Anderson, Emma

Black, Sarah Grace

English

Oxford University Research Archive

251Personal Reflection: Finding a World of ‘Us’ Through Chronic Pain and Fear. EmmaAnderson and Sarah Grace BlackAnthropological approaches to chronic pain can be used to bridge the fear immigrants facewith the fear others have of immigrants. By understanding that individuals, populations andthe entire human race have the capacity to fear, we can hope to overcome it in times ofdistress. Although people fear for different reasons, they all experience it vividly.Anthropology contextualizes people’s imaginations, their dreams and their reality. Fear, likechronic pain, can be a product of embodied cultural, political and social dimensions in whichthe body, inclusive of the mind, is situated. Anthropological approaches can not only uncoverwhere moments of fear stem from and why people feel the way they do, they can alsohighlight the very foundations of fear. Chronic pain, like fear, can be shaped by social,political and historical events in which the body bears witness.Interestingly, in a study conducted by the Pew Research Center (Gramlich 2016), themajority of those identified as ‘Trump supporters’ were in favour of building a wall.However, when asked if undocumented immigrants are honest and hardworking individualsand if immigrants fill the jobs Americans do not want to do, half of Trump supporters agreedwith these statements. Why then, if half of Trump supporters believe that immigrants are‘honest,’ ‘hard-working’ and are taking the undesirable jobs, do they still want to build awall? Where is this fear coming from?Equally, fear is experienced by immigrants. It is also a fear of the unknown. Since theNovember 8th election in the US, clinicians serving undocumented immigrants have seen arise in the number of children experiencing anxiety over a fear that their undocumentedparents will be deported. Marielena Hincapié, of the National Immigration Law Center,states, ‘People worry their families will be broken up, that parents will be deported andchildren will end up in foster care, on a scale that we’ve never seen before. The feeling outthere is one of great fear’ (Gumbel 2016). Similarly, ‘dreamers,’ or young people who werebrought to the US illegally by their parents, have grown up in the US and have obtainedtemporary citizenship or ‘conditional status’ in order to go to university or join the military,are frightened (Flores 2016).Fear, like chronic pain, is created and influenced by a web of cultural, political andsocial factors that manifest themselves within the bodies and minds of individuals. Whetherthey are an immigrant or a supporter, they imagine their futures, they imagine what theirfuture could be like, and they imagine what they are afraid of. This imagination is their252reality. Rohde (this volume) explains that the anthropological perspective, “aims toinvestigate how objective and subjective reality inform each other to create what we call livedexperience.” When we begin to uncover another person’s lived experience, we take the firststeps toward empathy, the first steps toward a more unified and understanding world. It is nota world of ‘us’ and ‘them’; it is a world simply of ‘us’.ReferencesFlores, Rosa (2016, 12 November). DREAMers fear nightmare scenario in Trump's America.CNN. Retrieved from: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/dreamers-fear-deportation-under-trump/Gramlich, John (2016, 29 November). Trump voters want to build the wall, but are moredivided on other immigration questions. Pew Research Center.Retrieved from:http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/29/trump-voters-want-to-build-the-wall-but-are-more-divided-on-other-immigration-questions/Gumbel, Andrew (2016, 25 November). Doctors see a new condition among immigrantchildren: fear of Trump. The Guardian.Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/25/donald-trump-immigration-deportation-children-doctors

Personal reflection: Finding a world of 'us' through chronic pain and fear

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Personal reflection: Finding a world of 'us' through chronic pain and fear

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