Making Refuge

The term refugees has become the latest buzzword, causing people to eitherspew hate speech or extend a warm welcome – thereby creating a firmdividing line. There is so much discussion about refugees that peoplesometimes forget the very individuals who are forced to stand astride thatdividing line. Who are they? What are their stories? What does it mean tobe a refugee? How are they coping once they reach the United States?How are their lives impacted by this divisive debate? What are the strugglesthey continue to have? How are they influencing the larger communitieswhere they live? Catherine Besteman addresses all of these questions(and more) in her timely study, Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugeesand Lewiston, Maine.Besteman introduces the book by speaking of her yearlong stay in Banta,Somalia, as part of her anthropological fieldwork during the late 1980s, justbefore civil war broke out. She then immediately shifts the lens to Lewiston,Maine, in the year 2010, home to a large Somali refugee community. Juxtaposingthese two worlds to frame her inquiry, she delves into Banta’s pre-warhistory: a simple yet harmonious village life built around communitarianismand happiness within poverty, of agriculture and the “rule” of village elders, ofpre-defined gender roles and extended families ...