Histories, Assemblages, and the City

Abstract

This chapter discusses the histories of North Dakota, Bosnia Herzegovina, and South Sudan. It talks about the North Europeans that settled in the region in the 1860s, how the Dakota territory was formed, the Dakota War of 1862, how Fargo turned into a settlement in 1871, the Dawes General Allotment Act, and how North Dakota turned into a state. It also talks about the Balkan Peninsula and how the region changed throughout history. The chapter discusses how Western Europeans portrayed Balkans as having a handicap of heterogeneity. It also talks about the former Yugoslavia, how it was formed, how it was able to recognize ethnic and religious diversity by downplaying social factors such as gender, ethnicity, religion, level of wealth, and age in political identity and in participation of “Yugoslav identity,” the slow end of the socialist state, the wars the ensued after the death of Josip Broz Tito, and how this divided the country. The chapter also discusses Sudan and how the British tried to control anticolonial sentiments through the policies they implemented and by encouraging missionary work. It talks about refugees, its definition given by the United Nations, the Refugee Act of 1980 signed by President Carter, refugee resettlement and how it brought post-socialist and post-colonial people and practices to Fargo. Finally, the chapter talks about how the surge in refugee resettlement at the turn of the century made refugees more visible and shed light on these global assemblages.