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Uncanny valleys: Unheimlichkeit , approximation and the refugee camp
Author(s) -
DUNN ELIZABETH CULLEN,
FREDERIKSEN MARTIN DEMANT
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
anthropology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.419
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-8322
pISSN - 0268-540X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8322.12474
Subject(s) - uncanny , refugee , modernity , politics , action (physics) , atmosphere (unit) , aesthetics , sociology , space (punctuation) , set (abstract data type) , media studies , history , epistemology , law , art , political science , philosophy , geography , archaeology , computer science , linguistics , quantum mechanics , meteorology , programming language , physics
This article uses the idea of the ‘uncanny valley’ – the revulsion that people feel when looking at a human facsimile or lookalike – to examine the eerie atmosphere in refugee camps. The authors argue that by considering the underlying engineering of camps as almost, but never quite cities and the social and political formations that produce them as both abstractions and rationalized action, we come closer to understanding the pervasive sense of uncanniness that surrounds the camp. Moreover, the authors hold that the durable mark of the camp – that is, the continuing stigmatization of both the space and the people in it as something set apart by political violence – is an essential feature, not only of this particular built environment, but of modernity itself.