Nuer Journeys, Nuer Lives: Sudanese Refugees in Minnesota

Rating:
Summary: Anthropology the old-fashioned way
Review: For years the Twin Cities area has been home to a surprising number of African refugees fleeing some of the world's most brutal conflicts. In the 1980s it was Ethiopians and Eritreans; in the 1990s Somalis and Sudanese joined them. Walk down any street in South Minneapolis on a warm day and you're likely to see dozens of women wearing distinctive Somali garb. Tens of thousands such people now inhabit the Twin Cities. Why are they there? How did they make the long and difficult journey? How are they adapting to life in the United States?

Anthropologist Jon Holtzman helps provide some of the answers with respect to one particular group. Minnesota's Nuer population is a tiny component of this larger group--Holtzman estimates that there were only 400 or so at the time of his study, and many have since moved on to new locations outside the state. But given the importance of the Nuer in the development of the field of anthropology (through E. Evans-Pritchard's seminal fieldwork among them), this group was a natural choice for Holtzman's attentions.

The text first provides historical background to the Sudanese civil war and the conditions that forced many Nuer to flee, first to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and eventually to the U.S. Its second section deals with the initial establishment of the Nuer population in Minnesota, and notably with the mundane but all-important realities of work, education, social services, and car payments as experienced by these newcomers. Next, Holtzman focuses on changing family dynamics and gender roles. He concludes with a section on responses to the Nuer within the wider American-born population of the Twin Cities. Throughout, his writing is extremely straightforward and his descriptions are crystal clear.

"Nuer Journeys" is strongest when it contrasts Nuer people's present first-world social environments with their previous lives in East Africa; the author shows how the refugees constantly struggle to adjust to and make sense of their new home. Their dependence on state and local social services--welfare and health care--frequently causes them stress; when they work, however, they are faced with a new and equally daunting set of challenges. The sections dealing with acquiring, operating, and paying for motor vehicles is especially revealing. ("A car is a bad cow," he quotes one of his subjects as saying: this remark must be interpreted in the cultural context of the Nuer, who traditionally have valued cattle above all else.) Holtzman presents the difficulties and absurdities of his subjects' hybrid existence with insight and compassion.

Unlike most anthropological studies today, "Nuer Journeys" contains very little theoretical discussion or reference to social thought. Holtzman's list of sources is relatively short, and consists largely of other ethnographies, as well as more prosaic documents on refugee resettlement, employment patterns, and auto accident rates. Consequently, the book reads more like an old-fashioned ethnography of half a century ago than like modern anthropology. This is fine with me, and while I would have liked to see Holtzman bring in "the big picture" a little more often, I applaud his simple and direct approach in crafting this study. He includes just enough personal anecdotes to allow a bit of himself and his own connection to the Nuer to show through the text.

Rating:
Summary: Anthropology the old-fashioned way
Review: For years the Twin Cities area has been home to a surprising number of African refugees fleeing some of the world's most brutal conflicts. In the 1980s it was Ethiopians and Eritreans; in the 1990s Somalis and Sudanese joined them. Walk down any street in South Minneapolis on a warm day and you're likely to see dozens of women wearing distinctive Somali garb. Tens of thousands such people now inhabit the Twin Cities. Why are they there? How did they make the long and difficult journey? How are they adapting to life in the United States?

Anthropologist Jon Holtzman helps provide some of the answers with respect to one particular group. Minnesota's Nuer population is a tiny component of this larger group--Holtzman estimates that there were only 400 or so at the time of his study, and many have since moved on to new locations outside the state. But given the importance of the Nuer in the development of the field of anthropology (through E. Evans-Pritchard's seminal fieldwork among them), this group was a natural choice for Holtzman's attentions.

The text first provides historical background to the Sudanese civil war and the conditions that forced many Nuer to flee, first to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and eventually to the U.S. Its second section deals with the initial establishment of the Nuer population in Minnesota, and notably with the mundane but all-important realities of work, education, social services, and car payments as experienced by these newcomers. Next, Holtzman focuses on changing family dynamics and gender roles. He concludes with a section on responses to the Nuer within the wider American-born population of the Twin Cities. Throughout, his writing is extremely straightforward and his descriptions are crystal clear.

"Nuer Journeys" is strongest when it contrasts Nuer people's present first-world social environments with their previous lives in East Africa; the author shows how the refugees constantly struggle to adjust to and make sense of their new home. Their dependence on state and local social services--welfare and health care--frequently causes them stress; when they work, however, they are faced with a new and equally daunting set of challenges. The sections dealing with acquiring, operating, and paying for motor vehicles is especially revealing. ("A car is a bad cow," he quotes one of his subjects as saying: this remark must be interpreted in the cultural context of the Nuer, who traditionally have valued cattle above all else.) Holtzman presents the difficulties and absurdities of his subjects' hybrid existence with insight and compassion.

Unlike most anthropological studies today, "Nuer Journeys" contains very little theoretical discussion or reference to social thought. Holtzman's list of sources is relatively short, and consists largely of other ethnographies, as well as more prosaic documents on refugee resettlement, employment patterns, and auto accident rates. Consequently, the book reads more like an old-fashioned ethnography of half a century ago than like modern anthropology. This is fine with me, and while I would have liked to see Holtzman bring in "the big picture" a little more often, I applaud his simple and direct approach in crafting this study. He includes just enough personal anecdotes to allow a bit of himself and his own connection to the Nuer to show through the text.

Rating:
Summary: Nuer Journeys, Nuer lives: Sudanese Refugees in minnesota
Review: Holtzman, made a behavioral research on Nuer people, while designed his plot to analyse the Cultural viewpoint.

Reading this book does not only give you a broader insight of Nuer as a cultural community, but also an individual Nuer back the "prophtic" days of Ngundeng in the end of 19th Century Sudan. For many Nuers, this transformation meant lost of identity as to regard of ancestoral home, but also positively fulfilled one of Ngendengs predictions of the Better generation to come. Ngundeng was an enthusiast about the western technology, which was rejected by most Nuers elders then.

Nuer Journeys, Nuer lives also remines me of redressing issues considered to be of important cultural value in two different angles: The current cultural transformation in due to war in Sudan, and this strong, peaceful influence of American way of life. This book could also be used as a basis of peaceful cultural transformation v.s forceful coersion/assimilation in addressing the comparative advantages. The section refering to Nuer Refugees in American churches reflects an interesting Nuer cultural phenomena on how believes on freedom to worship and associate, which was not granted in the Religious governed Sudan.

Nuer culture is like a shrub which dies when transplanted, but endures when confined. This book explains Nuer culture being at odds with multiculturism, which means it takes a while for them to be transformed and transform Americans as well.

This is a piece of craft from Jon.

Peace,

Goi Yol