HEATH CABOT University of Pittsburgh The business of anthropology and the European refugee regime ABSTRACT Metaphors of flooding and “flows” are often applied in the public sphere to the phenomena of displacement and migration, but there are also “waves” and “tides” of humanitarian actors, “voluntourists,” and researchers now focused on refugees. Humanitarian, security, and anthropological interventions in the European “refugee crisis” of 2015–16 often operate according to a shared logic of urgency and crisis. Key problems and pitfalls in current anthropological trends in the study of displacement on Europe’s doorstep are linked to the business dimensions of anthropological work. The business of anthropology reinforces the European refugee regime, which makes border crossers into targets of policing, intervention, and study. [crisis, refugees, displacement, anthropology, Greece, Europe] Metaforev~ plhmmuvra~ kai «rowvn» sucnav efarmovzontai sta fainovmena ektopismouv kai metanavsteush~ sth dhmovsia sfaivra, allav upavrcoun epivsh~ «kuvmata» kai «palivrroie~» anqrwpistikwvn forevwn, «eqelotourismouv » kai ereunhtwvn, oi opoivoi twvra epikentrwvnontai stou~ provsfuge~. Anqrwpistikev~ parembavsei~, parembavsei~ asfavleia~ kai anqrwpologikev~ parembavsei~ sthn Eurwpai>khv «prosfugikhv krivsh» tou 2015–16 sucnav leitourgouvn suvmfwna me mia koinhv logikhv epeivgonto~ kai krivsh~. Kentrikav problhvmata kai pagivde~ twn suvgcronwn anqrwpologikwvn tavsewn sth melevth tou ektopismouv sto katwvfli th~ Eurwvph~, sundevontai me ti~ epiceirhmatikev~ diastavsei~ th~ anqrwpologikhv~ ergasiva~. H anqrwpologiva w~ epiceirhmatikhv dravsh eniscuvei to Eurwpai>kov prosfugikov kaqestwv~, to opoivo metatrevpei autouv~ pou diascivzoun suvnora se stovcou~ astunovmeush~, parevmbash~ kai melevth~.[krivsh, provsfuge~, ektopismov~, anqrwpologiva, Ellavda, Eurwvph] J ust as refugees and migrants “flow” across borders, as we often say, scholarship these days is flowing toward the study of border crossers themselves. There are good rea- sons for the recent fascination with refugees. The refugee crisis of 2015–16 exposed how displacement has again be- come an urgent issue in the Euro-Western world. Images of people arriving (and drowning) on Europe’s Aegean shores signaled that the issue of forced displacement, usually confined to areas outside the Global North, had entered Europe’s Mediterranean margins; then, over the long summer of migration, it made its way north. After a long hiatus following World War II, interrupted by the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, refugees have become once again a “first world problem.” Scholars’ interest in refugees, as well as that of wider publics, generated a new politics of care, a felt “need to help” (Malkki 2015) shared by many in the Global North. With the dawn of this particular refugee crisis, moreover, people no longer had to travel to the Global South to encounter, help, or study refugees. Many could simply vol- unteer in their hometowns: at community organizations, churches, and other informal venues of assistance. Or if one had a bit more time and flexibility, and a desire to experience the border firsthand (as well as better weather), one could simply travel to Europe’s own South, to Italy or Greece. In 2016, Greece, my own long-term field area, came to be viewed as an easy-to-reach, familiar, safe alternative for those seeking to vol- unteer or find work in the humanitarian field (Kantor 2018). In late summer 2015, when thousands of seekers of refuge began arriving on the Aegean islands, Greek grassroots groups and local residents sought to assist new arrivals (Rozakou 2016). Shortly thereafter, a flood of “voluntourists,” humanitarian professionals, activists, jour- nalists, and scholars began to arrive from countries of the North Atlantic. The refugee crisis reinforced governmental, civil society, and epistemic projects that instantiate what Catherine Besteman (2019, S26) calls “militarized global apartheid”: a “loosely integrated effort by countries in the global north,” backed by militarized force, “to protect themselves against the mobility of people from the global south.” While the formation and scale of this apartheid may be new, AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 261–275, ISSN 0094-0496, online ISSN 1548-1425. C  2019 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/amet.12791