Belonging With the Lost Boys ALEXANDER

179 Pages·2014·14.79 MB·English

Belonging With the Lost Boys:
The Mobilization of Audiences and Volunteers
at a Refugee Community Center in Phoenix, Arizona
by
Melinda Alexander

A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy

Approved November 2014 by the
Graduate Supervisory Committee:

Kevin McHugh, Chair
Christopher Lukinbeal
Cecilia Menjivar
Thomas Catlaw

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
December 2014
ABSTRACT

In 2001, a refugee group of unaccompanied minors known as the Lost Boys of Sudan
began arriving in the United States. Their early years were met with extensive media coverage
and scores of well-meaning volunteers in scattered resettlement locations across the country.
Their story was told in television news reports, documentary films, and published memoirs.
Updates regularly appeared in newsprint media. Scholars have criticized public depictions of
refugees as frequently de-politicized, devoid of historical context, and often depicting voiceless
masses of humanity rather than individuals with skills and histories (Malkki 1996, Harrell-Bond
and Voutira 2007). These representations matter because they are both shaped by and shape
what is possible in public discourse and everyday relations. This dissertation research creates an
intersection where public representation and everyday practices meet. Through participant
observation as a volunteer at a refugee community center in Phoenix, Arizona, this research
explores the emotions, social roles and relations that underpin community formation, and
investigates the narratives, representations, and performances that local Lost Boys and their
publics engage in. I take the assertion that "refugee issues are one privileged site for the study of
humanitarian interventions through which 'the international community' constitutes itself " (Malkki
1996: 378) and consider formation of local 'communities of feeling' (Riches and Dawson 1996) in
order to offer a critique of humanitarianism as mobilized and enacted around the Lost Boys.
i
DEDICATION

Many South Sudanese tell their stories in the hope that action will be taken to alleviate and
prevent future suffering. This dissertation is dedicated in that same hope.
ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sincerest thanks to my supervisory committee, my family, and to the community that supported
and participated in this research.

This research was also supported by funding from the Melvin G. Marcus scholarship for field
research through the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State
University, and the Margaret Trussell scholarship, through the Association of Pacific Coast
Geographers.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF TABLES....................................................................................................................................v
LIST OF FIGURES.................................................................................................................................vi
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION ................. ................................................................................................... 1
Research Site.......................................................................................................2
Methods and Data Collection.............................................................................11
Significance ……………………………………………………………………….. 18
2 THE SUDANESE CIVIL WARS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE LOST BOYS ........................ 20
Physical and Cultural Geography......................................................................21
The Sudanese Civil Wars...................................................................................22
The Impact of War on Southern Sudanese Society..........................................26
Oil and Human Rights in Sudan.........................................................................28
Relief Workers Name the Lost Boys..................................................................31
U.S. Involvement in Sudan.................................................................................34
The Current Situation in South Sudan...............................................................41
3 REPRESENTING REFUGEES AND THE MORAL WEBS OF HUMANITARIANISM ....... 42
Representation of Refugees..............................................................................43
Representing the Lost Boys...............................................................................47
Affect, Emotion, and Humanitarian Action.........................................................52
4 EXPANDING THE 'CIRCLE OF THE WE': THE STORY OF THE LOST BOYS OF SUDAN 61
Cultural Trauma..................................................................................................62
Surrounded By a Story: Circulation and Reflection...........................................71
The Lost Boys’ Relationship to Their Own Story...............................................87
In Conclusion......................................................................................................98

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CHAPTER Page

5 PERFORMING THE LOST BOYS: SOCIAL ROLES, RACE, AND CULTURAL CITIZENSHIP
102
Performative Roles of the Refugee and the Volunteer...................................104
Race as a Product of Social Relations............................................................129
Cultural Citizenship: the Right to Be Different.................................................137
In Conclusion....................................................................................................146
6 CONCLUSIONS: COMMUNITIES OF FEELING .............................................................. 149
The Preconditions to Humanitarianism............................................................151
Communities of Feeling....................................................................................154
The Webs of Humanitarianism Enacted Around the Lost Boys......................161

REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................. 163
v
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Significance of Cattle to the Pastoral Peoples of South Sudan ........................................ 7
vi
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Diing Arok Unpacks New Cows, and Mama Achan Paints Them ............................ 5
2. Chol Deng and Diing Arok Greet Visitors at an Art Fair ............................................ 6
3. Chol Deng Shows a Finished Cow ............................................................................. 6
4. Amguma Deng, Nyakour Kogooa, and Teresa Alal Marino, Founders of So Sudan 9

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

“Have you heard of the Lost Boys of Sudan?”
“Do you think I live in a cave? Of course I know about them!”
- Conversation overheard at a public event where the Arizona Lost Boys Center (AZLBC)
sent representatives in 2009.

This dissertation research is concerned with representation, perception and reception of
refugees in the United States; and in particular, with the mobilization of humanitarianism among
local publics surrounding the Lost Boys of Sudan1 in Phoenix, Arizona. I posit that the narration of
the Lost Boys’ journey is a trauma claim, is part of the process of constructing a cultural trauma,
through which suffering is acknowledged, moral responsibility is defined or assigned, and social
solidarities are expanded (Alexander 2004). I am interested in the constraints and opportunities
afforded to human beings, as social roles are enacted in everyday encounters between Lost Boys
and their publics (audiences and volunteers). The label, “Lost Boy” is viewed as a signifier
constructed through multiple narratives, projections, representations, and performances. This
label grants legitimacy not accessible to other refugees/immigrants because of a particular
evocation in the public mind.
The story of the Lost Boys is well known to many U.S. audiences; images and records of
their past, as well as the weight of expectation for their roles in rebuilding South Sudan, surround
them. I suggest that audiences are emotionally and ideologically primed prior to meeting a Lost
Boy, much as Massumi (2002a) describes audiences of (former President) Reagan: media
representations transmit an incipience, which is actualized through various channels – family,
church, school, etc. The interpretive work is done in various community groups. The story of the
Lost Boys, as told by media in the U.S., becomes an “American” story, bolstering particular

1 I made an explicit decision to use the name the Lost Boys throughout this dissertation, without the use of
quotation marks, to indicate the degree of acceptance with which the community regards and identifies with
the name. 1
nationalist myths and ideologies (Robins 2003, McKinnon 2008) and presenting incomplete or
erroneous information about the refugees themselves (Willis 2004), while at the same time,
reinforcing the semantic authority (Felman 2002) of the Lost Boys and hailing them as heroic
survivors of trauma. These critiques of mass media representation provide a starting point for this
dissertation.
This dissertation research examines representation and subject-making from the bottom-
up, illuminating and mapping the multiple positions and communities that emerge as issues
regarding immigration, race, and cultural expression meet and intersect in the lives of South
Sudanese and their local publics through the everyday remaking of the Lost Boys’ public image. I
seek to unravel and trace these understandings through interviews with Lost Boys, audiences,
and volunteers, and through evaluation of my own experiences as a volunteer with the Arizona
Lost Boys Center (AZLBC, a nonprofit community center in Phoenix). The main and final aim of
this research is to offer a critique of the humanitarianism that is enacted around the Lost Boys.

RESEARCH SITE
Greater Phoenix received more Lost Boys for resettlement than any other city in the
United States (History of AZ Lost Boys Center), with 475 Sudanese refugees arriving to Arizona
in 2001, according to the Arizona Department of Economic Security. The Arizona Lost Boys
Center (AZLBC) was opened in 2003 through the efforts of local volunteers who wanted to assist
the Lost Boys, a Leadership Council of South Sudanese, and a grant from the Department of
Health and Human Services. When I began volunteering in 2009, the Center was run by a staff of
four, nearly all part-time, employees. Between one to three South Sudanese were participating in
meetings of the Board of Directors; the remaining, majority of members were local volunteers.
The other one or two of the South Sudanese representatives on the Board were Lost Boys from
the Leadership Council, a group formed by Lost Boys who are elected by their peers to lead the
community.

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