Author Archives: Michelle Munyikwa

About Michelle Munyikwa

Michelle Munyikwa received her MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021 and is a current resident in combined internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2019, she earned her PhD in anthropology; she works at the intersection of medical and political anthropology, examining the interactions of trauma, history, and the law in practices of care in the United States. Her book project in progress, The Spatial Promise of Refuge, explores these questions in the context of Philadelphia.

Locating Refuge: Racialized Displacement and the Spatial Politics of Belonging

Abstract: From the vantage point of Philadelphia and the surrounding region, this article situates refuge within a framework attentive to settler colonialism and imperialism. Through the example of Fort Indiantown Gap, a space of both temporary refuge and colonial war, I note that making refuge in the United States entails a demarcation of those deemed non-human through practices of dispossession and displacement. By articulating displacement not as a past phenomenon of nation-building but an ongoing project, this article argues for the centrality of displacement to Continue reading → Continue reading →