In this episode of Migrant Ethnographies, Benin Alman speaks with anthropologist Dr. Zainab Saleh about her ethnography Return to Ruin: Iraqi Narratives of Exile and Nostalgia. Through life histories and accounts of Iraqi exiles in London, Dr. Saleh explores how imperial interventions, from British colonialism to the U.S. occupation, continue to shape diasporic identities and notions of a “home.” The conversation also introduces Dr. Saleh’s forthcoming book, Political Undesirables: Citizenship, Denaturalization, and Reclamation in Iraq, which examines how citizenship laws have been used as tools of exclusion, particularly against Iraqi Jews in the 1950s and Iraqis of Iranian origin in the 1980s.
Together Benin and Dr. Saleh discuss imperialism, memory, authenticity, and the evolving meanings of Iraqi identity in exile, reflecting on how ethnographic research can provide a critical inquiry into displacement and belonging.

About the Guest:
Zainab Saleh is an anthropologist and associate professor at Haverford College. Her work focuses on empire, colonialism, migration, diaspora, and the ways power shapes subjectivity, belonging, and knowledge production. Across her work, Saleh emphasizes how imperial and colonial entanglements shape experiences of displacement and how people create networks of resistance and imagine alternative futures. She is the author of Return to Ruin, which won the 2022 Arab American Book Awards. Saleh’s new book project, Political Undesirables, explores citizenship, deportation, and the legacies of colonialism in Iraq and is set to be released on December 9th, 2025.

Links and resources:
⁠⁠https://www.haverford.edu/users/zsaleh⁠⁠
⁠⁠https://www.sup.org/books/middle-east-studies/return-ruin⁠⁠
⁠https://www.sup.org/books/middle-east-studies/political-undesirables⁠

About the Host:
Benin Alman is a ⁠Masters student in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University. Her thesis explores the collective memory of Iraqi Rafha refugees and how it intersects with power and identity. Her work is informed by postcolonial, migration, and Middle Eastern studies.

Podcast Theme Music:
Many thanks to Moneka Arabic Jazz and Lulaworld Records for allowing us to use the song Mail Shougle as our podcast theme music.

Share your comments:
We’d love to hear from you! Share your comments, ideas, or proposals at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Special thanks to Concordia University and the IRMS:
Special thanks to the Institute for Research on Migration and Society (IRMS) for hosting the podcast and to Concordia University Faculty Research Development Program (FRDP) for funding this project.

This episode of Migrant Ethnographies features a conversation between our host, Nathan Ferguson, and Grace Davis and Eric Jarvis, two members of the Jewish General Hospital’s Cultural Consultation Service (CCS). We speak about a unique form of patient-centered ethnography practiced at the CCS, one which blends the practical toolkit of psychiatry with the conceptual resources of anthropology. We also speak about the origins of the consultation service in McGill University’s Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, and we discuss how this interdisciplinary subfield of psychiatric medicine provides the foundations for a new approach to clinical interviews — especially in its keen sensitivity to structural conditions and social contexts. What does it mean for an institution to solicit narrative history from migrants and their communities? How can this effort in meaning-making be therapeutic or empowering? How can it be coercive and traumatizing? And what steps can be taken to improve it?

About the Guests:
Grace Davis is a peer support worker, based out of the Jewish General Hospital's Institute for Community and Family Psychiatry. She is associated with the Center-West Island branch of Montreal's integrated healthcare network, where she specializes in direct peer support work with patients, and also serves as a consultant on special projects. Davis has been involved for two years with the Cultural Consultation Service’s interdisciplinary case conferences. In her contributions to these conferences, she helps the consultation team build their understanding of patients’ experiences and predicaments, through a sensitivity to relevant social contexts and structures. As well as her academic and professional knowledge, she also accesses her own lived experience, as a senior citizen who is a visible minority, and an immigrant of several countries who is multilingual and well versed in various cultures. G. Eric Jarvis, MD, MSc, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University and Director of the Cultural Consultation Service. He also directs the Culture and Early Psychosis Program at the Jewish General Hospital. His academic and research interests include the cultural adaptation of services for early psychosis, linguistic barriers in mental health care, and religion and mental health. He is also interested in academic editing and the history of psychiatry, and, in 2023, began as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Transcultural Psychiatry.

About the Host:
Nathan Ferguson is a Master’s candidate at Concordia University’s department of Sociology and Anthropology. His thesis research seeks to describe and interpret the role of the body in the field of transcultural psychiatry. He is also a member of the Montreal Waterways Collective, a research group dedicated to exploring the status and meaning of water in urban environments. 

Podcast Theme Music:
Many thanks to Erik Ziomko, a Montreal-based artist, for our podcast’s theme music, Respect, which is available here.

Share your comments:
We’d love to hear from you! Share your comments, ideas, or proposals at ⁠[email protected]⁠

Special thanks to Concordia University and the IRMS:
Special thanks to the Institute for Research on Migration and Society (IRMS) for hosting the podcast and to Concordia University Faculty Research Development Program (FRDP) for funding this project.