Abstract: Aid to refugees is usually thought of as a humanitarian endeavor. However, forced migration—-the violent process of forcing people out of their homes and countries of origin that turns people into refugees—is deeply related to the larger capitalist world system. I argue that the current US immigration system creates an economy of injury, one that releases labor from its attachments to places and people, thus making it available for higher value, higher intensity exploitation elsewhere. This, however, exposes workers to extraordinarily high risk of profound injury—risks that native born workers will not take.

Elizabeth Cullen Dunn is Professor of Geography at Indiana University, where she also serves as the Director of the Center for Refugee Studies. Her work has focused on the intersections of food, labor, and forced migration. In Eastern Europe she has worked with internally displaced people in both Georgia and Ukraine, as well as with Ukrainian refugees in Poland. In the US, her current NSF-funded project, “Essential Workers in the US Food System,” looks at the role that undocumented people, refugees and other forced migrants play in the US meatpacking system.