Professor Shares Research On Refugee Crisis

By Elise St. Esprit

Miami University journalism student

Thursday afternoon Miami students had the opportunity to attend the last of the university's international studies lecture series this semester in Upham Hall. The goal is to educate students and open up discussions on a variety of topics, including politics, social sciences and the humanities.

The lecture, Moving Dangerously: Death and Displacement in the Thai-Burma Border Zone, was given by Tani Sebro, an assistant professor diaspora studies, human rights, and transnational migration in the department of Global and Intercultural Studies.

Defining The Crisis

When many people think of the current refugee crisis, the first thing that comes to mind are the mass migrations from the Middle East and North Africa. However, there are also vast numbers of people displaced both internally and internationally in Central and Southern Asia as well.

Sebro began her talk by prompting students to ponder a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche for which the lecture was named.

"The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously."

Sebro spent nine months along the Thai-Burma border researching the migration of the Tai people and what role tradition, culture and religion play in the crisis there. The Tai people are an ethnic minority group in Burma, and have been involved in clashes with the Burmese army for years.

Sebro is expanding her research into the topic of necromobility, which is an analysis of mortality and mobility in global movements and will be publishing a book after returning to the field for more research.

"Living Dangerously"

"Although they are 'living dangerously,' refugees can lead long and fulfilling lives," Sebro says.

Much of her research has been in traditional Tai dance and how it has been preserved across generations and across borders.

Sebro also discussed how social movements from the early years of the decade, such as Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, have led to new understandings of the world, politics, and economics in which the middle class is no longer content in their traditional roles.

This discontent has led to conflicts around the world and mass migrations of people, both from persecution and in search of better lives. This has lead to increased border security in many places.

"The forced mobility of these refugees has turned borders into places of death. And death becomes a norm through which migration is key," Sebro says.

Moving Forward

The room was mostly full during Sebro's lecture, and while many were in attendance as part of various classes, the atmosphere was attentive.

Junior Claire Bowman is a psychology student and was among those who attended Sebro's talk as part of a class requirement.

"At first I was't super excited about the out of class work," she says, "but I've really been enjoying hearing the different perspectives people have."

"I think it would be nice if more students went to theses kind of events, the speakers always seem really knowledgeable to me and I think you can get a lot out of them," Bowman says.

Sebro plans to return to the Thai-Burma border and continue her research into the crisis there soon.

Photo: Students meet in Upham Hall to attend a lecture on the crisis faced in Central Asia. --Photo by Elise St. Esprit