Jen Erickson (Assistant Director and Professor of Anthropology) published an article, “Imperial Entanglements: Afghan Refugees and the Reimagining of Midwestern Identity in Muncie, Indiana,”that connects the arrival of Afghan refugees to Muncie in 2021 to a longer history of U.S. imperialism in Afghanistan and beyond and situates Muncie, Indiana, within that history.

Abstract

Since the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 after a 20-year occupation, the U.S. accepted more than 80,000 Afghan refugees to the United States. This article investigates the resettlement of Afghans to Muncie, Indiana—long viewed as a quintessential “average” American city—within a larger context of U.S. empire, including the War on Terror. Using cultural critique, film, social science literature, and my experiences working with the Muncie Afghan Refugee Resettlement Committee, the article contributes to a critical reading of and invention to dominant narratives about both Muncie and Afghan refugees. I show that there are many overlapping ways in which the sacrifices and needs of soldiers, civilians, and refugees are overlooked and downplayed in deference to the U.S. military and the larger project of empire. In conclusion, I argue that studying refugee resettlement in Muncie may demonstrate patterns that are applicable to other locales in ways similar to and different from the ways that the Robert Lynd and Helen Lynd (1929, 1937) attempted to portray the “average” American one hundred years ago.