Madeline Otis Campbell (Academic Affairs/Urban Studies) has been honored with a book award from the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS), the leading professional organization in the field.
Her book, “Interpreters of Occupation: Gender and the Politics of Belonging in an Iraqi Refugee Network [1],” was published by Syracuse University Press in 2016. The AMEWS, which annually recognizes books that demonstrate excellence in the field of Middle East gender, and women’s and sexuality studies, gave Campbell’s book an honorable mention.
During the Iraq War, thousands of young Baghdadis worked as interpreters for U.S. troops, becoming the front line of the so-called War on Terror. In her book, Campbell traces the experiences of twelve individuals from their young adulthood as members of the last Ba’thist generation, to their work as interpreters, through their navigation of the US immigration pipeline, and finally to their resettlement in the United States.
AMEWS called the book “A nuanced and richly detailed ethnography [that] gives voice to a generation of US allies through their diverse and vividly rendered life histories.”