Synthesizing Experiences from the Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development

Special Studies Experience, Summer 2016 -- Seoul, South Korea -- Partner Agencie(s): The Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development; Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134329/1/Poster_Doering-White.pd

In the Shadow of the Beast: Violence and Dignity along the Central American Migrant Trail

This dissertation examines the social and material dimensions of undocumented migration through Mexico along freight railways commonly known as La Bestia, or “The Beast.” I draw on mobile ethnographic fieldwork in and around migrant shelters across Mexico between 2014 and 2016. Echoing “prevention through deterrence” tactics along the U.S.-Mexico border, this period was characterized by intensified policing along railways that pushed people away from well-trodden railway corridors and into more circuitous and uncertain routes—in other words, into the “shadow of the beast.” I show how, in addition to these policing operations, humanitarian mechanisms have also reconfigured migrant pathways as practitioners and migrants negotiate intersecting understandings of dignity in the face of pervasive violence. Migrant shelters proliferate what I refer to as shelter vision, the uncomfortable and often paradoxical practice of working to sustain clandestine pathways while also striving to remedy the route’s indignities by making them visible to state bureaucracies. This combination of secrecy and publicity, which is evident in the most mundane aspects of shelter work, illuminates the organizational and interpersonal dilemmas that unfold when people who are shot or beaten while hopping freight trains face a decision: heal and keep moving, try to hire a smuggler, or seek formal humanitarian recognition, something that tends to involve dialoguing with presumably corrupt bureaucrats. I also consider how these negotiations reverberate beyond shelter spaces by following a group of men and women as they come to live and work alongside each other in northern Mexico. Based on time spent in unassuming boarding houses and off-books welding workshops, I outline shifting dynamics of hospitality and camaraderie between citizens and non-citizens as Mexico increasingly becomes not only a space of transit for Central Americans, but also a space of tentative settlement. In this way, I show how tensions of mutuality and mistrust that are evident in migrant shelters also pervade migrants’ journeys well beyond these spaces as migrants who receive formal humanitarian recognition come to rely on the very networks of organized crime from which they flee. Ultimately, this dissertation examines how shelter workers and migrants strive to align seemingly incommensurate moral economies—humanitarianism and human smuggling—amid a transnational immigration enforcement apparatus that churns people through displacement, detention, and deportation. I argue that constructing dignified pathways for people migrating without authorization requires a pragmatic approach to idealized frameworks, one that is attentive to the implicit exclusions that underlie inclusive rhetoric.PHDSocial Work & AnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150060/1/jadwhite_1.pdfDescription of jadwhite_1.pdf : Restricted to UM users only

Migrant Deaths in the Arizona Desert: La vida no vale nada. Raquel Rubioâ Goldsmith, Celestino Fernández, Jessie K. Finch, and Aracelia Mastersonâ Algar, eds., Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016, 302 pp.

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144264/1/maq12414.pd

“I Put a Mask on” the human side of deportation effects on Latino youth

Recent research on immigration has looked at forced deportation issues and specifically on the mental health issues of immigrant parents separated from their children rather than from the child’s experience. Hispanic adolescents residing in the United States who live with the fear of being separated from their parents either through forced parental deportation or as a result of being detained themselves may face serious health and mental health problems during the crucial developmental stage of adolescence and pre-adolescence. This study looks at twenty children ages 11-18 (males and females). Qualitative methods were used including focus groups and individual in-depth interviews to examine issues among youth who were at risk of being deported and/or whose parents had been deported or were at risk of deportation. Evidence from the study demonstrated that the youth have complex understandings of the stress of living in undocumented families that can be categorized in individual, social, and structural levels.http://jswhr.com/journals/jswhr/Vol_2_No_2_December_2014/3.pdfPublished versio

Serological Profiling of a Candida albicans Protein Microarray Reveals Permanent Host-Pathogen Interplay and Stage-Specific Responses during Candidemia

Candida albicans in the immunocompetent host is a benign member of the human microbiota. Though, when host physiology is disrupted, this commensal-host interaction can degenerate and lead to an opportunistic infection. Relatively little is known regarding the dynamics of C. albicans colonization and pathogenesis. We developed a C. albicans cell surface protein microarray to profile the immunoglobulin G response during commensal colonization and candidemia. The antibody response from the sera of patients with candidemia and our negative control groups indicate that the immunocompetent host exists in permanent host-pathogen interplay with commensal C. albicans. This report also identifies cell surface antigens that are specific to different phases (i.e. acute, early and mid convalescence) of candidemia. We identified a set of thirteen cell surface antigens capable of distinguishing acute candidemia from healthy individuals and uninfected hospital patients with commensal colonization. Interestingly, a large proportion of these cell surface antigens are involved in either oxidative stress or drug resistance. In addition, we identified 33 antigenic proteins that are enriched in convalescent sera of the candidemia patients. Intriguingly, we found within this subset an increase in antigens associated with heme-associated iron acquisition. These findings have important implications for the mechanisms of C. albicans colonization as well as the development of systemic infection

Genome-wide association identifies nine common variants associated with fasting proinsulin levels and provides new insights into the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE: Proinsulin is a precursor of mature insulin and C-peptide. Higher circulating proinsulin levels are associated with impaired β-cell function, raised glucose levels, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Studies of the insulin processing pathway could provide new insights about T2D pathophysiology. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We have conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association tests of ∼2.5 million genotyped or imputed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and fasting proinsulin levels in 10,701 nondiabetic adults of European ancestry, with follow-up of 23 loci in up to 16,378 individuals, using additive genetic models adjusted for age, sex, fasting insulin, and study-specific covariates. RESULTS: Nine SNPs at eight loci were associated with proinsulin levels (P < 5 × 10(-8)). Two loci (LARP6 and SGSM2) have not been previously related to metabolic traits, one (MADD) has been associated with fasting glucose, one (PCSK1) has been implicated in obesity, and four (TCF7L2, SLC30A8, VPS13C/C2CD4A/B, and ARAP1, formerly CENTD2) increase T2D risk. The proinsulin-raising allele of ARAP1 was associated with a lower fasting glucose (P = 1.7 × 10(-4)), improved β-cell function (P = 1.1 × 10(-5)), and lower risk of T2D (odds ratio 0.88; P = 7.8 × 10(-6)). Notably, PCSK1 encodes the protein prohormone convertase 1/3, the first enzyme in the insulin processing pathway. A genotype score composed of the nine proinsulin-raising alleles was not associated with coronary disease in two large case-control datasets. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified nine genetic variants associated with fasting proinsulin. Our findings illuminate the biology underlying glucose homeostasis and T2D development in humans and argue against a direct role of proinsulin in coronary artery disease pathogenesis

A review of the stable isotope bio-geochemistry of the global silicon cycle and its associated trace elements

Silicon (Si) is the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and is an important nutrient in the ocean. The global Si cycle plays a critical role in regulating primary productivity and carbon cycling on the continents and in the oceans. Development of the analytical tools used to study the sources, sinks, and fluxes of the global Si cycle (e.g., elemental and stable isotope ratio data for Ge, Si, Zn, etc.) have recently led to major advances in our understanding of the mechanisms and processes that constrain the cycling of Si in the modern environment and in the past. Here, we provide background on the geochemical tools that are available for studying the Si cycle and highlight our current understanding of the marine, freshwater and terrestrial systems. We place emphasis on the geochemistry (e.g., Al/Si, Ge/Si, Zn/Si, d13C, d15N, d18O, d30Si) of dissolved and biogenic Si, present case studies, such as the Silicic Acid Leakage Hypothesis, and discuss challenges associated with the development of these environmental proxies for the global Si cycle. We also discuss how each system within the global Si cycle might change over time (i.e., sources, sinks, and processes) and the potential technical and conceptual limitations that need to be considered for future studies

Shelter Vision: Compassion, Fear, and Learning to (Not) See Trauma along the Migrant Trail through Mexico

Within a context of shifting affective economies of racialised fear and reluctant humanitarianism that surround Central American migration through Mexico, this article draws on ethnographic fieldwork as a volunteer at a humanitarian migrant shelter in Central Mexico to describe how aid workers negotiated concerns expressed by visiting volunteers about compassion fatigue and vicarious traumatisation. Building on the work of scholars who examine intersubjective and relational dynamics of looking and being looked at beyond a lens of either surveillance or performance, I describe how shelter workers learned to (not) see trauma by negotiating the affective expectations of visitors. I argue that what visitors took to be indifference and insensitivity reflects what I refer to as ‘shelter vision’, a tacit and embodied form of competent looking developed through apprenticeship and enskilment. Such vision refuses racialised discourses that position undocumented migrants as either passive victims deserving of compassion or as a toxic threat to the body politic, both in the United States and Mexico

Humanitarian aid and the everyday invisibility of climate-related migration from Central America

This article examines how everyday practices of humanitarian documentation shape the visibility of climate-related migration from Central America. Based on participant observation and interviews with migrants at a humanitarian aid shelter in Mexico, we argue that existing documentation practices may contribute to the everyday erasure of climate-related migration. We observed that migrants rarely mentioned climate change during routine shelter intake interviews, which primarily revolve around interpersonal violence as a driver of forced displacement from Central America. However, in the context of follow-up interviews, migrants explained that such interpersonal violence is often structured in complex ways by climate-related vulnerabilities. Interviews revealed that a variety of climate-related drivers, including inconsistent rainfall variability, deforestation, and land dispossession underlie and exacerbate the forms of interpersonal violence that existing legal regimes consider deserving of legal recognition. Our findings suggest that climate change as a driver of displacement may be obscured in everyday humanitarian encounters. They also point to the role that humanitarian spaces such as migrant shelters might play in documenting and drawing attention to climate-related forced displacement. Finally, we discuss how our findings contribute to emerging academic and policy discussions regarding the integration of climate-related displacement into existing humanitarian legal regimes