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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay. Hello everybody, I'm Roger waldinger I'm the director of the Center for the Study of international migration at UCLA professor of sociology and
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: I am delighted to welcome you to today's event. This is the fourth in our quarter long series of book talks that we are
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Undertaking in partnership with our friends and colleagues at the Center for comparative immigration studies and you see San Diego.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: I will introduce today's speaker in a moment. But let me first tell you that we
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Have another talk scheduled for next Friday, same time, same place. The author is Adam Goodman historian who will talk about his new book.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: The deportation machine America's long history of expelling immigrants and there will be a common by until be HIG be who's Professor of History and Liberal Studies at UCLA.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: So I'm delighted to introduce today's speaker, he done LCR Lou, who is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto and we'll talk about her new book.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Divided by the wall for done we'll talk for roughly 20 minutes give or take a couple of few and then followed by a comment by Tom advocates who is Associate Professor of Sociology at UC San Diego.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: And what if you would please send me what will happen is we'll have the the presentation than the comment. Then we'll
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Then you're done, we'll have a few minutes to reply to the questions raised by Tom and then we will segue to discussion. So those of you in the audience. And if you have questions, please send them to me by chat.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: And doing so earlier rather than later will be helpful.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: So I can pull together questions and provide a steady feed to be done. So without further ado, be done, the floor is yours.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Thank you, Roger, and thank you to UCLA and UC San Diego for the invitation to the part of this wonderful series and thank you to the audience for being here. I know this is a pretty anxiety inducing time especially for parents so I'm
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I'm grateful that you made the time
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: In your day to be here.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And so I'm going to go ahead and share my screen.
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Just one moment. Alright.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I want to begin with a vignette about 28 year old white woman I call Gail. She's someone I met during ethnographic fieldwork in southern Arizona.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Gail is
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Sorry.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Okay, Gail is a member of a pro immigrant organization that I refer to as the humanitarians as a member of the humanitarians she and her fellow volunteers height deep into Arizona Sonoran desert where migrants cross and they leave out Otter.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Gail recalled, one of the first time she was in the desert with the humanitarians she and a fellow volunteered encountered
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Three migrants two young men and a woman, and they were siblings from Guatemala.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The group was too tired to go on their feet were covered in blisters and they were severely dehydrated.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: While the humanitarians attended to their injuries gave them food and water. The woman asked the American volunteers to call the US border patrol.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The siblings wanted to turn themselves in Gail's Cali caution them gently migrants were abused and border patrol custody even short term custody, she said.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Where they sure they wanted to turn themselves in. Yes, said the woman firmly please call border patrol reluctantly. The humanitarians called the federal agency and within a few hours were patrol agents pack the family into their van and drove away.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Now, in the very same regions that Americans like Gail distributed water other Americans assembled to do arm patrols and desert find migrants and turn them over to border patrol.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: One such group is an anti immigrant organization that I call the soldiers, Rick. A 57 year old white man was their leader.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: When winter morning I am with the soldiers on one of their so called operations in the desert to migrant boys to migrants teenage boys emerged from a dry riverbed
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The soldiers main Spanish speaker Tommy walks over barking to see the contents of their backpacks, he finds the boys IDs, he turns to Rick and says, Hey boss. These are minors Rick rumble sarcastically Oh yay, they get to stay. He rolls his eyes.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: We learned that the younger boys Guatemalan and his companion is hundred and Rick tells them to sit by the campfire to stay warm. Then walks away to call Border Patrol.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Another soldier offers the boys water and food. We learned that the boys got separated from the group that they were traveling with and got lost.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Wanting to turn themselves in they had come over to the soldiers campsite eventually to Border Patrol agents arrive and they take the boys away.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So in putting these two vignettes side by side. I want to draw your attention to a few things. First, in both cases the actions I described are essentially identical
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: A group of American civilians encounter a group of Central American migrants in Arizona Sonoran Desert, give them food and water and someone Border Patrol.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Also, in both cases the activists, do not have a direct connection with the issue around which they mobilize
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Despite their different worldviews Gail and Rick and the other activists, I spoke to were not personally impacted by US immigration policies, despite wanting to defend immigrants Gail herself was not an immigrant, nor did she have any kin, who were
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Although he dedicated his desert operations to Americans who had died because of injuries allegedly inflicted by undocumented immigrants Rick himself did not personally know anyone who was killed in this way.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Activists like Gail and Rick share another characteristic in both cases, activists knew that their efforts were not going to bring about the long term change that they wanted
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Gail knew that no matter how much water and humanitarian aid, she helped put out in the desert migrants would continue to die from dehydration and exposure to the elements
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Rick knew that no matter how often he and his comrades patrol the desert, he could never deter cross border traffic of people and contraband.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Despite the futility of their actions. However, Galen Rick saw their mobilization as very meaningful. My goal was to explore those meanings.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And specifically, my research was animated by two puzzling observations first wire citizens who are predominantly white Americans staking a claim and the immigration struggle in this way. And second, why are they mobilizing when they don't believe that their actions will make a difference.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And what I will argue and what I argue in the book is that immigration politics is not just about immigration or immigrants immigration politics has become the go to language for citizens to express their unease with inequality.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And there is obviously a lot of scholarship on American Immigration politics.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But to kind of sum it up. I found that sociologists interested in immigration politics tend to examine how groups mobilize
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: While ignoring why people mobilize including their sort of ideas about society. Their worldviews, and who these participants are in relation to social structures and I'm happy to talk about my critique of the literature and the q AMP a
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But what I found is that I couldn't just focus on their social movement strategies. I also had to look at their political orientations their ideologies and I couldn't ignore activists own positional position ality
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So in my research political orientation was important for two reasons. First ideology and namely ideas about the state shape the strategies that organization to favored
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And second, these ideas about the state were important. Also because they were profoundly meaningful at a personal level. This is because state directed ideas and practices gave activists to tools to manage their own complex intersection identities.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I also noticed that the two sides were not only distinct political groups, but they were also distinct social group groups. There was a class difference between
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Pro immigrant activists and the anti immigrant activists that I met compared to their pro immigrant opponents anti immigrant activists had less formal education. They had experienced downward social mobility and they did not have a lot of choice in whether and how they were employed.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Also there was an important gender disparity across this two sides anti immigrant organizations had a lot of men, while pro immigrant organizations had a lot of women.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Despite these members. Despite these differences members of both sides grappled with it with a tension in their identity and I detected two kinds of tensions.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The main preoccupation among pro immigrant activists was the tension between the progressive worldview and the privileged backgrounds.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: A progressive but privileged world progressive but privilege subjectivity was plagued plagued by the sense that privilege came with a moral obligation to help less fortunate. Others
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: There right wing restriction is counterparts struggled with being white, but working class.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Or the disparity between their in group status as white men and the diminishing sense of controlled that accompany downward social mobility.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: What made white, but working class a troubled identity was the idea that in order to be a good are competent white man, one could not be or feel precarious.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I also realized that pro immigrant anti immigrant activists talked about state power very differently pro immigrant activists saw the state as extremely powerful and dangerously competent
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Their opponents. Meanwhile, saw the state as emasculated and dangerously incompetent. So in this image that I'm I'm showing on the slide. It's that gap between
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The end of the fence and then the vehicle barrier. This is, this was an image that got circulated among anti immigrant activists. Quite often, people would actually do a pilgrimage to that site and take photographs of themselves crossing over to Mexico and back again.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So empowering and emasculated state bolstered restriction is or anti immigrant activists claims on white masculinity, whereas weakening the state offered pro immigrant activism opportunity to do or perform white femininity.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I find that immigration politics has become an arena in which white people can carry out projects of self affirmation as they cope with the effects of inequality.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Although activists wanted to see a change in the world what sustain their mobilization was the fact that their participation allowed them to experience a change in themselves.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So my my work draws almost
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: In on almost 20 months of participant observation I actually studied five organizations, but in this talk. I'm just going to talk about two of them. I'm happy to talk about the other ones in the Q AMP. A if there's interest.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And I want to say, also a few words to set the historical context of my field sites.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: In the early 1990s, the federal government adopted a border enforcement scheme that basically funneled migrants towards Arizona Sonoran border where many perished on their journey North
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And in order to sort of
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: navigate this harsh terrain migrants ended up paying these fees to professional smugglers to guide them through the dangerous terrain.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And drug trafficking organizations work their way into this, into this growing market so Southern Arizona and specifically the places where Gail and Rick were became really important points of unauthorized entry into the US.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And so
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Just want to set that context. And I'm happy to talk more about this border border enforcement regime and the q AMP. A to if there's if there are any questions.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So in this talk, I'm going to specifically focus on Galen Rick, who were the two people that I introduced this talk with. And the reason why I focus on them is because they really exemplify a lot of the characteristics. I found on either side.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So let's start with Gail, who, as I mentioned before,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Is a 20 or wasn't 20 year old white woman who I met in Arizona, and who's a member of this organization called the humanitarians
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So Gail grew up in an all white suburb of Ohio both of her parents were University educated professionals Gail herself also attended University and later after graduating, she travelled through Europe and
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: South America and but more than any of these experiences. She told me that it was a friendship with a co worker at a bakery that was instrumental in shaping her
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: political consciousness this co worker was originally from Honduras and as fair as far as Gail is concerned, the two young women were equals just two friends working at this bakery.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But that illusion of equality vanished. One day when Immigration and Customs Enforcement rated the bakery and took away Gail's friend and in an instant. Gail realized that vastly Ville she realized the vastly different life opportunities that she and her friend had
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Gail lost touch with her friend, but the experience of agents taking that friend away stuck with her. And so after she finished her studies and traveled
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: She failed decided to move to Washington DC, where she began working at a nonprofit organization that advocated for immigrant rights soon. However, she began grappling with her privilege again.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Her position of power became visible to Gail when her organization started working on a class action lawsuit on behalf of asylum seekers.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The lawsuit aim to make asylum seekers eligible for work visas, while they waited for final decisions on their cases.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: This way asylum seekers who were trying to make ends meet. When not risk their asylum case if they got caught working legally Gail was tasked with finding plaintiffs who would make this lawsuit compelling.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So here's how she talks about that, that moment in her life. So I'm this middle class white person.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I know how the courts are going to view the most or at least vulnerable people
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: We want this Nigerian woman who's protecting her daughter from female genital mutilation, but the hundred and do dude is escaping violence. Now he's fucking game I'm this young person making these decisions. It's a game, and we want that affects a lot of people
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Um,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I realized I don't feel good in this position. They do incredible work the organization in DC, but just made me realize that I didn't want to work on things in this broad based way.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So as soon as the case was over, Gail quit her job and Gail left DC
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: She moved to Arizona to become a full time unpaid volunteer with the humanitarians and so I as I was trying to figure out, Gail story. I asked her, Well, how is
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know, how is Arizona different from Washington DC and here's what she said. She said, being out here in the desert. There's that direct human thing.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: If we change this one policy that will affect all these people I value that and that's really important, but having an actual human in front of you and being like, what do we need to do to get you where you need to go that's meaningful.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So, Gail. In other words, assigned more value more meaning to the singular act of giving water to my grant in the desert than to a large scale effort to improve the lives of 3 million asylum seekers. This is a remarkable rationale
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And it made me realize that her activism was driven not by its actual outcomes, but by the pursuit to answer grading questions about morality and position ality
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: How can I be progressive but white middle class and poised for a life of material comfort again and again, I realized that this dilemma was what framed pro immigrant activists stories about themselves.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So what exactly was it about the border that helped Gail and other pro immigrant activists cope with this identity.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: taking water out into desert at its most fundamental level allowed Gail to use her privilege to weaken the state. This is how Gail, put it
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Every time a person makes it to their destination to the US in spite of all the state power that is ensuring that they don't make it that one person making it and anyone helping them along the way that feels like a privilege to feel useful in some way.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The fact that Gail could help someone in spite of all the state power gave her unparalleled satisfaction.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And the satisfaction stemmed from how Gail and other pro immigrant activist understood the state in this world view the US state was a powerful Anti Hero.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: racialized migrants, where it's helpless victims and when migrants cross the border activists told me they did so in voluntarily.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: If human agency was conceptualized as a spectrum migrants were on one end while white middle class Americans were on the opposite end.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So for this group of activists privilege really felt like an impediment in the pursuit of ally ship.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But at the border. There was an opportunity to opportunity to exploit ones privilege in order to weaken the state and help migrants, instead of being progressive but privileged one could be progressive and privileged
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So now I want to move on to Rick who we also met earlier. He's the leader of the soldiers, which is
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: A minute man type anti immigration anti immigration group that I studied
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Rick told me that his interest in immigration politics began in a particular day in late 2008 when he realized that his world was falling apart that day. RICK WENT TO WORK his job. He explained was to build high rises. He had been in the construction business for nearly three decades.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I was the guy who they handed the blueprint this thick six months before the building even came out of the ground.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: My job was to study this thing and to write letters to architects, engineers and plumbers, why are we doing it this way so that by the time we were ready to go. We'd be ready to go.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: It was a lot of responsibility and I thrived on it.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But on that fateful day in 2008 Rick was laid off and when he lost his job. Rick was 48 years old he was a Marine Corps veteran and a college dropout.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: He did not have skill sets outside of construction. RICK SAID HE WENT FROM making $80,000 a year to 12,000 on an unemployment, he lost his home. His wife divorced him.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: He began living out of his car, he started drinking after years of sobriety his life felt like it was spiraling out of control.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: In the years that followed, Rick and never get back up on his feet. He began connecting the dots in his head. Maybe the reason he wasn't having such he was having such a hard time was because there was an endless supply of quote illegal aliens who were
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Who were willing to accept low wages and outcompete him in the market.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Going to the border was a way for Rick to regain control over his life he wanted to do rather than be done to
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: When I was with Rick on a so called operation. There were seven people but just with those seven people. He said, I've closed, about five miles of some of their the cartels best smuggling core doors.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: gesturing at the mountains behind him. Rick continue to
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Look at this train. It's nothing but mountains, the drug cartel wants to be in this mountainous terrain where they can hide so we forced them into the flatter areas where it's easier to be caught by Border Patrol.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So Justice with Pro immigrant activism, I realized that the actual impact of their mobilization was questionable after all the soldiers efforts may have forced the smugglers to move, but it would be hard to argue that they actually deterred anyone from trying to cross the border.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I asked, Rick. Was this a pointless effort he responded, gruffly. Then I guess I'll die here. Everybody makes a choice in life, about what they do.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: He added agents will stop in and ask what she got they love us because we're helping them do their job. I'm more at peace here than I've ever been in my life.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So how do we make sense of someone like Rick
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Well, he had overcome big challenges unemployment, loss of a home divorce substance addiction. And through it all. He was plagued by a visceral sense of marginalization.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Rick was socialized in a country where men like him had material and symbolic advantages over everyone else. The wages of whiteness.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Created a set of expectations about what society who society should celebrate and reward.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But the structural pressure of class made it feel like he was being deprived of his birthright. Rick was devastated confused to be white, but working class meant feeling like he was old power but powerless to do anything about being denied that power.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Being on the board or helped Rick assume a sense of control while pro immigrant responded saw migrants as victims.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Anti immigrant activists saw them as victimizers emboldened by a week's line of defense. According to Rick migration persisted, because there were simply not enough Border Patrol agents amassed at the US Mexico boundary
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The soldiers tactics were shaped by this analysis, the group organized around the clock stakeouts within a mile of the International boundary and then share this Intel with Border Patrol.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The state strengthening activism Gabe Rick, a sense of purpose it counteracted the deprivation that he otherwise felt in his white, but working class life.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So I'm Gail Rick and the other activists I study desperately wanted to change the rules of immigration, but immigration policy to not always personally affect them.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And they were certain uncertain about that their collective action would bring about the change that they wanted. So for me, the question was will what sustain this participation, what I learned was
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: That the relationship between participants identities and the organization straight state direct and mobilization was really important
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I realized that the act of mobilizing was saturated with meetings that went far beyond immigration policy.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Immigration politics was a highly symbolic struggle, where in the integrity of citizen participants identities were at stake.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Yes, people like Galen Rick wanted to change the distribution of power in society, but their mobilization was also about self transformation in context of deepening inequality.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: What kept people engaged was the conviction that their action was also helping them alter the imbalance of power between themselves and the rest of society.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: When my respondents tried to make sense of who belonged. They were simultaneously concerned about how and whether they belonged
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: In other words, immigration, politics is not just a struggle around whether to include or exclude the racialized non citizen other. It's also a struggle to figure out how white citizen cells fit into a stratified society.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: It is a way to deal with the problem of being American but anxious as sociologists of migration, we need to be aware of this phenomenon. We need to ask ourselves what do political struggles about them reveal about us.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So what is this all mean my research suggests that in order to defuse the contentiousness of immigration policy.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: We need to think about and address growing social inequality, this inequality is fostering misery anxiety and uncertainty across the socio economic spectrum.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Including among those who are ostensibly secure citizen members.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: staking a claim and immigration politics has become a way to articulate other concerns and as sociologists of migration, we need to ask what are those other concerns.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: How is the content contention about immigration obscuring other larger social problems that are connected to capitalism to white supremacy to imperialism.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And we cannot address these problems exclusively by altering immigration policy, and certainly not by relying on the same kinds of narrowly conceived policy changes that have been used in the past. Thank you.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Terrific. Okay, thank you so much. All right, Tom, do you want to proceed with the comment.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Yes, I do. Thank you.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Thank you, Roger, and thank you for Don. I'm very happy for the chance to comment on this fantastic book.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Divided by the wall is a brilliant study of the politics of immigration in the US, but as you just heard its focus is not
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Specifically on policy battles or policy outcomes. Instead, it is about a particular subset of both pro immigrant and restriction just activists.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : And the grassroots organizations that they're affiliated with these activists are overwhelmingly white
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Conscience constituents, meaning that most of them have no direct personal stake in the immigration issue.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : As a rule, they also favor, as you heard more direct forms of political action like leaving water in the desert for migrants defined
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Or on the other side of the issue, setting up camera traps or dispatching drones to detect illegal border crossings.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : So the book is concerned with the question of why these Southern Arizona activists invest so much of their time and their energy
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Into a set of practices that are not likely to benefit them or their loved ones directly and also that are by their own admission, very limited in their effectiveness.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Now I think for my money. One of the most distinctive things about the study is that it places the left and the right wing activists on the same analytic plane, meaning that for
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Large parts of the book, the ideological differences between them are effectively bracketed so that a series of structural similarities can be revealed.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : One of those similarities, is that both sets of activists are said to be motivated by some kind of deep interior conflict and the book cause these conflictual identities.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : So on the pro immigrant side the conflict in question comes from being both progressive
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : And privileged whereas for the restriction exists the tension lies in the combination of being both white and downwardly mobile
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : So the book argues that these two conflictual identities in turn coincide with different projections of state power.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Which themselves yield different repertoires of activism. So more specifically the pro immigrant activist.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : See the state is a powerful oppressive agent and it's in this context that the act of leaving water in the desert becomes a kind of subversive attempt to chip away at at the state's power.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : On the other side, the restriction is as we heard project onto the state this image of the emasculated male woefully
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Sort of limited in in his or its capacity and therefore in need of assistance and so it's in this context that putting on makeshift camouflage uniforms and patrolling the border for migrants becomes a source of self affirmation.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : In that case, it's read the relationship between the restriction s and the state as not unlike that between an alcoholic and his a sponsor right the
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : The activist is feeling down and out and helps himself by helping someone else who has essentially the same problem, but for both sets of activists on the left and the right, the activism works as a vehicle of personal redemption.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : So as you can into it. There are so many things to admire about divided by the wall.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : First of all, the book offers truly one of the most empirically rich portraits of political activism that you'll likely to find you'll be likely to find in any academic study
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Secondly, its distinctive for it's very novel analytic approach, which I would tentatively, you know, at the risk of exaggeration label a socio psychoanalytic approach.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : For a few reasons. One is that the the author is unusually attentive to the interior lives of the research subjects, not only their motives.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : But also how their prior experiences have shaped the mental constructs that they use to understand the cross border immigration issue.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : And so the result is this very sensitive portrait of the social roots of activism on each side of the issue. This requires a very delicate and painstaking kind of analysis and also a recognition of the supreme complexity of human thought
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : It requires the author to listen very carefully, not only to what these respondents are saying, but to what is implied in their words and to the underlying logic of their actions.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Now, all of these virtues add up to an additional virtue, which is that while the study is concerned with the usual topics of social movement research.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : It's also unbound by the sometimes confining categories of that literature. So the familiar concerns with things like mobilization tactics and opportunity structures.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Are dealt with here, but in a very novel and refreshing way the author shows a real talent for thinking outside of these categories. And finally, it's worth noting that divided by the wall is very well written and well organized, making it a pleasure to read
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : I do want to register one light critique, as I was reading the book, I just to begin with. I couldn't help but engaged in my own form of socio psycho analysis.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : I should mention that the author and I don't know each other, personally, but I think we share the same conflictual identity. If I were to speculate
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Oh into our common status as products of the Berkeley sociology department.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : What's the conflict. Well, it's, it's the conflict that springs from the experience of being trained in an American department that nonetheless imagines itself as a headquarters of European style social theorizing
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Now, I would point out that in most contexts. This can be a real asset, especially when you're dealing with sociologist who insist that data can somehow speak for themselves.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : On the other hand, this identity also carry certain dangers. One of them is the temptation to at times elevate the pristine theoretical model over the messiness of real life.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Now I see this tension in my own work and I think I recognize it to in divided by the wall, it should be clear that this book has an extraordinary theoretical elegance to it.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : I think there are occasions, though, when not very much is gained and maybe something is even lost from some of the theoretical and conceptual sophistication.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : So as an example, take the idea of the conflictual identity, which really takes center stage in the book and ends up tasked with
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Doing a lot of the analytic heavy lifting. By the way, I think it's quite telling, and paradoxically reinforces this point that the concept didn't come up in this talk and my
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : My, my argument would be nothing much is lost in in leaving it out because central as it is to the book.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : I don't think the concept actually contributes much to the analysis for the simple reason that each conflictual identity refers to a conflict.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : That arises only in relation to some prior commitments held by the activists, so the restriction is
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : For them, the tension derives from the experience of being white and downwardly mobile
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Clearly, though some downwardly mobile whites will not experience that identity that combination as a conflict.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : It becomes a conflict against are in relation to some prior expectation about the rightful place of whites in American society.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : And so that's what we want to know, how did that conflict emerge for these particular activists.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Likewise, the pro immigrant activists are said to grapple with the conflict of being progressive but privileged. But once again, that's a conflict. Oh, in relation to a very particular understanding of what it means to be progressive
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : So my point is that the idea of a conflictual identity really pushes the burden of explanation to a different level. We want to know more about how these conflicts formed
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : And if you listen to the talk. And if you read divided by the wall, you can see that this is a very light critique, indeed, because the book does provide much of this analysis.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : I think it's just obscured five by the conceptual apparatus in the case of the pro immigrant activists profiled in chapter two of the book, for example.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : The key point seems to be that all of them in the course of pursuing an advanced formal education have had some kind of profound awakening experience.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : One that left them feeling disillusioned about politics and about their place in the social order.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : So in each case. The point is that this experience seems to be to have been precipitated by some encounter with a non American culture or with the social sciences. Interestingly,
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Now the last issue. I'd like to raise is that I would also like to have learned a little bit more from the book about the wider landscape.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Of immigration activism in southern Arizona, the author addresses this concern in the appendix. But to my mind. The key issue remains unexplored so
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : I would say the issue is not how representative the respondent sample is, which is what the author talks about in in the appendix, but rather how best to put into context, the peculiar breed of activism that this study describes
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : In my view, this is really the most notable achievement of this study it sheds light on a phenomenon that I would call therapeutic activism. Right.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : very strikingly, as we've been told many of the figures in this book have been involved previously in forms of mobilization that by their own accounts were more effective than their preferred tactics today.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Nowadays, though, they're less interested in boring things like legal advocacy or voter persuasion or anything that doesn't really help them work through the internal dilemmas that the author talks about
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : This raises a series of very important questions and many of them are normative questions. First and foremost is therapeutic activism selfish. Is it better than no activism at all. Is it a form of symbolic politics that does little to advance the cause of a wider movement.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Broadly speaking, what effects do therapeutic activists have on the movements that they're affiliated with.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Should they in every case defer to activists who do have a personal stake in the policy issue.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : These sorts of questions might fall, you know, strictly speaking, outside the purview of those social movements research.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : But they also have a direct bearing on other
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Other very current political struggles, including the relationship between Black Lives Matter activists and their white allies. So I think it's to the author's
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Distinct credit that divided by the wall raises these questions and raises them in the most interesting
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Thought provoking and empirically vivid way possible. So my main takeaway is that I look forward to the scholarly and hopefully civic debates that this book is very likely to generate. Thank you very much.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : And I'm looking forward to the discussion.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, Tom. Thank you so much for show careful and show insightful.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: A comment Sophie done. Do you want to respond quickly and we have already a number of people who have sent me questions, so I would like to proceed. Yes.
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Yeah, one thing very quickly and that is I want to note that only this morning, I believe that I see that fit Don was going to have to respond to my comments. And so I was not able to get her a version of my comments. She had not seen them beforehand so
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Tom Medvetz, UC San Diego : Normally I would not want to respond under those circumstances.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Don, you have to unmute
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I Tom, I just want to thank you for
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: For these wonderful comments there so
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: They're really thought provoking and very generous.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I love the concept of therapeutic activism. I wish I had gotten the manuscript to you before it was published. That's a great concept and the questions you asked about sort of what is the role of therapeutic activism in
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: political struggle, especially in this moment where everything is so explosive, I think, is a is a really important question and it's something that I want to think about more
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Since we don't have a whole lot of time, I'll just let the audience speak but thank you again, Tom. I really appreciate all
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Thank you so much, right. So I'm going to begin with. I'm going to put together two related questions. One,
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Sent me by Andrew Leah and the other by Marilyn and the they both make the point that in your presentation. We see a reversal of the universe of the usual
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Stance associated with the ideology of these activists on the one hand, you have the pro immigration activists who are calling for a week or state, but typically liberals progressives one stronger state and you'll have then the
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: You will have the restriction is to were calling for stronger state, but usually they want a weaker state so
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: How do you, how do you explain that apparent contradiction. And how do you, to what extent are the participants aware of it and to what extent do they deal with it or how do they understand if they're aware of the contradiction. How do they explain it.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: That's a great question. Um, I think.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: The activists, the pro immigrant activists that I studied would not want to be classified as liberal and similarly on the other side, they're very critical actually have
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Republicans. And in fact, I have this great critique, they call them rhinos Republicans in name only. The idea that to be a really true republican one needs to take a different stance than what the RNC does and so
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Yes, absolutely. That's an interesting sort of different than sort of what we would expect.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And the way I explain it is because they're fixated on a particular part of the state, the so called
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I guess it would be the right hand of the state. The, the, the, the course of aspect of the state. So,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know, they're specifically concerned about the deportation machine, the deportation apparatus that you know targets immigrants and racialized communities.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So actually, in some ways, you know, the current calls for diff defunding the police abolition ism, etc. Those are more in line with what the pro immigrant activists, I studied
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: What their worldview is
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Rather than sort of a liberal liberal understanding
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, so let me, I would like to come back to that. But let me, let we have a a
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Hold on a second. Okay, so one question from Allison Norton What challenge did the active. Did you finish your methodological question, what challenges did you face and gaining access to and building trust with people you studied
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I have a home. That's a logical appendix about that. Um, well, you know, I'll just say that when I first started the field work I expected that I would have a really hard time accessing the right and a really easy time accessing accessing left, but it actually turned out to be the reverse.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: For really unexpected reasons and I talked about this little bit in the appendix because of sort of internal tensions that were going on and look at groups that I was studying
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: They were either welcoming or not welcoming towards me. I think so. I think more have more interest, maybe to this audience is, how do you study the right how do you
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know access these spaces that especially and and remember I went into this as a Berkeley graduate students. So as soon as I opened my mouth and said, I'm from California. And not only that, I'm from UC Berkeley.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Eyebrows got raised, but I think, you know, I think there was a genuine sort of interest and curiosity about who I was and like why I was so interested in them. And there was also the gender thing. And that was really key.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know, walking in as a younger woman among a lot of older men, you know, racially ambiguous not fitting into any clear category.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But also having this American accent and, you know, being able to speak like an American, you know, it just, I was a curiosity. And I think that actually worked to my advantage.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know, people. The, the lot of these right wing activists, you know, some of them were just outright suspicious of my intentions.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And didn't want to talk to me, and there was nothing I could do, but a lot of them said, you know, you remind me of my niece. You remind me of my daughter. You remind me of my granddaughter.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And and they would sort of enjoy for his. For instance, when I accompany them into the desert, because they felt like I was they were protecting me, you know,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: From all the, sort of, you know, the drug cartels are all the dangers of the desert.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So that kind of gendered protectionism actually worked to my advantage and allowed me to access groups that I didn't expect to access very easily.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And and there were still a lot of challenges. I mean, it's not an easy thing to do at all any ethnography is really difficult accessing any field is very difficult.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, excellent question from from David Fitzgerald. Could you clarify the claim that the activists will not directly affected by immigration. This was him to apply the progressives, but nothing restrictions.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: The ladder apparently believing represented himself as being thrown out of the middle class by the effects of immigration.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Whether his perceptions are accurate or not worth the puzzle of why he participates. And I guess I would expand that and that is to say that that everyone is affected by immigration. Immigration is transforming the society so so
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Whether or not there are immediate immediate personal impacts. Is it is it appropriate, a meaningful to argue that somehow or another. This is
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: This is somehow incidental. That is, it's not it's not a response to the to the overall societal impact of immigration.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Absolutely, that's a really important point. And the way I would respond to it is, it's in this way, and I, I totally agree with this point, by the way, but this is how I would respond to it.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: First, I think it is important to differentiate between groups that are directly impacted and those that are not. And in fact, the social movement literature does a lot of this. And, you know, one could say, you know, an attack on one group is an attack on all
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: That kind of thing. But the pro immigrant groups that I studied actually used this framing. I mean, I got this framing from them because they would say,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: They would differentiate their own groups from immigrant lead groups and they would talk about how
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: They were not personally impacted IE if they ran into Word patrol. Yes, they would be a little bit scared, but they wouldn't be so scared that they, you know, that they might suddenly, you know, never see their family again.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So that you know that threat of deportation is obviously very specific to a particular population. And so what I'm trying to emphasize in this book is that this group doesn't
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know, at least with the this group is kind of immune to that that immediate threat of deportation. On the right, yes. When could make the argument you know that that you know the saturation of
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know undocumented labor and the labor market is going to affect people like Rick and certainly he's making some of those connections in his head, although they're, they're much more hazy.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But the way that they mobilize is not around, you know, let's get employers to stop hiring undocumented people the way that he mobilizes is
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know, we're going to have this militarized operation in the desert, and it's going to be dedicated to the people who died because they, you know, were
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know, murdered by an undocumented person, but he himself does not know any of doesn't know anyone like that you know that that's not his personal tragedy.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So that's what I what I meant by sort of classifying this group as conscious constituents, as opposed to, you know, people who are directly impacted. But absolutely, you're right, you know,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Immigration Policy affects everyone, including citizens, right, because the whole premise is, you know, figuring out, you know, the boundary between citizenship and non citizens and that boundary changes over time. Right. So I think that's a very valid critique. Okay.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: A question from grace young, do you see it as being appropriate for privileged people who don't have any direct stake in immigration to voluntarily play a role in shaping it
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: In a way, there's picks up on what you've just been talking about that. So the normal people like get Rick and Gail, if so, what role do you see them playing
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Um,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I mean, I don't want to make a normative argument.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: One way or the other.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I think it goes back to Tom's comment about therapeutic politics. I think there is a lot of that happening.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I think that, you know, if I'm thinking about these groups and or if I'm thinking about
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know the humanitarians my main critique of the humanitarians would be
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: They're completely you know disconnected from the immigrant lead immigrant rights movement, right. So, um, they think that they're doing good, and they think that this is the pathway that they should take, but they're not really consulting with
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know with with immigrant lead groups, whether it's the dreamers or whomever
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So, I mean,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I don't know i i think that in, I think, as a rule of thumb. I think the directly affected groups should be the vanguard of any movement.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: A question from Jennifer Perignon your research highlights the compelling and contradictory nature of personal motivation and desire.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: With action and how this is framed and negotiated on individual basis. I'm curious about whether the specific action of physically inserting themselves in the desert brought this to an elevated level of analysis, excuse me, an elevated level of analysis for you as a researcher.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So just, if I can reward that question. Is it
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: How does ethnography, allow me to
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Well,
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Which is really about the kind of embodied nature of the, of the, the body nature in that specific environmental context. Yeah. Any, any specificity of that related to to those two characteristics.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Yes. So I think definitely I think low equal Khan has a great term for it.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Which I can't think of it, but
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: colonel colonel, if not Murphy, it really felt like carnal ethnography.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And I would say that if I had just done interviews and you know interviews and nice air conditioned, you know, libraries, or in my house or whatever.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I don't know if I would have gotten at the same sort of analysis because
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Part of it was just how much I suffered personally like physically suffered. When I was in the desert. And so I and
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I'm not, you know, I think the desert is a really beautiful place. And I think Arizona's like a geographically and ecosystem white. It's beautiful, but it's
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I would never seek out to go out in the desert and camp there and, you know, expose myself to the extreme heat than the extreme cold and like
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: All of that made me realize that this is really hard. You know, like this is really hard, what these people are doing what they're exposing their bodies to so
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Um, you know, why are they doing this, you know, especially given the fact that they also, you know, admit
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: That it might not be very effective. Right. So, I mean, they're in, in itself, that that sort of ethnographic moment of, you know, why are people suffering so much for something that
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know, it's uncertain whether it's going to even have any type of effect in the direction that they want, then you know that that that was sort of a key, key moment for me.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay, I just want to return for a moment. We I guess land. Take the privilege of asking the last question that is to come back to the issue of the
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Etiology i mean they're largely for sure and the politics of immigration emphasizes that one of those distinctive characteristics in a way the the
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Sailing characteristics of politics of immigration that it creates these ideological cleavages within the left and within the right so that you have the right divided between
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: I'm more I'm more illogical concert at logically consistent libertarian view alleges that
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: espoused by the Wall Street Journal and its better days. Open borders and, on the other hand, or social conservatives like like Rick. Can you describe, and on the other hand immigrant rights groups.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Versus let's say labor unions. So I'm just wondering, how can you tell us a little bit more about how these persons understood themselves illogically and I mean it's one thing to say, I'm not a rhino or that I
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: I don't share the politics of the Wall Street Journal, but but what were their politics but and how did they
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: How did they did they have any appreciation. Let's say on the right for the for the tension between a kind of core right wing value that have that freedom and their, their defense of greater state power.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I guess that's a, that's a really good important question.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You're right that it does sort of highlight the cleavages on both sides right rather than rather than sort of showcasing the, the moment of consensus on either side.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I guess the way I would answer is, by talking a little bit about the relationship. The tenuous intense relationship between the activists that I studied the right wing activists and the Tea Party.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So, you know, when I was conducting my research. This was really when the Tea Party was, you know,
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: You know, becoming a big movement there were, you know, tea parties being held, you know, during tax day or whatever. And you know, when I went into the field I expected that you know these these these gatherings of Tea Party.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Groups would be would also be the place where I would find people like Rick
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But it actually turned out to not be the case. So people like Rick had a lot of sympathy for the Tea Party, but they would say things like, well, you know, like
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: They're not really doing anything right.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So I'm glad. So he would say things like the Tea Party is a sort of a I mean I'm summarizing what he's saying. But you know, it's a it's an important critique of the sort of the rhinos right
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But at the same time, the Tea Party is not necessarily doing anything, right, like they're gathering together.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: In in public libraries and reading the Constitution. So what you know.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: So there was there was still this kind of tension between the main conservative movement at the time and my the activists that I was studying
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: And and it was sort of and it was something that I only realized when I, you know, went to tea party groups and realized that there weren't the activists that I expected to be there.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: I don't know if that sort of answer some of that question.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But, and, you know, you know, Trump right I asked them, so when I returned to the field. It was shortly after Trump headed seemed office and I asked, Rick. You know, I said, are you, are you happy, you know, he had voted for Trump.
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: But I asked him, you know, what do you expect. And he said, well, we don't know at the end of the day, he's a politician. Right. So there's definitely also this disconnect, not only between like
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Us conservatives and the sort of or US activists and the sort of conservative movement, but there's also a disconnect between
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Emine Fidan Elcioglu, University of Toronto: Us at the grassroots level on the front lines, you know, in Arizona in the desert versus these, you know, politicians in DC right in the swamp. So there's also that kind of tension.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Okay. All right. Well, terrific.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: All right, so I'm afraid we have come to the end of our time, but I know we have such a rich book that we could continue for longer. But, alas, we must stop. So thank you very much for Dan for terrific presentation and Tom for such an insightful comment.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: Thanks to everybody who has joined us. And a reminder that we will reassemble, same time, same place, so to speak, next Friday at noon.
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Roger Waldinger, UCLA: For a book presentation by Adam Goodman on the deportation machine and a comment by Toby Higdon okay everybody. Have a great weekend. Thank you so much to all of you.
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Thanks.