Fall 2025
AES 442 Undocumented Immigrant Communities:
Documenting the Undocumented
Professor: Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky
Associate Professor, Department of American Ethnic Studies (info about meLinks to an external site.)
Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Meetings: MW 1:30-3:20pm in 331A Bagley Hall
Email: cpt4@uw.edu
Off Hours: Friday 11-1pm in A517 Padelford Hall and by individual appointment.
Description:
What does the concept, “undocumented,” mean? Historically, how can we trace the meanings and practice of this idea in structuring mobility, categories of immigration status and citizenship? What are the outcomes that produce a lived experience of “undocumented-ness”? In these unsettling times, the migrant crisis compels us to understand the forces that produce these ideas. We will scrutinize important distinctions situated in axes of power, specifically in racialized and gendered contexts.
In a discussion-based class setting and working with primary and secondary sources, students will learn about and engage in creative practice the transformation of bodies as archives with a particular focus on documents, documenting techniques and storytelling. Examples can be the presence, absence and production of material items like passports, licenses (driving and occupational), work histories, health records and the like, as well as the changes and users of technology in their production. Institutional outcomes in migration, law, labor, carceral spaces, education, and health are areas in social life that may be examined in course materials. And we will learn about experiences across diverse communities, i.e., UndocuLatino, UndocuBlack, UndocuAsian and Pacific Islander, and UndocuQueer communities.
This is an upper-division course. Course readings are interdisciplinary from sociology, anthropology, ethnic and critical race studies, history, and socio-legal studies. You should have a basic familiarity with studies in race, ethnicity, gender, labor, inequality and migration OR read supplementary material on your own that will support your studies.