Search

In this article, we argue that loss often precedes critique in postcritical ethnographic work. We position this argument in relation to the moral and the political commitments that imbue postcritical ethnography, noting how a postcritical perspective invites researchers to theorize and imagine what could be otherwise. We ground our discussion in a 4-year ethnography we carried out with Burundians with refugee status living in southern Appalachia in the United States. As we retrace some of the steps, silences, and tensions we embodied in this postcritical ethnographic work, we work to examine the place of loss, grief, and critique in the pursuit of what could have been otherwise and was not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in 2007, government agencies and faith-based organizations resettled Burundians with refugee status in a small town in Appalachia. From a part of a larger, 4-year ethnographic study, in this article, we address the experience of one family in that community. Specifically, we detail the power non-Native, whitestream, racist institutions deploy to do harm. Using allegory, we represent the effects of policy and practice at the public elementary school where many of the Burundian children studied and the health care system to which Burundian families had access. We examine the cultivation of modern convictions in these institutions and the influence of such convictions at the intersection of authoritarian power. Aiming to complicate the history and logic of modern convictions and analyze institutional power, we invite layered readings of our representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]