Destination Detroit: Discourses on the Refugee in a Post-Industrial City

Deindustrialized cities in the United States are at a particular crossroads when it comes to the contest over refugees. Do refugees represent opportunity or danger? These cities are in desperate need to stem population and resource loss, problems that an influx of refugees could seemingly help address. However, the cities are simultaneously dealing with local communities that are already feeling internally displaced by economic and technological flux. For these existing citizens, the prospect of incoming refugee populations can be perceived as a threat to financial, cultural, and personal security.

Few U.S. locations provide a more vivid case study of this fight than Metro Detroit, where competing interest groups are waging war over the meaning of the figure of the refugee. This book dives deeply into the discourse on refugees occurring among various institutions in Metro Detroit. The way in which local institutions talk about refugees gives us vital clues as to how they are negotiating competing pressures and how the city overall is negotiating competing imperatives. Indeed, this local discourse gives us a crucial glimpse into how U.S. cities are defining and redefining themselves today. The figure of the refugee becomes a slate on which groups with varied interests write their stories, aspirations, and fears. Consequently, we can figure out from local refugee discourses the ongoing question of what it means to be a Metro Detroiter--and by extension, what it means to be a revitalizing U.S. city in this age.

Rashmi Luthra is Professor Emerita of Public Communication and Culture Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.