Doctoral Dissertation Research: Consumer Citizenship Among Internally Displaced Persons

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The research supported by this award investigates the politics, routes of circulation, and patterns of consumption of material aid given to displaced people. This project asks three sets of research questions: (1) Aid provision: How do governments interpret and protect the social rights of its displaced citizens through the distribution of aid? What is the role of non-state aid providers in these processes? (2) Aid consumption: What kind of bureaucratic procedures do internally displaced people (IDPs) navigate to qualify for aid? How do IDPs consume material assistance? How does aid reinforce or dismantle IDPs' ideas about the state and belonging? (3) Aid circulation: Does the value of humanitarian aid change in the process of its circulation? What meanings does aid accrue in contexts of political ambivalence? The research is important because displacement is one of the biggest and fast-growing challenges in the contemporary world. While humanitarian aid in the wake of displacement is an entrenched feature of the modern world, including American foreign policy, the full range of effects is not well documented. Findings will be useful to policy makers concerned with making aid more effective and to social scientists building theories of the material aspects of contemporary citizenship.The research will be conducted by Indiana University anthropology doctoral student Tetiana Bulakh, under the supervision of Dr. Sarah Phillips, focusing on IDPs in the Ukraine. This is an appropriate site because the Ukraine has one of the highest IDP populations in the world. The researcher will focus on officials who develop IDP policies, representatives of international organizations, local volunteers, and IDPs and their social networks. She will collect data using a mixed-methods approach, including interviews, participant observation, "social biographies" or tracking of aid objects, aid-focused interviews, projective tests, and analysis of archival documents related to IDP policy.