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Ways of Seeing

Helen Zughaib, whose work adorns the cover of this issue, is a multimedia artist based in Washington, D.C. The image is part of a collection entitled Migrations, a series of gouache paintings inspired by the refugees from the war in Syria. The larger collection is on display at the Cosmos Club inWashington, D.C., through Spring 2021. Zughaib was born in Beirut and moved with her family to Europe in 1975, following the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. These early experiences of displacement and migration, as well as the intimacy of family and the comforts of culture, are reflected across her work, not only in the Syrian Migration Series but also in her celebrated collection, Stories My Father Told Me (2015). This specific image resonates with the contents of this issue, which includes special symposia on the comparative politics of immigration and a “Classics Revisited” feature on James Scott’s Seeing Like a State (1998).What struck us about this painting, beyond its pure aesthetic beauty, is how France, Germany, and Turkey come to stand for different ways of perceiving the refugee crisis, with little to distinguish them other than the border that is enforced under their names. Zughaib’s art vividly depicts how the masses of refugees are organized and ordered into this world that is not theirs, but which has profoundly shaped and determined the course of their lives. The conflict between communities and states is reflected in the way the crowds are colorfully rendered against the crisscross brown of the border fence. Some of these themes are taken up in the articles in the comparative politics of immigration symposium. They consider how recent migration patterns have impacted different European countries and, more specifically, how populist and rightwing political parties have exploited anti-immigrant hostility to amass a larger share of popular support. Scott’s classic is a powerful and penetrating account of how states aim to organize and standardize theworld, tomake populations “legible” and impose order on otherwise disorderly subjects. While Scott says these efforts are doomed