ABSTRACT
This chapter is less about a warrantable class of people named refugees whom we study than it is about persons who are in a discourse that is best represented by the label the refugee problem. Refugee studies as a field captured anthropology’s attention when the discipline itself began its dynamic transformation, which continues to this day. In this transformation, some saw a discipline in crisis, others, a fecund change. In this apparent contradiction, this chapter finds its justification in being both descriptive and prescriptive. Written for anthropologists as well as nonanthropologists, not everything I have to say will rise up to the standards of adequacy or even necessity for all its readers, but I hope that there is something here that will engage and inform all readers, regardless.
