Michel Agier is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Centre for African Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He has written extensively on the conditions and sites of exile, including the books Managing the Undesirables: Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Government (Polity Press, 2011) and Onthe Margins of the World: The Refugee Experience Today (Polity Press, 2008).
Reviewed in the January 2012 issue of Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, Stephanie Nawyn writes:
“Michel Agier’s Managing the Undesirables is one of several texts that addresses the complex and proliferating humanitarian infrastructure that is increasingly prevalent in regions of the world besieged by violence and displacement, but his work stands out as particularly important and innovative. Agier addresses some of the central questions facing our world today: belonging, personhood, and the ability of those most cut off from political power to speak for themselves and shape their own lives, and he does so in a way that combines passion and keen observation. In doing so, his work should be of interest to a broad range of sociologists who study social inequality and the structures (even those built from the best of intentions) that perpetuate it.”
Co sponsored by the Anthropology department
Comments Closed