"De Leon's text is remarkable in its use of mixed and novel methods, alongside an honest discussion of the reasoning and motivations that inspire his work."—Migration Studies
"A powerful book . . . The Land of Open Graves is very appropriately published in the California Series in Public Anthropology and represents just what public or engaged anthropology can and should be. . . . This is a book that all parties should read."—Anthropology Review Database
"[A]nthropologist Jason De León dedicated five years to studying migrants who tried to make the deadly crossing into the United States over the Sonoran Desert, hiking hundreds of miles of the trails himself so that he could better understand the dangers faced by the people he interviewed. His intensive fieldwork made its way into . . . The Land of Open Graves."—New York Times
"De León confronts us with a vivid indictment of the killing fields on the US-Mexico border and reveals the brutality of global inequality in all its goriness and intimate suffering. A self-described refugee from archaeology, De León is revitalizing the field of anthropology by blowing apart the traditional subdisciplinary boundaries. With no holds barred, he offers new paths for theory, methods, and public anthropology."—Philippe Bourgois, author of
Righteous Dopefiend and
In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio "Jason De León has written a remarkable book. I know of no other ethnography of life and death on the borderlands that is more moving, theoretically ambitious, or powerful than this eagerly awaited work."—María Elena García, author of
Making Indigenous Citizens:
Identities, Education, and Multicultural Development in Peru "This book sears itself into your memory. You literally can’t put it down."—Stanley Brandes, Robert H. Lowie Professor of Anthropology, UC Berkeley
"An impressive piece of scholarship,
The Land of Open Graves is a brilliant and important book that humanizes the realities of life and death on the migrant trail in southern Arizona."—Randall H. McGuire, author of
Archaeology as Political Action "Jason De León has written that rare and precious book—a masterful deployment of tools from across the broad spectrum of anthropology."—Danny Hoffman, author of
The War Machines: Young Men and Violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia "
The Land of Open Graves is a politically, theoretically, and morally important book that mobilizes the four fields of anthropology to demonstrate beyond a doubt how current US border defense policy results in deliberate death. Beautifully written and engaging, it is a must-read for the general public and students across the social sciences."—Lynn Stephen, author of
Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon and
We Are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements "
The Land of Open Graves is an invaluable book, one full of rich ethnographic accounts of migrants, sharp analysis, and beautiful photographs by Michael Wells (as well as some by the migrants De León encounters). It is a strong indictment of the violence migrants face, particularly of a structural sort, and it calls us to “better understand how our worlds are intertwined and the ethical responsibility we have to one another as human beings." It deserves a broad audience."—
NACLA Report on the Americas