The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail (Volume 36) (California Series in Public Anthropology) - Hardcover

De Leon, Jason

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520282744 ISBN 13: 9780520282742

Publisher: University of California Press, 2015

Synopsis

In his gripping and provocative debut, anthropologist and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Jason De León sheds light on one of the most pressing political issues of our time—the human consequences of US immigration policy.  The Land of Open Graves reveals the suffering and deaths that occur daily in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona as thousands of undocumented migrants attempt to cross the border from Mexico into the United States.

Drawing on the four major fields of anthropology, De León uses an innovative combination of ethnography, archaeology, linguistics, and forensic science to produce a scathing critique of “Prevention through Deterrence,” the federal border enforcement policy that encourages migrants to cross in areas characterized by extreme environmental conditions and high risk of death. For two decades, this policy has failed to deter border crossers while successfully turning the rugged terrain of southern Arizona into a killing field.

In harrowing detail, De León chronicles the journeys of people who have made dozens of attempts to cross the border and uncovers the stories of the objects and bodies left behind in the desert.

The Land of Open Graves will spark debate and controversy.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"De León confronts us with a vivid indictment of the killing fields on the US-Mexico border and reveals the brutality of global inequality in all its goriness and intimate suffering. A self-described refugee from archaeology, De León is revitalizing the field of anthropology by blowing apart the traditional subdisciplinary boundaries. With no holds barred, he offers new paths for theory, methods, and public anthropology." —Philippe Bourgois, author of Righteous Dopefiend and In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio

"Jason De León has written a remarkable book. I know of no other ethnography of life and death on the borderlands that is more moving, theoretically ambitious, or powerful than this eagerly awaited work." —María Elena García, author of Making Indigenous Citizens: Identities, Education, and Multicultural Development in Peru

"This book sears itself into your memory. You literally can’t put it down." —Stanley Brandes, Robert H. Lowie Professor of Anthropology, UC Berkeley

"An impressive piece of scholarship, The Land of Open Graves is a brilliant and important book that humanizes the realities of life and death on the migrant trail in southern Arizona."—Randall H. McGuire, author of Archaeology as Political Action

"Jason De León has written that rare and precious book—a masterful deployment of tools from across the broad spectrum of anthropology." —Danny Hoffman, author of The War Machines: Young Men and Violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia

"The Land of Open Graves is a politically, theoretically, and morally important book that mobilizes the four fields of anthropology to demonstrate beyond a doubt how current US border defense policy results in deliberate death. Beautifully written and engaging, it is a must-read for the general public and students across the social sciences." —Lynn Stephen, author of Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon and We Are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements

"The Land of Open Graves is an invaluable book, one full of rich ethnographic accounts of migrants, sharp analysis, and beautiful photographs by Michael Wells (as well as some by the migrants De León encounters). It is a strong indictment of the violence migrants face, particularly of a structural sort, and it calls us to “better understand how our worlds are intertwined and the ethical responsibility we have to one another as human beings." It deserves a broad audience."—NACLA Report on the Americas
 

About the Author

Jason De León is Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, with his lab located in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. De León is Executive Director of the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), a long-term anthropological study of clandestine migration between Latin America and the United States that uses a combination of ethnographic, visual, archaeological, and forensic approaches to understand this violent social process. His academic work has been featured in numerous media outlets, including National Public Radio, the New York Times Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post, and Vice. In 2013, De León was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, and in 2017, he was the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0520282744
• ISBN 13: 9780520282742
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384