’... refugee is the one who can prove their suffering and capitalize on victimhood,” at the great cost of losing their dignity and value in society.3

With this background in mind, experimental film can be an empowering juxtaposition and counter-discourse to the mainstream narratives and images that have permeated media and public opinion. As an anthropological tool, film is not incongruent with written ethnography but instead serves to represent the “interpretive complexities” that the field aspires to understand.4 As this essay proceeds, it is important to critically ex-

2 Alexander Betts, “The Normative Terrain of the Global Refugee Regime,” Ethics & International Affairs 29, no. 4 (2015): 363–75, https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0892679415000350. The “refugee regime” refers to “the rules, norms, principles, and decision-making procedures that govern states’ responses to refugees.”

3 Smets et al., “Beyond Victimhood,” 184.

4 David MacDougall et al., “Radically Empirical Documentary: An Interview with David and Judith MacDougall,” Film Quarterly 54, no. 2 (2000): 6, https://doi. org/10.2307/1213624.

plore the methodology and theories of narrative construction and storytelling. Particularly, Cheryl Mattingly and Mary Lawlor pose the questions, “[w]hat can stories teach us about the experiences and beliefs of others” and “[w]hy might a researcher want to elicit and analyze stories?”5 Here, it is equally crucial to consider the limitations of storytelling—an activity that is facilitated in an extractive nature and constructed through biases that often drive harmful stereotypes.

Autoethnography

Purple Sea (2020) is an autoethnographic and experiential film about Syrian refugees waiting to be rescued after their boat sinks off the coast of Lesbos; the film serves as a case study to exemplify how ethnographic film is an important tool to humanize the stories of refugees. The use of the word autoethnography emerged from anthropologist Karl G. Heider’s use of “autochthonous,” referring to the researcher’s own account of an event or experience.6 Following this, Stanley Brandes’ description of a new genre called “anthropological autobiography” emerged in the 1980s to refer to the case in which the researcher is the subject of their work.7 This reflects the creative vision of Purple Sea, where artist and co-director Amel Alzakout documents her experience through a GoPro camera on her wrist.8

5 Cheryl Mattingly and Mary Lawlor, “Learning from Stories: Narrative Interviewing in Cross-Cultural Research,” Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy 7, no. 1 (2000): 4, https://doi.org/10.1080/110381200443571.

6 Karl Heider, “What Do People Do? Dani Auto-Ethnography,” Journal of Anthropological Research 31, no. 1 (1975): 3, quoted in Deborah Reed-Danahay, Auto/ ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social (London: Routledge, 1997), 4.

7 Stanley Brandes, “Ethnographic Autobiographies in American Anthropology,” Central Issues in Anthropology 1, no. 2 (1979): 13, https://doi.org/10.1525/cia.1979.1.2.1, quoted in Deborah Reed-Danahay, Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social (London: Routledge, 1997), 6.

8 Purple Sea, directed by Amel Alzakout and Khaled Abdulwahed (2020; Berlin, DE: Lightdox, 2021), Digital.

This film is characterized by the prolonged discomfort and embodied experience it evokes for the viewer. The chaos of the moment is captured through the disorientation of the handheld cinematography and the jarring audio of the unbalanced sound design as the GoPro camera bobs in and out of the water. Since most people experiencing displacement and forced migration are unable to record and document their journeys, it is common for ethnographic researchers and mainstream media to represent memories after the fact. In Purple Sea, then, it is exceptional that viewers can have a first-hand experience of the story through unscripted and real footage. The film’s style couples the qualities of observational and participatory cinema in that the subject is not talking to the camera but rather the camera watches the subject; yet, at the same time, the ethnographer is engaging “with the world of their subject” because they are themself the subject.9 The transcendence of boundaries between ethnographer and subject allows the filmmaker’s positionality to represent an organic narrative, rendering the strengths of this film its subjectivity and the empowerment that it reflects. For Amel to take both these roles as the filmmaker and subject allows for a natural authority over her own story, away from external influences that aim to produce a stereotypical narrative.

Additionally, the filmmaker does not directly show her face throughout the film. This invites comparison to images of refugees in mainstream media whose faces are displayed without any context or identity, as well as a consideration for why there is a common expectation for refugees to be recorded in vulnerable positions in the news. To what extent are these images superficially exploitative and thus to blame for the fear that circulates anti-refugee rhetoric? In this sense, through Amel’s self-agency to represent herself and her

9 MacDougall et al., “Radically Empirical Documentary,” 4.

own story, Purple Sea offers a counter-narrative to this perception. Furthermore, Amel is not framed as a victim but as an active participant in a challenging position, allowing the film’s nuance and vulnerability to avoid the consequences of mainstream discourse that erase individual narratives concerning why people cross the Mediterranean. This way, the refugee is empowered to show the bravery associated with taking such a risky voyage for a chance at safety—a quality that should be valued and welcomed. The visuals of Purple Sea that individualize Amel’s experience could inspire the viewer to reflect on their own willingness to make such a journey if they were in the same shoes. This connection fosters empathy.

Thus, as an autoethnographic piece of work, this film provides a unique insight that not only engages the ethnographer with the “world of their subjects” but also as the subject themself.10 These techniques oppose the traditional standards of anthropological research that reject subjectivity and invite a consideration for the empowerment of self-storytelling. As an autoethnographic film, Purple Sea elicits a unique experience of inviting an outsider into a moment of spatial and institutional exclusion. Nour, a refugee from Afghanistan, advocates for the importance of showing “more realistic and sometimes harsh visual representations” because they “might not only stimulate empathy but provoke real change.”11 In this way, the discomfort experienced by the consumer of the media provides an insight into the harsh realities of the refugee experience, yet, at the same time, fosters respect for perseverance. Sitting with such discomfort, the viewer is invited to move past political debates surrounding the topic of refugeehood to instead make an empathetic connection to the subjects and consider both their agency and hardships.

Considering the Inaccessibility of Autoethnography

Before delving into animation as the next category, it is important to consider how the accessibility of autoethnography is affected by the instabilities faced by refugees. The marginalization of displaced peoples can manifest through surveillance and control mechanisms, decreasing one’s ability to document and share a self-represented version of their experiences. Displaced Palestinians in Gaza who have restricted access to the internet and Afghan refugees who are unable to record their experiences due to the inaccessibility of a recording device or the danger of the journey itself exemplify this struggle.12 As such, ethnographic films can curate what is “remembered and forgotten” years after the moments have passed.13 Having empathetic and nuanced stories when dealing with such complicated and inaccessible narratives can mean the difference between humanizing someone the viewer has never met or believing the stereotypes that posit refugees as people to be pitied or feared.

Animation

Scholarship on animated documentaries explores how the ontological differences and implications between animation and live action can impact the representation of factual narratives.14 On the one hand, some scholars, such as Paul Ward, characterize this style of documentary as having an “‘interactive’ mode” because of the participation

12 Helga Tawil-Souri, “Digital Occupation: Gaza’s HighTech Enclosure,” Journal of Palestine Studies 41, no. 2 (2012): 27–43, https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2012.XLI.2.27; Flee, directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen (2021; Park City, UT: Neon and Participant, 2021), Digital.

13 Diana Allan, “The Politics of Witness: Remembering and Forgetting 1948 in Shatila Camp,” in Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, eds. Sa’di H. Ahmad and Lila Abu-Lughod (New York, Columbia University Press, 2007), 254, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/ sadi13578.17.

10 MacDougall et al., 4.

11 Smets et al., “Beyond Victimhood,” 189.

14 Annabelle H. Roe, Animated Documentary, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 2, https://doi. org/10.1057/9781137017468.

of the documentary subject in the development of the film.15 On the other hand, scholars such as Sybil DelGaudio assert that through the “metacommentary” that is derived from “adopting animation as a medium of representation,” animated documentaries use a “‘reflexive’ mode.”16 Alternatively, Bill Nichols considers the style to be a “‘performative’ mode” in that the authenticity of the memory and story being represented is limited by the subjective construction of the documentary narrative––that is, animation constitutes a performance rather than an accurate ethnographic retelling of experience.17 Roe, however, argues that perceiving animated documentaries as performative “threatens to limit our understanding of the form.” She encourages a nuanced consideration of the dynamics that contribute to this style.18 As such, this audio-visual expression is a powerful tool for telling stories and explaining ideas through the amalgamation of moving images and sound.19 Arguably, the use of animation is extremely beneficial in representing stories of displacement and the refugee experience because of its ability to transcend the limitations of audio interviews that demand an imagination of the accounts of the subject. In this sense, it could be argued that audio or written accounts of interviews, either in an academic or journalistic setting, encourage a construction of the imaginary that is subjective to the consum-

15 Paul Ward, Documentary: The Margins of Reality (London: Wallflower, 2005), quoted in Annabelle H. Roe, Animated Documentary (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 18.

16 DelGaudio, “If Truth Be Told, Can ‘toons Tell It? Documentary and Animation,” Film History 9, no. 2 (1997): 192, quoted in Annabelle H. Roe, Animated Documentary (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 18; Roe, Animated Documentary, 18.

17 Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 131, quoted in Annabelle H. Roe, Animated Documentary (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 18.

18 Roe, Animated Documentary, 19.

19 Andrew Selby, Animation (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2013), 1, Credo Reference.

er and risks inaccurate or biased associations. In contrast to the autoethnographic style of Purple Sea, Flee (2021) is a film of personal history that uses animation as an “archaeological tool to visually access the past during an interview.”20 The film is most characteristic of an expository documentary style due to its planned animation and sections of scripted narratives.21 At its core, the film documents a verbal interview about the life of Amin Nawabi. His story could not be told previously because of the instability of his journey, maintaining his safety thereafter, and the emotional trauma caused by his experience as a refugee.

The film highlights the pain and beauty of the human experience. By watching Amin struggle to recite his story, the viewer understands how layers of trauma have resulted in an emotional suppression not shared with anyone, including his life partner, until the creation of this film years later. Similar to the jarring cinematography in Purple Sea, the animation in Flee has the unique ability to transport the viewer into a claustrophobic space. For example, as Amin recounts the story of being stuffed below board with other refugees on a cramped fishing boat, the protagonist’s stress is palpable as the boat starts to fill with water, and the people force themselves onto the deck. They wave and scream at a cruise ship in hopeful anticipation of their rescue but are instead faced with the cameras of tourists taking photographs. The viewer is encouraged to feel their heart sink along with Amin’s as they realize their helpless position, supported by the voice of the captain who explains that he has called the coastguard and that refugees will be returned to Russia.22 Notably, in the context of representing the refugee experience, the viewer is encouraged to empathize with the immense effort it has taken to attempt

20 Roe, Animated Documentary, 15.

21 MacDougall et al., “Radically Empirical Documentary,” 4.

22 Flee.

this dangerous trip and the absolute devastation of being returned to a country where they have no legal documents and are abused by the police.

In the context of forced migration, refugees rarely have the ability or the safety to document and tell their own stories; however, this does not mean their experiences should be lost forever or represented through extractive and victimizing narratives. Films like Flee highlight the importance of documenting and examining the unprecedented structural and societal barriers experienced by refugees. In one scene, Amin recounts his family’s escape from Afghanistan and the multiple attempts to seek asylum in Europe while being undocumented and stuck in Russia. Human traffickers had Amin fake his identity to get on a flight to Denmark, where he destroyed the evidence of the counterfeit Russian passport that allowed him to travel to seek asylum.23 The animation brings Amin’s struggles to light for viewers who have not been forced to exhaust personal resources to navigate the institutional exclusion from the nation-state system. While Amel in Purple Sea could record herself on her GoPro, this was not feasible for Amin.

Flee’s unique value lies in how the style of experimental cinema juxtaposes the flowing narrative of an interview through a visual representation of the protagonist’s experiences by animating memories. Esther Leslie describes the use of photography to represent memory as having the ability to “provide direct access to the past” due to the “indexical relationship between image and the pro-filmic.”24 In this sense, the film can provide the viewer with a visual context to the story they are retelling. The medium of animation thus becomes an aesthetic approach to make important memories permanent for the

collective consciousness.25 By facilitating this connection to an experience of the protagonist the animated moment can be reflected upon and internalized by the viewer and society at large.

Flee therefore invalidates the standards of ethnographic research through the subjective construction of Amin’s past by the interviewer who drove the questions and the production team that created the animation and scripted the additional characters. This, however, is not the point. The value of animation is the ability to create a physical connection to a past event for the purpose of understanding the social and political significance for future decisions.26 The construction of Flee does not negate the importance of its storytelling and attempt to represent memory. Memory is not certain, and the images selected for animation would have been different with another design team; yet, this does not limit the goal of the film—Amin is given a voice after having his experience as a refugee structurally suppressed by the “refugee regime.” This system demanded Amin stay silent to not be sent back to Russia or Afghanistan, where it was unsafe. If his identity was known and it was found out that he still had living family members, the immigration system’s legal framework would have imposed his return to an unsafe situation. Thus, in order to maintain his safety—as witnessed by the contrast of his life before and after arriving in Denmark—Amin had to “play the system.” While it was technically against the asylum laws that Amin was facing, he had to undergo these actions because there were no effective or safe avenues for him to take, highlighting how the nation-state prioritizes state sovereignty and citizenship over human rights.

Comparing Autoethnography and Animation

Instead of perpetuating the tropes characteristic of 25 Roe, 142. 26 Roe, 141.

refugee representation in mainstream media, the enigmatic nature of these two experimental films deepens analytical engagement with the politics of space, exclusion, and discomfort regarding stories of refugeehood. While they differ in form, method, and narrative, both films successfully problematize the mainstream discourse of refugee experiences. As most representations of refugees emerge in the othering effects of mainstream media through victimization and massification, each of these films humanises and individualizes the structural barriers faced by refugeehood while fostering an alternative narrative of empathy for the protagonists. As shown, experimental ethnographic documentary films reach levels of intimacy capable of honouring and respecting a relationship between the storyteller and the viewer that can be lost in other forms of ethnography and are purposefully ignored in journalistic media.

The supposed objectivity that accompanies the purity of academic ethnography dismisses the power that experimental film can have in coupling the accessibility and reach of journalistic media with ethical standards that are enforced in qualitative research. In fact, this paper argues that trying to approach truth by going towards objectivity and realism is less productive. While one might not have access to “the world independent of our representations of it,” leaning into the visceral internalizations of subjective experiences in each of these films creates lateral connections between the viewers and the subjects.27 This, in turn, creates real social change. Even though the self-representation of autoethnography and the constructiveness of animation can be perceived as undermining ethnographic rigour, we should question why ethnographic representations are so focused on realism and how these anthropologic standards are coloured by a West-

27 Jennifer Hammett, “The Ideological Impediment: Feminism and Film Theory,” Cinema Journal 36, no. 2 (1997): 92, https://doi.org/10.2307/1225776.

ern lens of research and media representation of the field.28 The unscripted footage in Purple Sea and the interactive and reflexive modes of animation in Flee facilitate a politic of discomfort as the viewer empathizes with the characters on screen. In addition, the viewer is encouraged to root for Amel and Amin because of the imaginary of relatedness and connection to them, fostered by the memories represented by the visual element of this ethnography. In turn, these films are uniquely positioned to present a critical reflection of borders and the inhumane institutional and physical barriers that imperial cartography presents for those experiencing forced migration.

Conclusion

Experimental film is a tool that can be used to oppose the negative effects perpetuated by mainstream media in its attempt to represent the refugee experience. The immersive and evocative effects of autoethnographic film and animation reimagine the refugee. Through the methods of these cinematic styles, refugees are empowered, and oppressive narratives of indignity and otherness are threatened. The impacts of these efforts manifest in the shifted societal consciousness that sees the refugee as an “issue” that does not fit neatly into the nation-state system and should thus be rejected by our institutions and our collective respect. While never to the same extent, we—through the privileged position of the viewer—now have indirectly experienced the hardships faced by Amel and Amin and can empathize with and advocate against the inhumane nature of the refugee regime.

28 Timothy Mitchell, “The Character of Calculability,” in Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 80–122, https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520928251.

References

Allan, Diana. “The Politics of Witness: Remembering and Forgetting 1948 in Shatila Camp.” In Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, edited by Ahmad H. Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod, 253–84. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/sadi13578.17.

Alzakout, Amel, and Khaled Abdulwahed, directors. Purple Sea. 2020; Berlin, DE: Lightdox, 2021. Digital.

Betts, Alexander. “The Normative Terrain of the Global Refugee Regime.” Ethics & International Affairs 29, no. 4 (2015): 363–75. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679415000350.

Brandes, Stanley. “Ethnographic Autobiographies in American Anthropology.” Central Issues in Anthropology 1, no. 2 (1979): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1525/cia.1979.1.2.1. Quoted in Deborah Reed-Danahay, Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social (London: Routledge, 1997).

DelGaudio, Sybil. “If Truth Be Told, Can ‘toons Tell It? Documentary and Animation.” Film History 9, no. 2 (1997): 192. Quoted in Annabelle H. Roe, Animated Documentary (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Hammett, Jennifer. “The Ideological Impediment: Feminism and Film Theory.” Cinema Journal 36, no. 2 (1997): 85–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/1225776.

Heider, Karl G. “What Do People Do? Dani Auto-Ethnography.” Journal of Anthropological Research 31, no. 1 (1975): 3. Quoted in Deborah Reed-Danahay, Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social (London: Routledge, 1997).

MacDougall, David, et al. “Radically Empirical Documentary: An Interview with David and Judith Macdougall.” Film Quarterly 54, no. 2 (2000): 2–14. https://doi.org/10.2307/1213624.

Mattingly, Cheryl, and Mary Lawlor. “Learning from Stories: Narrative Interviewing in Cross-Cultural Research.” Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy 7, no. 1 (2000): 4–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/110381200443571.

Mitchell, Timothy. “The Character of Calculability.” In Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity, 80–122. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520928251.

Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Quoted in Annabelle H. Roe, Animated Documentary (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Rasmussen, Jonas Poher, director. Flee. 2021; Park City, UT: Neon and Participant, 2021. Digital.

Reed-Danahay, Deborah. “Introduction.” In Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social, edited by Deborah E. Reed-Danahay, 1–17. London: Routledge, 1997. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003136118.

Roe, Annabelle H. Animated Documentary. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137017468.

Selby, Andrew. Animation. London: Laurence King Publishing, 2013. Credo Reference.

Smets, Kevin, et al. “Beyond Victimhood: Reflecting on Migrant-Victim Representations with Afghan, Iraqi, and Syrian Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Belgium.” In Images of Immigrants and Refugees in Western Europe: Media Representations, Public Opinion and Refugees’ Experiences, 177–197. Leuven (Belgium): Leuven University Press, 2019. http://doi.org/10.1353/book.65934.

Tawil-Souri, Helga. “Digital Occupation: Gaza’s High-Tech Enclosure.” Journal of Palestine Studies 41, no. 2 (2012): 27–43. https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2012.XLI.2.27.

Ward, Paul. Documentary: The Margins of Reality. London: Wallflower, 2005. Quoted in Annabelle H. Roe, Animated Documentary (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

“I Never Want to Go Back”: Gendered Experiences of Migrant Labor during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar

by: Claudia Velimirovic Abstract

Controversy engulfed the 2022 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup in Qatar. Numerous reports highlighted migrant labour and human rights violations throughout the World Cup preparation. When FIFA granted Qatar the World Cup in 2010, there was a lack of human rights due diligence and no set protections for migrant workers in the infrastructure, construction, and hospitality industries. Despite plentiful reports on these issues, few articles focus on the gendered aspect of migrant work in Qatar. This paper will examine the female migrant labour experience in Qatar leading up to and during the 2022 FIFA World Cup. By comparing the experiences of migrant labour before Qatar won the World Cup bid in 2010 to those of female migrant labour in recent years, this essay will argue that Qatar still lacks the necessary mechanisms to support and protect its migrant labour population, despite increasing international pressure for labour reforms.

Résumé

La Coupe de monde de football 2022 au Qatar organisée par la Fédération internationale de football association (FIFA) a été plongée dans la controverse. De nombreux reportages ont mis l’accent sur les violations des travailleur.euses migrant.es et des droits de l’homme qui ont eu lieu au cours de la préparation de la Coupe de monde. Lorsque la FIFA a accordé la Coupe du monde au Qatar en 2010, il y a eu un manque de vérification préalable concernant les droits de l’homme et une absence de protection efficace pour des travailleur.ses migrant.es employé.es dans les industries de l’infrastructure, de la construction et de l’hôtellerie. Malgré d’abondants reportages à propos de ces problèmes, très peu d’articles se focalisent sur le côté genré de la main-d’œuvre migrante au Qatar. Cet article examinera l’expérience des travailleuses migrantes précédant et durant la Coupe de monde de football 2022. En comparant les expériences de la main-d’œuvre migrante avant que le Qatar remporte la candidature à la Coupe du monde en 2010 avec celles de la main-d’œuvre migrante féminine ces dernières années, cet article soutiendra que malgré la pression internationale croissante pour les réformes du travail, le Qatar éprouve un manque de mécanismes nécessaires pour soutenir et protéger sa population de travailleur.ses migrant.es.

Introduction

The underevaluation of skill and overrepresentation of low-paid work often characterize female labour. This burden was faced by many of the 300,000 female migrant labour workers in Qatar in June 2022, who have endured significant human rights abuses as a result of their gender, employment, and status as migrants.1 The significant amount of female migrant labour was heavily related to the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup, an international football tournament that occurs once every four years. The exploitation and plight of the tens of thousands of men who often travelled thousands of miles to help build the infrastructure required for the World Cup have been widely documented.2 However, the problems that migrant women face have not been explored or scrutinized in the same way. The female voice has largely been absent from the debate on migrant workers’ rights in the lead-up to the tournament. This essay seeks to fill this gendered gap by examining the female migrant labour experience in Qatar leading up to and during the 2022 World Cup.

Through analyzing the migrant labour experience before Qatar won the World Cup bid in 2010 in comparison to female migrant labour experiences over the last few years, this essay will argue that despite mounting international pressure for labour reforms, Qatar still lacks the mechanisms to support and protect its migrant labour population. Additionally, those with intersectional identities experienced heightened marginalization and worse treatment by FIFA World Cup tourists, Qatari systems, and Qatari officials. This essay will first analyze migrant labour conditions before the 2022 World Cup by examining

1 Planning and Statistics Authority, Labor Force Survey by Sample Q2, 2022, (2022), 13, https://www.psa.gov. qa/en/statistics/Statistical%20Releases/Social/LaborForce/2022/LF_Q2_2022_AE.pdf.

2 BBC News, “World Cup 2022: How Has Qatar Treated Foreign Workers?” BBC News, November 9, 2022, https:// www.bbc.com/news/world-60867042; Pete Pattisson and Niamh McIntyre, “Revealed: 6,500 Migrant Workers Have Died in Qatar since World Cup Awarded,” The Guardian, December 13, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-workerdeaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022.

the kafala system and intersectional experiences. The ineffectiveness of recently instituted Qatar labour reforms will be analyzed by exploring migrant labour experiences after reform implementation. Finally, this essay will conclude by examining who bears the burden of responsibility in Qatar migrant labour human rights violations.

Conditions Before the World Cup

Before Qatar won the World Cup bid in 2010, the female migrant labour experience was considerably different than it is today. In analyzing how the World Cup impacted the experience of migrant workers, it is necessary to outline pre-World Cup conditions. These conditions relied on two interconnected systems: the kafala system and the identity hierarchies between migrant labour workers.

The Kafala System

The kafala system is a sponsorship program in the Arabian Gulf that provides the legal basis for the residency and employment of foreign workers across the region.3 The system emerged in the Gulf States in the 1950s and was inspired by Bedouin principles of hospitality, which set obligations on the treatment and protection of foreign guests.4

The kafala system has been essential to the economic development of the Gulf, helping to manage the flows of foreign workers who have transformed the region over the past decades. These countries were capital-rich and labour-poor; they relied on importing highly skilled experts and consultants, as well as low-skilled workers and domestic servants, to fill the jobs locals did not want or could not serve themselves. The ambitious labour and development goals implemented by the Gulf States required an expansive and comprehensive system to manage these workers.5

3 Abdoulaye Diop, Trevor Johnston, and Kien Trung Le, “Reform of the Kafāla System: A Survey Experiment from Qatar,” Journal of Arabian Studies 5, no. 2 (December 2015): 116, https://doi.org/10.1080/21534764.2015.11136 81.

4 Hanan Malaeb, “The ‘Kafala’ System and Human Rights: Time for a Decision,” Arab Law Quarterly 29, no. 4 (2015): 309, https://doi.org/10.1163/15730255-12341307.

5 Diop, Johnston, and Trung Le, “Reform of the Kafāla System,” 116.

This requirement led to the development of a system that defined the contractual rights and responsibilities of the employer and the worker, known as the kafala system. Its main characteristics are that: entry for temporary work or residence is conditional based on a local sponsor; the sponsor assumes responsibility for the worker’s living and employment conditions; and exiting the country or changing employment is subject to the sponsor’s permission and may be the sponsor’s financial responsibility.6 Sponsored persons were therefore bound to their sponsors while in labour-receiving states. This power dynamic has enabled sponsors to delay and refuse to pay their labourers.7 Essentially, the relationship between the sponsor and the migrant worker is a bond of exploitation where the system exposes labourers to coercive and degrading work.8

This system creates even more difficulties for domestic workers, as individuals have reported working more than eight hours a day, free of charge, and against their will on weekends.9 Labourers sometimes work seven days a week, often continuously for weeks or months without days off.10 Without any formal state-sponsored oversight, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse occurs at high rates without any reprisals, and there is minimal information on where or how to receive help. Importantly, the kafala system is not unique to Gulf migrant labour, nor was it accidental. The market for guest workers was based on the political premise that migrants constitute a disenfranchised class.11 In fact, the denial of political rights and civil liberties propels and supports the system by denying migrant labourers autonomy, independence, and political agency.

Intersectionality in Female Migrant Labourer’s Experiences

6 Diop, Johnston, and Trung Le, 119.

7 Diop, Johnston, and Trung Le, 119.

8 Pei-Chia Lan, Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan (Duke University Press, 2006), 4, ProQuest Ebook Central.

9 Malaeb, “The ‘Kafala’ System and Human Rights,” 314.

10 Malaeb, 313.

11 Lan, Global Cinderellas, 33.

The kafala labour sponsorship system is essential to analyze because of its relationship to intersectionality. Race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, ability, and age operate as reciprocally constructed phenomena that shape the social inequalities influencing the differential treatment of migrant labour workers in Qatar.

12

Regarding gender, class, and mobility, the experiences of highly skilled migrant women differ significantly from highly skilled male migrants. Women face heightened challenges as a part of their migration experience. They are more likely than men to migrate with spouses and families, migrate at different points in their lives, and undertake flexible or part-time working arrangements.13 The challenges women face in transnational mobility are also impacted by class and ability, as highly skilled migrants are more mobile by definition. Their qualifications, skills, and expertise enable them to move from country to country, deploying their elevated human capital toward jobs in global marketplaces with the highest demand and lowest supply. Conversely, immobility is tied to low or unskilled migrants, illegal immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. These individuals are often perceived as lacking the skills or qualities to migrate across borders easily.14 Moreover, the negative public opinion labels them a security threat and a socio-economic hazard, increasing their degree of social inequality and heightening their adverse differential treatment.

Gender is recognized as a constitutive element of migration. In the kafala system, both migrant men and women can sponsor their spouses and obtain residency visas for them. However, only women can work under their husband’s spon-

12 Patricia Hill Collins, “Intersectionality’s Definitional Dilemmas,” Annual Review of Sociology 41, (2015): 4, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112142.

13 Nabil Khattab et al., “Gender and mobility: Qatar’s highly skilled female migrants in context,” Migration and Development 9, no. 3 (2020): 369, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 21632324.2020.1723216.

14 Khattab et al., 371.

sorship, whereas men cannot do the same under their wives’ sponsorship.15 Women working under spousal sponsorship are often ineligible to receive the same benefits their husbands are entitled to, such as housing, health insurance, and other social welfare packages.16 This trend of gendered sponsorship differences continues in sponsoring adult children. Women can sponsor their adult daughters; yet, if adult sons wish to work in Qatar, they must seek a sponsored job and visa from an employer. A shallow analysis of these rules might highlight gender discrepancies favouring women; however, these gendered differences in labour law can discourage highly skilled women from pursuing job opportunities in Qatar. This discouragement is compounded by the notion that companies’ human resource policies, employment packages, and benefits are provided selectively on the basis of nationality and gender.17

Regarding race and mobility, labour markets across the Persian Gulf are stratified along racial and national lines. These lines reflect both global immigration and employment hierarchies, and localized forms of differentiation.18 Highly skilled and well-paid jobs are most frequently occupied by Gulf citizens, Western (often white) expatriates, non-Gulf Arabs, and “talented” Asians or Africans.19 In turn, the majority of jobs at the lower end of the skill and pay spectrum are occupied by South Asians, Southeast Asians, and black Africans.20 Notably, Western expatriates are presumed to earn higher salaries and receive better benefits packages than highly skilled migrants from Asia or Africa.21 The racial divide between high and

15 Khattab et al., 375.

16 Khattab et al., 375-6.

17 Khattab et al., 375.

18 Zahra Babar and Neha Vora, “The 2022 World Cup and Migrants’ Rights in Qatar: Racialised Labour Hierarchies and the Influence of Racial Capitalism,” The Political Quarterly 93, no. 3 (2022): 500, https://doi. org/10.1111/1467-923x.13154; Khattab et al., “Gender and mobility,” 375.

19 Babar and Vora, “The 2022 World Cup and Migrants’ Rights in Qatar,” 500.

20 Babar and Vora, 500.

21 Khattab et al., “Gender and mobility,” 375.

low-paid and skilled labour proves that one’s race largely contributes to their negatively stratified treatment in the migrant labour market in Qatar. Ultimately, intersectionality plays a significant role in the migrant labour experience in Qatar. Under the kafala system, women face more hardships than their male counterparts. These hardships are compounded for marginalized, racialized, and less skilled women.

Qatar Labour Reforms Following the World Cup Bid

While most publicity surrounding Qatar’s rapid development focuses on the World Cup as a determining agent, this event was only one step in a plan for national improvement. In 2008, Qatar developed a long-term objective plan entitled Qatar National Vision 2030, which aimed to transform the tiny Gulf nation into an advanced economy through human, social, economic, and environmental development.22

Over the last decade, the Qatari government has channelled billions of dollars into infrastructural development, reconstructing many parts of Doha. They installed a metro system, constructed Lusail (an entirely new city), and built stadiums, hotels, and other tourist venues. While much of this infrastructure investment was for World Cup purposes, it was also in tandem with the National Vision goals.23 This rapid development, however, has increased the country’s already high reliance on migrant labour. Consequently, there have been countless reports of migrant labour abuses, especially as the World Cup approached and international media attention increased.24 This media attention has led to public shaming of the state, with international newspapers and websites denouncing Qatar (and implicitly all

22 General Secretariat for Development Planning, Qatar National Vision 2030, 2008, https://www.gco.gov.qa/ wp-content/uploads/2016/09/GCO-QNV-English.pdf.

23 Babar and Vora, “The 2022 World Cup and Migrants’ Rights in Qatar,” 498-9.

24 “Overview of Qatar’s Labour Reforms,” International Labour Organization, accessed December 18, 2022, https://www.ilo.org/beirut/countries/qatar/ WCMS_760466/lang--en/index.html.

Qataris) for benefitting from practices of “modern-day slavery.”25 In response to this denunciation and the fact that the kafala system’s benefits have diminished over time, making it increasingly costly to maintain, Qatar has become the latest state to reform the sponsorship system.26

Since 2010, Qatar has taken measures to improve the working and living conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. Notably, the most problematic and restrictive elements of the kafala system were dismantled, as the requirements for workers to obtain exit permits to leave the country were removed, and they could change employers with objection certificates.27 Between November 1, 2020, and August 31, 2022, almost 350,000 workers had their applications to change jobs approved.28 Of course, the reforms have been imperfect and many workers still face challenges in changing jobs. These barriers are partly due to migrants’ lack of knowledge of the procedures and regulations around labour mobility.

Importantly, a barrier to justice for migrant workers was the lack of a formal complaint system. Qatar rectified this by establishing an online complaints platform, increasing workers’ access to the Ministry of Labour. This platform helped bridge the communication gap between workers and the government, resulting in 34,425 Ministry of Labour complaints between October 2021 and October 2022.29 While this complaint system is beneficial, it is not perfect. For instance, it can take several months for a worker to receive a court date or have a court ruling enforced. Time delays negatively affect migrant workers battling wage and benefit theft, as they can be forced to wait several months before the issue is resolved. Another reform is that, for the first time in the Gulf

25 Babar and Vora, “The 2022 World Cup and Migrants’ Rights in Qatar,” 504.

26 Diop, Johnston, and Trung Le, “Reform of the Kafāla System,” 121.

27 International Labour Organization, “Overview of Qatar’s Labour Reforms.”

28 International Labour Organization.

29 International Labour Organization.

region, workplaces are electing migrant workers as representatives on company committees.30 Currently, five Doha-based global union federations work as Community Liaison Officers to gather complaints, disseminate information, and train community leaders.31 Despite these reforms, an analysis of the female migrant labour experience in Qatar provides evidence that women are still at a high risk of facing human rights abuses.

Migrant Labour Experiences During the World Cup Construction and Event

Findings from an Equidem Report

Equidem, a human and labour rights organization, published a report in 2022 investigating migrant workers from Africa and Asia employed at FIFA World Cup Qatar hotels.32 The report found harrowing results, as between February 2020 and July 2022, 13 of 17 FIFA partner hotels documented significant labour and human rights violations.33

The hospitality workers interviewed routinely reported that their employers paid Westerners, Qataris, and Arabic speakers more than Asian and African workers.34 A quote from one of the female respondents reads: “My salary does not reflect my skill level; it reflects my nationality. Filipina women are paid 1,600 (Qatari) rials ($439) for the same work where we are paid 1,000 rials ($274).”35 Wage theft was another issue, as many workers reported hotels withholding wages for two to nine months. Additionally, some workers received no wages or benefits or smaller wages and fewer benefits than they

30 International Labour Organization.

31 International Labour Organization.

32 Equidem and Global Labour Justice–International Labour Rights Forum, “We Work like Robots”: Discrimination and Exploitation at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Hotels (London: Equidem, 2022), https://www.equidem. org/assets/downloads/5487_Main_Campaign_Report_ We_work_like_robots_ART_WEB.pdf.

33 Equidem and Global Labour Justice–International Labour Rights Forum, 4.

34 Equidem and Global Labour Justice–International Labour Rights Forum, 6.

35 Equidem and Global Labour Justice–International Labour Rights Forum, 6. Dollar values are in USD.

were owed. Reports of salaries being cut by between 25% and 75% or employees being forced to work overtime without compensation were commonplace.36 Analysis of these experiences proves that female migrant labourers have faced despicable workplace human rights violations.

Furthermore, reports have highlighted how hotels were understaffed and employees were overworked. This issue heightened workers’ risk of verbal abuse and workplace violence. Regarding violence, the Equidem investigation indicated that gender-based violence and harassment “is a fact of life for women at some FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 hotel partners.”37 At the InterContinental Doha in West Bay, a FIFA hotel partner, women from the hospitality department routinely reported sexual harassment from guests, including inappropriate touching and sexual propositions. Unfortunately, sexual harassment and violence against hotel workers was not only perpetuated by guests, but also by colleagues. This unfortunate reality is detailed by a Nepalese housekeeping worker employed at the Crowne Plaza, a FIFA World Cup Partner Hotel in West Bay, Doha:

We get sexual remarks from our colleagues often. They tease us. I get comments like, “wow, you look so sexy today,” or “your makeup is superb—my heart is swooning,” sometimes they touch us inappropriately while working together. I cannot say anything because if I do, they will say that it was unintentional, and they will dismiss me. I just ignore comments and advances.38

The Equidem report details countless individual and collective experiences of human rights violations across FIFA World Cup-sponsored hotels. These experiences highlight how the recently implemented migrant labour reforms fail to protect vulnerable populations from abuse.

36 Equidem and Global Labour Justice–International Labour Rights Forum, 7.

37 Equidem and Global Labour Justice–International Labour Rights Forum, 8.

38 Equidem and Global Labour Justice–International Labour Rights Forum, 8.

Findings from a Guardian and Fuller Project Report.

In a report conducted by The Guardian and The Fuller Project, migrant labour abuses against women are further detailed.39 The publications spoke with five women employed at different hotels in Qatar between 2017 and 2022, all of whom reported allegations of sexual harassment and physical and verbal abuse. One of the women interviewed, Sally (a pseudonym), outlines her experience of physical and sexual harassment in her job as a hotel cleaner.40 Once, a guest tried to slap her, and her supervisor allegedly blamed her for the incident. Sally notes that: “It’s a bit disheartening. Besides sexual harassment, maybe a guest is mishandling you or being rude. All these things you report but nothing [is done]. So you just have to deal with it.”41 She also describes an instance of sexual harassment in which a male guest asked for a kiss. Upon reporting the incident to her supervisor, Sally was met with a dismissive response: “You’re a woman, learn to handle your issues.” Due to this traumatic experience, Sally expressed her strong aversion towards returning to Qatar: “I never want to go back.”42 Sally’s comments highlight the lack of respect that both guests and supervisors have for migrant workers. Sally’s story is parallel to many female migrant labour experiences, both in Qatar and elsewhere. Her experience suggests that migrant domestics are treated as disdained aliens and disposable labour in their host countries.43

As previously mentioned, there has been much information surrounding the migrant labour abuses committed against the men working on infrastructure and stadium construction in Qatar in preparation for the World Cup. This is largely

39 Louise Donovan, “Female migrant workers speak out about harassment in Qatar’s World Cup hotels,” The Guardian and The Fuller Project, November 17, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/ nov/17/female-migrant-workers-speak-out-about-harassment-in-qatar-world-cup-hotels.

40 Donovan.

41 Donovan.

42 Donovan.

43 Lan, Global Cinderellas, 3.

due to the scale of labourers involved, the fact that the stadiums are central to the tournament, and that the abuses men face are less ostracised in society. Yet the findings from the Equidem Report, as well as The Guardian and Fuller Project Report, prove that sexual harassment and other human rights violations are occurring in hotels. Sally’s depiction of her supervisor is an example of how hotels are doing little to support women facing sexual harassment and that few women are able to report cases of sexual harassment. This behaviour is even more dangerous given that Qatar’s penal code criminalizes sex outside marriage. There have also been recent cases of police not believing women who report sexual violence, instead siding with men who claim it was consensual. If the police do not believe victims, they can be the ones to face charges seeing as Qatar has previously imprisoned female workers for extramarital sex.44 The system plays a significant role in increasing the vulnerability of female migrant labourers.

Despite the labour reforms Qatar has implemented since receiving its World Cup bid, the nation still faces significant issues in protecting its female migrant labour population. The reports of sexual harassment and abuse in FIFA World Cup-sponsored hotels, as well as the reports of human rights violations regarding salary cuts, wage theft, and wages based on national identity, prove that the Qatar labour reforms have not been stringent, comprehensive, or intersectional enough to meaningfully protect the migrant population.

Conclusion: The Onus of Responsibility

Before Qatar won the World Cup bid in 2010, the migrant labour market was heavily constrained by the kafala system and defined by intersectional experiences. The kafala system, established initially as a sponsorship program between the migrant labourer and their employer, left migrant workers extremely vulnerable to human rights abuses and decreased their mobility within the

44 WB, “What are zina laws?,” The Economist, December 7, 2018, https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/12/07/what-are-zina-laws.

work country. These vulnerabilities were heightened in relation to one’s gender, class, nationality, ethnicity, and race. After Qatar won the World Cup bid, mounting pressure from organizations, states, and the media and an economically futile kafala system forced the nation to reform many strict laws. Moreover, Qatar instituted labour reforms with the alleged intention of ameliorating the safety, health, and general experience of migrant labourers within the nation. However, analysis of the personal experiences of female migrant labourers working in FIFA-sponsored hotels proved that these reforms were largely ineffective. These experiences demonstrate that, even though Qatar made steps to improve the migrant labour experience following their World Cup bid, not much has changed for migrant labourers.

Ultimately, meaningful and durable reform in Qatar will only be possible with greater support from citizens, the government, and international governing bodies. For reform to succeed, it must secure the compliance of those who directly profit off the migrant labour system. Critically, the blame for these human rights abuses and violations does not fall solely on Qatar. FIFA has decisive power over the state by awarding Qatar the right to host the World Cup. In principle, FIFA can withdraw the nation’s right to host the tournament. The organization can exclude countries from its events, impose its own rules that the country must abide by if they are to take part, and set the programme of values in all areas relating to the World Cup.45 If migrant workers are facing human rights abuses in Qatar, FIFA and the tournaments’ sponsors share responsibility as long as they turn a blind eye to what is going on there.

45 Peter Millward, “World Cup 2022 and Qatar’s Construction Projects: Relational Power in Networks and Relational Responsibilities to Migrant Workers,” Current Sociology 65, no. 5 (September 2017), 766, http://doi. org/10.1177/0011392116645382.

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The Emancipatory Creation of Spaces by Black Women

by Karina Vandenhoven

Karina is a U3 student majoring in Political Science with minors in International Development Studies and Philosophy. She is interested in Critical Approaches, namely those that seek to connect theory and practice. When not studying, she serves on the Board of Directors of the International Relations Students’ Association at McGill as the Head Delegate of the McGill Model UN Delegation Team. Outside of McGill, she likes to talk incessantly about her pet cat, Mimi.

Bridgetown: The Colonial City and Geographies of Domination

by Isabella Frymoyer

Isabella is a U4 student pursuing a joint honours degree in International Development and Geography with additional minors in History and GSFS. Her research interests are centered on urban policy and social justice. She also enjoys searching for new historic perspectives on urban development related to gender and sexuality. Outside of school, she works at the McGill Journal of Human Behavior as the Humanities section managing editor and she participates in many different intramural sports.

Israel’s Slow Squeeze of Palestinian Autonomy

by Stephanie Munn

Stephanie is a U3 student conducting a Joint Honors in Political Science and International Development Studies with a minor in Social Entrepreneurship. On campus, she directs Catalyst’s email newsletter, The Capsule, and organizes vineyard tasting tours with The Wine Society. Outside of her involvement at McGill, she has worked in the field of refugee migration and resettlement in New York, on urban farming for houseless people in Washington, D.C. and Maryland, and at the CPE Daycare in Montreal.

MEET THE AUTHORS

A Western Design

by Elisa Gilliet

Elisa is a U3 student majoring in Political Science and minoring in History and International Development. Her research interests include migration and international organizations studies. Throughout her work, she is interested in questioning the current powers’ role in sustaining global inequalities because she believes it is part of the solution to change the world’s dynamics. Besides her research and studies at McGill, she loves watching movies and struggles to finish her Letterboxd watchlist.

Female Migrant Labour in Qatar

by Claudia Velimirovic

Claudia is a U3 student majoring in Honours International Development with a minor in Social Entrepreneurship. Her research interests include transitional justice and intersectionality in cases of mass-human rights violations. Once graduated, Claudia hopes to pursue a career in Human Rights and Global Justice. Outside of academic and professional pursuits, Claudia spends her time reading and practicing ballet.

Representing the Refugee Experience

by Sophia Nemeth

Sophia is in their final year of Honours International Development Studies, with minors in Political Science and Social Entrepreneurship. Their current major research interest is in migration studies, particularly regarding refugees and forced migration. Recently, she has taken interest in studying migration through the lenses of independent film and the architecture of refugee spaces. Aside from academic interests, Sophia practices film photography and enjoyed photographing Copenhagen during their study abroad last semester.

MEET THE EDITORS

Editor-in-Chief

Elijah Remis

Elijah is in his final year at McGill, studying International Development Studies as his major and Microbiology and Immunology as his minor. First serving as a peer reviewer in 2020 and then as an editor in 2021, this is his third year with Chrysalis. Eli is also Co-President and Founder of McGill Students for Partners in Health Canada, an undergraduate initiative that advocates and fundraises for global health equity. Outside of school, he enjoys volunteering at Santropol Roulant, reading non-fiction, and watching sports. After graduating, Eli will pursue clinical research on long COVID in Boston while applying to medical school.

Editorial Board

Ava Torkaman

Ava is in her fourth year and final year at McGill University, pursuing a B.A. in Political Science and International Development Studies. This is her first year serving as an editor for Chrysalis, and she is currently a staff writer for the McGill International Review. Outside journalism, Ava has been an active member in the sustainability sector in Montreal and has been an executive member of Sustainable Youth Canada for over three years. She is particularly interested in foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics, and climate policy.

Aviva Futornick

Aviva (she/her) is in her third year at McGill, pursuing an honours degree in International Development Studies with minors in French Language and Russian Culture. This is her first year as an editor for Chrysalis. Aviva is particularly interested in women’s rights, sexual and reproductive health, and food sovereignty.

Eden Wilson

Eden is in her third year at McGill, double majoring in Political Science and International Development Studies. This is her first year working as an editor for Chrysalis after two years of peer reviewing for different undergraduate journals. Eden’s interests include political theory, international law, and post-disaster development. After graduating, she intends to study environmental law focusing on water rights and environmental conservation.

Emaline Gonzalez

Emaline is in her final year at McGill University, double majoring in International Development Studies and English Literature. She is particularly interested in human rights issues concerning gender, migration, and the climate crisis, and how stories about these issues can translate into vehicles for social change and community-based solutions. After finishing her degree, Emaline aspires to pursue a career in teaching where her passions for literature and development studies can merge.

MEET THE EDITORS

Katherine Squitieri

Katherine is in her second year at McGill University, double majoring in International Development Studies and Art History. This is her first year serving as an editor for Chrysalis. Her particular interests lie in historic preservation and cultural development, the intersection of her two majors. Post-graduation, she hopes to continue her studies and fuse these multifaceted disciplines into a career.

Ryan Kim

Ryan is in his third and final year at McGill University, pursuing a B.A. in Political Science and International Development. This is his first year as an editor at Chrysalis, concurrently serving as a writer for Catalyst. Ryan has also been involved with HanVoice McGill, having recently served as the President of the club. He is particularly interested in human rights, refugees, migration, international law, and public policy, and hopes to study these fields as a postgraduate.

Trang Do

Trang is in her third year at McGill University, majoring in International Development Studies with a minor in Economics and Political Science. This is her first year as a member of the Chrysalis editorial team. She is particularly interested in economic development, sustainable urbanism and international politics. She also enjoys participating in student sustainability initiatives on campus. After McGill, she plans to continue her studies in graduate school and hopes to pursue a career in international organizations.

Wilson Symons

Wilson is in his fourth and final year at McGill University, completing the Honours Program in History with minor concentrations in International Development and Economics. This is his first year serving as an editor for Chrysalis, previously working as a peer reviewer for the journal. After McGill, Wilson is planning on undertaking a MA in International Relations.

Layout Designer

Mia Advensky

Mia is in her third year at McGill University, majoring in Economics with a minor concentration in English Literature. This is her second year as the Layout Designer for Chrysalis.

Submission & Review Process

Chrysalis accepts manuscripts in either English or French from undergraduate students belonging to any faculty or major at McGill University, provided they offer original insight into topics of international development, which includes topics pertaining to Indigenous issues in Canada. Eligible manuscripts must have received a minimum grade of A- and be from a class at the 300-level or above.

Manuscripts are accepted in two rounds through November and January. After each round, the Editorial Board convenes to select manuscripts for publication. The selection process is done anonymously: all identification markers are removed from the submissions by the Editor-in-Chief, who does not have voting power during the selection process to ensure a fair and equitable selection.

Selected manuscripts are then sent to selected undergraduates who conduct official peer reviews under the guidance of faculty members. Once the peer reviews are submitted, the authors incorporate their feedback into the manuscripts before editing. Each submission is assigned to two or three editors who liaise with the author to prepare the manuscript for publication through two successive rounds of edits.

Processus de soumission des textes et de révision

Chrysalis accepte des manuscrits en anglais ou en français d’étudiant.es de premier cycle appartenant à n’importe quelle faculté ou discipline de l’Université McGill, à condition qu’ils offrent un point de vue original sur des sujets liés au développement international, y compris des sujets relatifs aux questions autochtones au Canada. Les manuscrits éligibles doivent avoir reçu une note minimale de A- et provenir d’un cours de niveau 300 ou supérieur.

Les manuscrits sont acceptés en deux séries, en novembre et en janvier. Après chaque cycle, le comité de rédaction se réunit pour sélectionner les manuscrits à publier. Le processus de sélection est anonyme : tous les marqueurs d’identification sont retirés des manuscrits par le rédacteur en chef, qui n’a pas le droit de vote pendant le processus de sélection afin de garantir une sélection juste et équitable.

Les manuscrits sélectionnés sont ensuite envoyés à des étudiant. es de premier cycle qui procèdent à des évaluations officielles par les pairs sous la direction de membres du corps enseignant. Une fois les évaluations par les pairs soumises, les auteur.rices intègrent leurs commentaires dans les manuscrits avant de les éditer. Chaque soumission est confiée à deux ou trois éditeur.rices qui travaillent en lien avec l’auteur.rice pour préparer le manuscrit à la publication par le biais de deux séries d’éditions successives.