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Accepted Paper:

Finding space for the migrant voice: A Ladakhi migrant's short story and its awkward reception  
Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg (Aarhus University) Mohd Shabbir (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

Paper short abstract:

A collaborative attempt between an ethnographer and a migrant to tell a story that necessitates telling; and their cumulative reflections on the difficulties faced regarding dispersion, framing and authority in finding space for this story.

Paper long abstract:

Revolving around the narration of a story by a Ladakhi student migrant this collaborative paper investigates spaces of enunciation for migrant social commentaries both within and outside academia. In the spring of 2011 a Ladakhi Muslim student migrant approached an American ethnographer friend to ask for help in publishing a story which communicates reflections from his homeland. The hurdles encountered in fulfilling this request and the negotiation of roles between the ethnographer and her informant in the process bring to the fore issues that migrants face in their (artistic) endeavors to give voice to their thoughts, reflections and experiences. It also leads to important discussions on the authority and framing of informant and ethnographer voices in anthropological discourse, as well as about the continued relevance of anthropological debate in bringing forth migrant voices.

The collaborative format of the paper brings to light the complicated tensions faced both by migrant and ethnographer in telling their stories. In this attempt at honesty and self-reflexivity, we hope to both share experiences on Ladakhi subjectivization and debate wider problems of ethnographic representation, advocacy and collaboration.

Panel P32
The ethnographic framing of the migrant subject
  Session 1