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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2021
How do we think about migration? This question was the topic of the first installment of the 2019 Tanner Lectures on Human Values, given by the exiled Russian journalist Masha Gessen, at Harvard University. Gessen, who had reported on immigrants, began with a story of a Montenegro man whose family fled to the United States when he was five. Then they told a second story, then a third, followed by fifty-four more stories of individuals’ sorrows, despair, and dreams. Gessen's intent was to bring to life individual migrants, underscoring their diverse experiences. Individuality and complexity matter, because too often, people on the move are reduced to numbers in the news and in the eyes of governments.
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