Foreword

• Author: Mette Brogden
• Profession: PhD, is a medical/cultural anthropologist and Wisconsin State Refugee Coordinator
• Pages: 16-17

FOREWORD

— METTE BROGDEN

The terrible events experienced by refugees who have fled from their homelands create

profound mistrust of their enemies and more generally of the basic foundations of

social life. One of the hallmarks of violence and persecution that is particularly

devastating for human beings is to be reduced from a person with a life history, specific

talents and interests, propensities, and individual values expressed in daily life, to a

simple instantiation of an identity category arbitrarily subject to degrading treatment

or annihilation. Nothing about who one is, or what one has done in life, matters.

Refugees speak of this experience as absolutely existentially devastating.

Refugees resettle in foreign countries alongside former enemies, who also are

fleeing. Extreme episodes of violence impact all sides, horribly. In the country of

resettlement, in a context of deeply felt distrust and anger, diaspora peoples must

learn how to become neighbors and human beings with each other again. They must

do so with existing and with incoming community members.

It is actually astounding to me that this is the first book I have seen which addresses

this severely distressing circumstance of refugees having to coexist with perceived

enemies. This book provides a deeply moving account of the process of rehumanizing

others. Barbara Tint, Djimet Dogo and their partners and colleagues who worked to

develop and test the methods described in this book are to be congratulated for this

timely effort. Now, more than ever, we need this work to help the millions of refugees

fleeing conflict and resettling around the world.

I first became aware of this project at a national consultation sponsored by the

U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement when I attended Djimet Dogo’s presentation

about his work with the Diaspora Dialogue Project on conflict resolution among

refugee communities. I immediately knew I wanted him to come to Milwaukee and

train us. He graciously consented, and what followed were two days of refugee and

former refugee leaders sitting spellbound, working with the ideas he presented from

this important project. The concepts about how change happens in stages and what

can be done to help those going through those stages – which are spelled out in this