Somali Bantu Refugees’ Journey to Lewiston, Maine

Mid Maine Global Forum Program Announcement

Professor Catherine Besteman

“Somali Bantu Refugees’ Journey to Lewiston, Maine”

How do people whose entire way of life has been destroyed and who witnessed horrible abuses against loved ones construct a new future? How do people who have survived the ravages of war and displacement rebuild their lives in a new country when their world has totally changed? In Making Refuge Catherine Besteman follows the trajectory of Somali Bantus from their homes in Somalia before the onset in 1991 of Somalia’s civil war, to their displacement to Kenyan refugee camps, to their relocation in cities across the United States, to their settlement in the struggling former mill town of Lewiston, Maine. Tracking their experiences as “secondary migrants” who grapple with the struggles of xenophobia, neoliberalism, and grief, Besteman asks what humanitarianism feels like to those who are its objects and what happens when refugees move in next door. As Lewiston’s refugees and locals negotiate co-residence and find that assimilation goes both ways, their story demonstrates the efforts of diverse people to find ways to live together and create community. Besteman’s account illuminates the contemporary debates about economic and moral responsibility, security, and community that immigration provokes.

Catherine Besteman is an anthropologist who has taught at Colby since 1994. After conducting ethnographic fieldwork in Somalia in the late 1980s, she reunited with her former neighbors from Somalia when they began moving to Maine as resettled refugees in 2006. Her new book, Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine, chronicles their journey from war-torn Somalia, to Kenya’s massive refugee camps, and, finally, to Lewiston. Besteman is a recent Guggenheim fellow, and her research for this book was also supported by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Here’s the description of the book  from the Duke U Press website, which we can use for this event as well: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/156e292c1598bf06k

Please Register by Email: bsammons829@gmail.com or by telephone: Bonnie Sammons at 716-1022

Lunch catered by Jorgensen’s for $10 - Please pay at the door.

Please register for this Wednesday lunch program no later than Monday September 19.

Please indicate your lunch choice: Sandwiches: Turkey and Swiss on tomato wrap, Tarragon Chicken Salad on flour wrap, Hummus/Cheese/Veggie on spinach wrap

Lunch includes your choice of sandwich, soup, cookie, coffee or tea.

Please note: Registrants who request lunch are responsible for lunch fees. If your plans change and you are unable to attend, please notify us so that lunch orders can be adjusted.

Mid-Maine Global Forum is pleased to offer this program at:

12:30 pm, September 21, 2016, at our new venue,

The Alfond Center, North Street, Waterville

For more information on the Mid-Maine Global Forum visit: http://www.midmaineglobalforum.org/