Sociopolitics of Migrant Death and Repatriation by Krista E. Latham & Alyson J. O’Daniel

Author:Krista E. Latham & Alyson J. O’Daniel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Research Methods and Setting

This opportunity to explore sociopolitical complexities of migrant identification arose in the context of collaboration between me and Dr. Krista Latham, a forensic scientist from the University of Indianapolis involved in the South Texas migrant death crisis response. Generally, our collaborative work was aimed at pinpointing challenges and best practices for forensic work applied in settings of humanitarian crisis among student-centered forensic investigation teams. For the past 3 years, Dr. Latham has traveled to South Texas with carefully selected teams of undergraduate and graduate student volunteers to assist in migrant identification. They have worked collaboratively with teams from Baylor University and, most recently, Texas State University’s Operation Identification initiative (OPId) . Their trips may be characterized as “short bursts” (lasting 10–14 days at a time) of intensive labor and immersive learning. I was invited as a participant and observer on my first “short burst” assignment in May 2016. My goal on this trip was to document, to the extent possible, the complicated networks of individuals, agencies, and ideas into which students were thrust during their work in Texas.

During this initial 10-day trip, I used research strategy informed by “rapid assessment ethnography .” Such an approach facilitated identification of key insights concerning contexts, conditions, and experiences of work among the UIndy team of migrant identification volunteers. Essentially, “rapid assessment ethnography” triangulates a variety of qualitative (and often quantitative) research strategies to collect targeted information under severe time constraints (Handwerker 2001; Scrimshaw et al. 1991). While participant observation and informal conversations provided the backbone of my data collection strategy, I complemented the method with interviews among three key informants and analysis of gray and scholarly literature pertaining to the crisis in South Texas . In addition, I drew heavily from the nuanced insights of Dr. Latham to interpret and contextualize my observations concerning power dynamics and informants’ narrative explanations of their experiences with this crisis response. Thus, the analysis presented here should be understood as a set of general findings pointing a way forward for future anthropological investigation and deliberation. The intention here is to thus sharpen focus on under-discussed dimensions of migrant death in South Texas.

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