Refugee Histories in the Global South
RSC Public Seminar Series, Hilary Term 2021

How does forced migration look different if we examine it through a historical perspective? How have refugees been historical actors, as well as victims? This series examines a range of topics that illuminate these questions, by examining the historical entanglements between migration, im/mobility, colonialism, race, and borders.

Convenor: Dr. Anne Irfan

About the Speaker

A. Naomi Paik is the author of Bans, Walls, Raids, Sanctuary: Understanding U.S. Immigration for the 21st Century (2020, University of California Press), which examines the criminalization of immigrants in the U.S. and the need for a radical, abolitionist approach to sanctuary movements. She also published her first book, Rightlessness: Testimony and Redress in U.S. Prison Camps since World War II in 2016 (UNC Press; winner, Best Book in History, AAAS 2018; runner-up, John Hope Franklin prize for best book in American Studies, ASA, 2017), as well as articles, opinion pieces, and interviews in a range of academic and public-facing venues. As a board member of the Radical History Review, she has co-edited three special issues of the journal—on “Militarism and Capitalism (Winter 2019), “Radical Histories of Sanctuary” (Fall 2019), and “Policing, Justice, and the Radical Imagination” (Spring 2020)—and will coedit “Against the Anthropocene” with Ashley Dawson (Winter 2023). Collaborating with Gerry Cadava and Cat Ramirez, she is also coediting the “Borderlands” section of Public Books. She is an associate professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the HRI-Mellon faculty fellow in Legal Humanities, and the Center for Advanced Studies Resident Associate for the Initiative on “Abolition.” Her research and teaching interests include comparative ethnic studies; U.S. imperialism; U.S. militarism; social and cultural approaches to legal studies; transnational and women of color feminisms; carceral spaces; and labor, race, and migration.