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Martin Ford, Associate Director, Maryland Office for Refugees and Asylees

How Domestic Refugee Resettlement works Refugee Resettlement and American Immigration as Seen by an Erstwhile Anthropologist
When Apr 02, 2014
from 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM
Where 1102 Woods
Contact Name
Contact Phone 301-405-1420
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This presentation is part of the Anthropology of the Immigrant Life Course Speaker Series

About the presentation

Martin Ford will take us to the world of practice. Trained as an anthropologist, he has been employed for more than 20 years in administering government programs for refugees and asylees.  While his anthropological training led to his first job, directing a state commission on ethnicity, he is now involved with policy and programmatic aspects of immigrant integration. Although his work is far removed from that of the ethnographer or teacher, anthropology continues to inform how he thinks.

Dr. Ford will speak to us about refugee resettlement as part of the broader American immigration system. He will help us reflect on immigration as a contentious topic, with those who take sides in the debate basing opinion more on feelings than facts. Ford will discuss how an evidence-based analysis of contemporary immigration may yield more accurate views.  He will recall his training in anthropology, which emphasized thinking like a social scientist (testing hypotheses, respecting evidence, using a comparative perspective, etc.), and how such critical thinking, has bolstered his work in refugee resettlement.

Dr. Ford will also discuss current job opportunities in resettlement work, how the US Refugee Resettlement Program works, and how students might become involved as interns or volunteers.

About the series

Immigration is admittedly an interdisciplinary field of study.  Different disciplines bring their own perspective and lens to understand the field and explore public issues.  What is the special contribution of anthropology to this interdisciplinary field?  The Anthropology of the Immigrant Life Course Research Program, in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland, invites discussion of the anthropological contributions to the interdisciplinary field of migration studies as they intersect with scholarship and policy.

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