April 15, 2013

The organizing efforts of The National Immigrant Youth Alliance continue to shine light on the grim reality of the vast complex built for the detention and deportation of immigrants that separates families and expose immigrants to all sorts of human rights abuses.

Claudia Munuz, a NIYA organizer, allowed herself to be detained by border patrol in order to infiltrate the unjust immigrant detention complex to discover the stories of women facing deportation.  While she was prepared to face the daily struggles of detainment and possible deportation herself, she tells me further, “I was unprepared to hear and respond to the despair of women facing separation from their children.”  Just over 70 percent of female detainees facing deportation from Calhoun County Jail in Michigan will be separated from at least one U.S. born child under the age of 10.

The Calhoun County Jail, located in Battle Creek, Michigan, is the largest immigration detention facility in the State.  They began housing immigrant detainees in 2007 after signing an indefinite contract with ICE.  Claudia has observed the Assistant ICE Field Office Director using intimidation and verbal abuse to force immigrant detainees to sign a Voluntary Departure (foregoing their right to a hearing before a judge).  When one detainee refused to sign saying he was not a bad person and that he wanted to see a judge, the Assistant ICE Field Office Director laughed into his face saying, “ICE has more power than any immigration judge.”  He continued with further threats if the Voluntary Departure was not signed.  This among many other documented abuses at Calhoun County Jail demonstrates a lack of Federal oversight that exposes immigrant detainees to unjust human rights violations.

Tomorrow (April 16), the Senate “Gang of Eight” will most likely reveal their plan for immigration reform that will not include any answer to the unjust treatment of immigrant detainees.  In fact, their immigration reform bill will include an increase in interior enforcement and a long path to citizenship for a select few contingent on 100 percent U.S.-Mexico border surveillance and a 90 percent detainment rate on that border.   This makes no sense for those of us working for a better America towards justice!

Claudia was literally detained as a criminal for no other reason than lacking “proper” papers.  This is the fear immigrants face everyday while going to work or school and caring for their families.  There is no just and fair immigration reform without an end to the detainment and deportation of immigrants.  Claudia has lived in the United States for 12 years, but it was these 11 days (so far) in jail that taught her, she tells me, “I was never free.”  Whether in detention or not, life in America for immigrants offers no freedom or justice.

Today (April 15), The National Immigrant Youth Alliance is calling for two actions:

1. Demand the Release of All Low-Priority Detainees!
2. Demand the Removal of ICE Director Rebecca Adduci and ICE Assistant Director James Jacobs

For more details on other immigrant detainees in Michigan and to Sign the Petition, go to the following link:

http://action.dreamactivist.org/mice

Steve Pavey, Ph..D., is an applied anthropologist engaged in activist scholarship as a Senior Research Scientist at the One Horizon Institute in Lexington, Ky.

But what can I—or any of us citizens without real political power—do? According to Steve Pavey, our cover story writer who has been fighting alongside undocumented immigrants for the last three years, it’s not complicated. We can walk in solidarity with them, acknowledge our common humanity, and recognize christ in them.

“As i live and work with undocu- mented migrants,” says Pavey, “I’m with Jesus. I’ve learned that they do not need saving—I do! The biggest challenge for me is facing my own complicity in a global political-economic order that sins against migrants everyday. Standing against this system—which benefits me—will necessitate suffering and solidarity with the least of these.”

“Solidarity,” he continues, “asks not what we can do for them but whether we are willing to walk the road with them.  Herein lies the opportunity to walk with Christ.”

- Reflections from the Editor, Kristyn Komarnicki

Read the Full Article here:

http://prism.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/MA13-PRISM-Full-Small.pdf

2013 SFAA Roundtable Discussion Chaired by:  PAVEY, Steve (One Horizon Institute) and NUÑEZ-JANES, Mariela (U of North Texas):

This roundtable discussion will focus on a dialogue about the role of applied anthropologists and applied anthropology in documenting the experiences of undocumented youth. Participants will reflect on the ways in which applied anthropologists are and can work as allies to the undocumented youth movement and will discuss the challenges they encounter in the process. Two applied anthropologists, a practitioner and a university professor, will discuss their work with undocumented youth. Undocumented youth activists and undergraduate students who participated in a service learning-course will talk about the opportunities and challenges of working with applied anthropologists or as practitioners assisting policy driven programs. Some participants will join via Skype.

The Limitations of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): The Reality on the Ground

Santiago Martinez, Pedro (University of Kentucky) and Steve Pavey, Ph.D. (One Horizon Institute)

This poster explores the lived experience of undocumented immigrants in relation to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy announced on June 15, 2012. The research that informs this poster examines the following questions:  What are the diverse perspectives from the undocumented community of the meaning and impact of this policy?  What have the experiences been for DACA-eligible youth of the application process?  What are the opinions of the undocumented community of the potential impacts for change in their quality of life because of the DACA policy?  This research utilizes semi-structured interviews, participant observation, news articles and social media.

Dr. Steve Pavey traveled to Montreal, QC, Canada to present a paper at the 110^th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.  The paper presentation was part of a SUNTA (Society for Urban, National and Transnational/Global Anthropology) sponsored session entitled “’Coming Out’: Traces, Tidemarks and Legacies of LGBT Politics in the DREAM Movement.”  In this paper Steve continues to build theoretically on his ethnographic research and activism with undocumented youth for immigrant rights.

The Undocumented Immigrant Youth Movement:  Coming Out of the Shadows of Fear and Shame, Into the Light of their own Story and Community

This paper is based on activism with and ethnography of the dream activist movement.   It seeks to capture the diversity within this movement out the shadows, a movement searching for and claiming rights of “dreamers” to live, work and go to school in the United States.  The ethnographic description is built around the central themes of story and community while exploring theoretical questions of subjectivity, agency, and structural power.  The paper privileges the voice of the dreamers who are coming out of the shadows, declaring their status as, “Undocumented, Unafraid, and Unapologetic.”  Nationally, the focus of both research and media reports has been largely on the barriers and access to education, while often missing the broader socio-political context of the lived experiences of undocumented youth.  Our ongoing research projects hope to fill a gap by intentionally using the light of those who are stepping out of the shadows to illuminate the majority of undocumented youth who remain in the shadows.

http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/2011-AAA-Annual-Meeting.cfm

Theologies of Power and Crisis: Envisioning / Embodying Christianity in Hong Kong
By Stephen Pavey

Book Description

Theologies of Power and Crisis provides a case study for Eric Wolf’s research directive to better comprehend the interplay of cultural (webs of meaning) and material (webs of power) forms of social life. More specifically, the book demonstrates how theological discourse and practice engage with historical and material relations of power. It has been normative to speak of power in terms of political and economic processes and theology in terms of interpretive and symbolic experiences. This work breaks new ground by linking theological ideas with political-economic processes in terms of the structural relations of power.

Ethnographically, this research investigates the theological processes of Hong Kong Chinese Christians during a period of significant social change and crisis, precipitated by the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It shows how local Christians and Christian institutions mediated the significant regional, national, and transnational forces of political-economic change by connecting theological practice to the structural relations of power. The Christian response was a contested process closely intertwined with the broader contested processes of social organization.

This study develops an understanding of Christianity that goes beyond ecclesiastical hegemony to encompass struggles over human practice, meaning, and representation in relation to the changing political-economic context. These findings implicate religious ideas and practice as significant to an understanding of social inequalities and powerlessness by connecting ideologies to material conditions. Christian ideas may be used to legitimize an oppressive social order or they may be used to liberate those who are oppressed. Issues related to the policies and practice of development should take seriously the role of religious beliefs and practices.

Endorsements & Review

“I was drawn to anthropology in the early 1980s through the work of such cutting-edge anthropologists/missiologists as Charles Kraft, Jacob Loewen, Charles Tabor, Alan Tippett, and Ralph Winter. While obviously influenced by these early innovators, Stephen Pavey is part of a new era of younger missiologically informed anthropologists. His ethnographic study of the church in Hong Kong is both anthropologically sound and missiologically important, and is a great addition to the small yet growing literature on the anthropology of Christianity.”

-Steven Ybarrola
Professor of Cultural Anthropology
Asbury Theological Seminary

“With Theologies of Power and Crisis Pavey successfully extends anthropological analysis to new realms as he contributes to our understanding of Christian Asia. He demonstrates the intellectual value of ethnography in our quest to understand the world around us. It is an excellent example of anthropology engaged in the world. Perhaps this work will teach and influence those involved with cross-cultural practices in a variety of settings.”

-from the afterword by John van Willigen
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
University of Kentucky

Learn more or purchase at:

https://wipfandstock.com/store/Theologies_of_Power_and_Crisis_Envisioning__Embodying_Christianity_in_Hong_Kong

http://www.amazon.com/

This video created by Felipe Vargas uses the photography of Steve Pavey to capture a window into the growing immigrant rights movement for justice.

When:  November 15, 2011

Who: Immigrant Youth Justice League, The Alabama Youth Collective and the National Immigrant Youth Alliance

Where: Alabama State Legislature, 11 South Union Street, Montgomery, Ala. 36130

What: 15 undocumented immigrants, 2 undercover, 13 public

Last November Koinonia Partners hosted its sixth School for Conversion, a weekend course centered on Christianity as a way of life, based on radical discipleship and community. This SFC was facilitated by Steve Pavey of Communality in Lexington, Kentucky, and also featured a session led by Anton Flores of Alterna in La Grange, Georgia. Both Steve and Anton wove the theme of immigration and the need for hospitality to and solidarity with migrants into the discussion of following Jesus.  Not only did the participants gain inspiration, but they also gave us life with joy and eagerness to pursue the Kingdom in our communities. You can join this conversation by reading School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism edited by our friends at Rutba House.

Learn more at:

http://www.newmonasticism.org/index.php

http://www.koinoniapartners.org/index.html

What do the teachings of Jesus have to say “to those who stand with their backs against the wall?” asked Howard Thurman when addressing the African American experience of racism and violence of the 1940s. His answer and challenge, in his Jesus and the Disinherited, shaped the civil rights movement. The good news revealed in the teachings and life of Jesus is, wrote Thurman, “that fear, deception, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited, need have no dominion over them.” Jesus reveals the power of love, for self and others, that enables us to overcome relations of inequality that are perpetuated by fear, deception, and hate.

Fast forward 60 years to today’s growing nativism, xenophobia, and violence surrounding the presence of immigrants in the United States, and Thurman’s analysis of the lives of the disinherited is equally compelling here and now to those who have their backs against the wall. The experience of inequality and violence among immigrants is exacerbated for the 11.8 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Nearly 20 years ago anthropologist Leo Chavez described the “shadowed lives” of undocumented immigrants. With the growing public antipathy and the media construction of the “Latino threat,” living in the shadows remains an apt description and continues to be marked by the same fears and survival techniques of deception described by Thurman.

Steve ends the article with this missiological challenge:

“For us, the privileged and powerful, a radical conversion will mean discerning Jesus in the disinherited undocumented immigrants in our midst. We must repent of our anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy, seek a conversion of the broken immigration system that persecutes the immigrant community (in whom Jesus himself dwells), and begin to walk with our marginalized brothers and sisters, joining them in the light–– even as they experience a conversion from fear to freedom.”

2011 PRISM – May.June.2011

http://www.evangelicalsforsocialaction.org/page.aspx?pid=310

In partnership with the Bluegrass Community and Technical College & the University of Kentucky, Dr. Steve Pavey facilitated a week long participatory action research project at the LLCEC (Latino Leadership College Experience Camp).  The youth called their project,  “Walk a Mile in Our Chanclas:  Nuestra Lucha as Undocumented Students in Kentucky.”  Dr. Pavey hopes this pilot project will be the seed that grows into a regular program he is calling the Artivism Research Collective.

A.R.C. – Artivism Research Collective

Artist + Activist + Researcher = Bending Towards Justice

 “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
-  Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The artivist (artist +activist) uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression—by any medium necessary.  The artivist merges commitment to freedom and justice with the pen, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination.  The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation.”
-  M.K. Asante, Jr. (Its Bigger than Hip Hop)

“The silenced are not just incidental to the curiosity of the researcher but are the masters of inquiry into the underlying causes of the events in their world. In this context research becomes a means of moving them beyond silence into a quest to proclaim the world.”
-  Paulo Freire