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Joshua Cain ANTH 416 Dr. Lopez The Effects of Socioeconomic Exclusion Socioeconomic exclusion resonates with a large population of people across the world. Despite being the land of opportunity, America is infected with a plague known as socioeconomic exclusion, and this plague threatens the lives of all its victims. Over 7,000 people have died crossing the U.S–Mexico border between 1998 and 2017, with at least 650 dying in 2021 alone (Schagen et al., 2022). Socioeconomic exclusion may take the form of discrimination along several dimensions including gender, ethnicity, and age, which reduce the opportunity for such groups to gain access to social services and limits their participation in the labor market. Socioeconomic exclusion in America limits the careers, health, and livelihoods of all its victims. The framework that will be used to analyze this issue is the assemblic ethnography. An assemblic ethnography is a framework where instead of studying an issue as one global phenomenon, you treat it as many related parts that manifest locally to different extents in different ways and places. This assemblic ethnography helps us frame our thinking of broad violence and how that connects into small violences, with the small violences being local manifestations of larger phenomenon. The creator of this framework, Jarrett Zigon, elucidates that an “assemblic ethnography chases and traces a situation through its continual process of assembling across different global scales and its temporally differential localization in diverse places” (Zigon 2015). In his publication, What is a Situation? An Assemblic Ethnography of the Drug War , Zigon introduces this important concept of a "situation,” which helps us

unpack how things can evolve and develop over time to form a complex issue. Situations enable us to see how people and objects that are geographically, socially, economically, and culturally distributed may constitute a set of shared conditions that affect people's ways of being-in-the-world. Zigon outlines that it is useful to think of a situation as both a singularity and multiplicity. This encompasses the fact that it is both an event at the individual level, as well as an event in a much broader aspect having effects on people, places, and things that are out of the individual radius. This can help explain how socioeconomic exclusion can have widespread effects and can essentially be a "shared condition" as further detailed by Zigon. Individuals experiencing socioeconomic exclusion have their careers jeopardized. Zigon analyzes the drug war through the lens of situation, using this concept as a theoretical framework to understand how manifestations of drug-related violence are interconnected. He shares the story of Terrance, for example, who works at a harm reduction center in the Bronx, and whose life has been significantly impacted due to a drug-related incarceration. As a result of his arrest, Terrance cannot apply to other jobs, travel internationally, or even receive student loans to pursue higher education. Through this example, we see the drug war as a manifestation of socioeconomic exclusion. Zigon uses the concept of situation and the assemblic ethnography framework to demonstrate the complexity and interconnectedness of housing, drug use, employment, and health in a Vancouver neighborhood, which has integrated harm reduction into every aspect of daily living. While there are safe injection sites in various locations across the world that contribute to the reduction of overdoses and HIV infection in drug users, this neighborhood is unique in that it takes into

consideration additional accommodations to counter the social exclusion experienced by individuals who are marginalized because of their drug use. Zigon also references how stop and frisk policies contribute to the surveillance of individuals within their communities, and this heightened policing directly increases incarceration rates for minor drug possession charges. Imprisonment then restricts individuals’ life possibilities in terms of employment, travel, and familial and social relations, producing a sort of social death. This entire chain of events is then connected to militarism, as historically the drug war and Cold War-era global military operations were nearly indistinguishable. The complex, widespread, interconnected nature of a situation sheds light on why it is inaccurate to understand the drug war as merely a singular or localized phenomenon, which is why the assemblic ethnography framework is utilized. The effects of socioeconomic exclusion on health are also numerous and significant. The controversial experiment by De León in his book The Land of Open Graves of killing pigs and observing the process of their bodies decomposing and being eaten by vultures illustrates how quickly the bodies of migrants disintegrate and vanish. This chapter emphasized that death is such an integral part of how the borders maintain violence. It may not be as overtly savage as the execution of the pig, but dying because of exposure or dehydration, or any other reason associated with migration, is still an inherently violent death. The pig was dressed to compare its likeness to a human, but also to demonstrate what other animals will do to the clothes as they consume the body. With enough time, a person’s body will disappear completely. With the vastness of the desert, the remote locations people are often left, and the scavenging of the dead it

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makes it extremely difficult to realize the full extent of death that occurs. As De León puts it, “there will never be an accurate death count” (De León, 2015). The purpose of this display was to picture the violence that exists to cause people to die on while crossing the border, but also the violence that occurs to the body after death. While biologically, scavenging is a natural occurrence, the destruction of the human body is harmful to the family members of the deceased. A lack of a body makes it difficult to construct a grave which prevents the dead's loved ones from visiting them, making it all the more difficult to grieve normally. There are also the religious implications that come with the lack of a proper burial, such as threatening the soul’s ability to access the afterlife. Even worse, the hasty burials on the trail done by covering the body with stones and brush cause the scavenging to happen even sooner. De León explains that this pattern of death and disappearance is a known and purposeful aspect of the border security infrastructure. These processes that kill people and erase their bodies are part of the desert, but also exist as a sort of deterrence in the “larger enforcement paradigm designed by the Border Patrol” (De León, 2015). The desert is the best border enforcement technique and the U.S. takes full advantage of it. This means families of migrants may never be able to hold a proper burial for their loved ones, which matters a great deal for those who are religious. This “ambiguous loss” for families who never find out what happened to their loved ones is highly traumatizing, as one would expect. Chapters 4 and 5 portray the conditions migrants were subjected to during deportation based on where they were located, where migrants must go through the federal court system and risk being incarcerated, and on

the border in places like Juan Bosco, which has strict rules residents must follow, including being subjected to police searches. The sixth chapter was interesting as it illustrates the perspectives of migrants, as well as border agents, through De León’s fieldwork. The use of drones to watch migrants for days before detaining them is just blatantly inhumane. Rather than detain them immediately, it seems like the U.S. border patrol is specifically choosing to let them suffer and tire through the harsh conditions before ultimately acting. In doing this they allow migrants to have a false sense of hope, in addition to the pains they undergo while traveling. As De León follows the border crossing preparation process, it is interesting to distinguish between migrants’ beliefs about crossing and border agents’ technological capabilities. De León explains that migrants’ choice to wear black clothing inadvertently increases the risk of detection because of body temperature surveillance technology employed by border patrol. Despite this disturbing information regarding border policing technology, it also points to the strategic anti-migration practices that the U.S. employs. This “technological warfare” at the border is combined with the harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert, only serving to progress the broader political agenda of the U.S. De León advances current understandings of violence by demonstrating the means through which it is purposefully enacted upon certain individuals—particularly those lacking citizenship status. Socioeconomic exclusion threatens the lives of everyone under its thumb. Another reading, Inoculations of evil in the U.S-Mexican Border Region, deals with the physical and symbolic violence that regularly takes place at the southern U.S border. The author, Carole Nagengast, explains how it is all about an “…action taken or not

taken by the state or its agents with the express intent of realizing certain social, ethnic, economic, and political goals in the realm of public affairs, especially affairs of the state or social life in general” (Nagengast 2002). Therefore, this political violence is directly linked to the state, whether intentionally or not, and it is labeling all minorities as “illegal” and “dangerous.” This is greatly concerning to minorities who live near the border or for immigrants who are crossing the border and risking their lives for work or better opportunities. Nagengast explores the threats that those experiencing socioeconomic exclusion are exposed to every day. Once again, the complex interconnected nature of this situation must be viewed with the lens of the assemblic ethnography framework to examine the whole picture. Through this anthropological lens, the author depicts how individuals are culturally, geographically, and socioeconomically distributed and how they are intertwined within the shared conditions that result from this issue. This is important for our understanding because it allows for us to broaden our minds on this topic to better understand its root and what possible measures need to be taken, and from whom, in order to lighten and hopefully resolve this issue. The assemblic ethnographic framework, while helpful, does have its limitations. Ethnographic research is time consuming and requires a well-trained researcher. Going from site to site to find connections in violence patterns takes time, and researchers must be trained to be able to see those connections. All those connections can then form the whole picture. Another critique I have is that I feel there is likely a degree of bias in what researchers choose or choose not to pay attention to, where and what to research, and how they present their findings. Ethnography is often criticized for lacking rigor and being susceptible to bias. Therefore, it can be difficult to rely on an

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ethnographic framework at times, but overall examining the full scope of an issue is crucial to ever finding a practical solution. Another limitation lies in positionality of the researchers themselves. For example, De León reflects on his positionality within the context of this fieldwork. De León explains that he “realized early on that being a male researcher from a working- class Latino background often influenced the ways people interacted with him” (De León, 2015). As it is important to acknowledge the influence researchers have on data collection processes, De León’s recognition that his positionality permeates the ethnographic fieldwork presented in this text exposes the affect subconscious biases have on data collection processes for research. Socioeconomic exclusion in America limits the careers, health, and livelihoods of all its victims. Zigon proves how socioeconomic exclusion limits the careers of those less fortunate. Zigon analyzes the drug war through the lens of situation, using this concept as a theoretical framework to understand how manifestations of drug-related violence are interconnected. He shares the story of Terrance, who works at a harm reduction center in the Bronx, and whose life has been significantly impacted due to a drug-related incarceration. As a result of his arrest, Terrance cannot apply to other jobs, travel internationally, or even receive student loans to pursue higher education. Zigon also references how stop and frisk policies contribute to the surveillance of individuals within their communities, and this heightened policing directly increases incarceration rates for minor drug possession charges. De León demonstrates how the effects of socioeconomic exclusion on health are also significant. The experiment by De León of killing pigs and observing the process of their bodies decomposing and being eaten by

vultures illustrates how quickly the bodies of migrants disintegrate and vanish. De León illustrates the violence that exists to cause people to die on while crossing the border, but also the violence that occurs to the body after death. A lack of a body makes it difficult to construct a grave which prevents the dead’s’ loved ones from visiting them, making it all the more difficult to grieve normally. Nagengast demonstrates the risk to human life posed by socioeconomic exclusion. She emphasizes that political violence is directly linked to the state, whether intentionally or not, and it is labeling all minorities as “illegal” and “dangerous.” This is extremely concerning to minorities who live near the border or for immigrants who are crossing the border and risking their lives for work or better opportunities. It is clear the affect socioeconomic exclusion has on the careers, health, and lives of all its victims, as analyzed under the lens of assemblic ethnography. Therefore, it is critical to identify risk factors for socioeconomic exclusion and the ensuing affects in order to improve quality of life and reduce loss of life.

References 1) Courtney Riggle-van Schagen DrPH Student in Prevention and Community Health; Licensed Clinical Social Worker, & Elizabeth Vaquera Director of Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute. (2022, February 22). More migrants are dying along the US-mexico border, but it's hard to say how big the problem actually is . The Conversation. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://theconversation.com/more-migrants-are-dying-along-the-us-mexico- border-but-its-hard-to-say-how-big-the-problem-actually-is-175886 2) Zigon, Jarrett. "What is a Situation?: An Assemblic Ethnography of the Drug War." Cultural Anthropology 30, no. 3 (2015): 501–524. http://dx.doi.org/10.14506/ca30. 3.07 3) De Leon, J., & Wells, M. (2015). The land of open graves . University of California Press. 4) Nagengast, C. (2002). 13. Inoculations of Evil in the U.S.-Mexican Border Region: Reflections on the Genocidal Potential of Symbolic Violence. In A. Hinton (Ed.), Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide (pp. 325-347). Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520927575- 016

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