State of Exception
Arizona State University
May-August 2015

From the Undocumented Migration Project:

“For Jason De Leon, the story of undocumented migrant workers’ treacherous trek northward from Mexico through Arizona is a complex, layered contemporary narrative best told by what isn’t said, and what is left behind.

For the past four years, De Leon (photo left) – an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan – has directed a group of U-M students in an exhaustive collection and archeological documentation of clothes, personal belongings and odd bits of refuse left in the wake of undocumented migrants traveling along the U.S.-Mexico border. While De Leon’s Undocumented Migration Project (UMP) has received widespread attention in the national news media and especially in the southwest U.S., the Institute of Humanities at U-M is the first venue to present the expansive collection of found objects of De Leon’s meticulous chronicle, which some critics claim offers an evocative testament to the “human cost of immigration.””

For more information, visit the ASU website and check out the videos below.