The combined emphasis on both displacement and materiality, and the analysis of the cultural construction and intersections of exilic objects, spaces, and bodies, are unique in the study of both refugees and material culture. Drawing theoretical influences from phenomenology, aesthetics, and beyond, as well as from refugee studies and anthropology, the author addresses the current lack of theoretical analysis of the material, visual, spatial, and embodied aspects of forced migration, providing a fundamentally interlinked analysis of enforced exile and materiality.
Sandra Dudley has worked with and on Karenni refugees since 1996, completing her doctorate in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford in 2001. She is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, having previously taught at Oxford and UEA and worked at the Pitt Rivers Museum.