Description
Book SynopsisOn the production of migrant labor and suffering through asylum enforcementOver the past several decades, the vibrant, multiethnic borough of Queens has seen growth in the community of Nepali migrants, many of whom are navigating the challenging bureaucratic process of asylum legalization. Surviving the Sanctuary City follows them through the institutional spaces of asylum offices, law firms, and human rights agencies to document the labor of seeking asylum. As an interpreter and a volunteer at a grassroots community center, anthropologist Tina Shrestha has witnessed how migrants must perform a particular kind of suffering that is legible to immigration judges and asylum officers. She demonstrates the lived contradictions asylum seekers face while producing their suffering testimonials and traces their attempts to overcome these contradictions through the Nepali notions of kaagaz banaune (making paper) and dukkha (suffering). Surviving the Sanctuary City asks what everyday survival amo
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter 1. Locating Nepali New Yorkers
Chapter 2. Language of Suffering, Language for Survival
Chapter 3. The Logic of “Claimant Credibility”
Chapter 4. Testimonial Coconstruction in the Asylum Backstage
Chapter 5. The Production of Claimant-Workers
Chapter 6. The Paradox of Visibility and Collective Censorship
Conclusion
Epilogue
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
