AUBURN — The Auburn Public Library and Camden Conference have announced a series of in-depth programs this February examining the issue of global migration.

In preparation for the 2017 Camden Conference, “Refugees and Global Migration: Humanity’s Crisis,” the Auburn Public Library will host three programs in February, beginning with a presentation by Catherine Besteman, the Colby College Francis F. Bartlett and Ruth K. Bartlett Professor of Anthropology. The presentation will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2. 

In her book, “Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, ME,” Besteman follows the trajectory of Somalis from their homes before the onset of Somalia’s civil war in 1991, to their displacement to Kenyan refugee camps, to their settlement in Lewiston. Since 2003, Lewiston has become home to thousands of Somali and Somali Bantu refugees, some of whom come from the village in Somalia where Besteman conducted fieldwork in 1987-88.

Besteman has taught anthropology and African studies at Colby College since 1994. Her teaching and research interests focus on analyzing power dynamics that produce and maintain inequality, racism and violence, as well as activist and community efforts for social change. She has studied these issues in southern Somalia, South Africa and the U.S. Her work has been supported by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the School for Advanced Research and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The second program on the issue of global migration will be a book discussion at 12:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6, of “City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp” by reporter Ben Rawlence. Dadaab is situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya, where only thorn bushes grow. Its buildings are made from mud, sticks or plastic, and its citizens survive on rations. Over the course of four years, Rawlence became a first-hand witness to a strange and desperate land, getting to know many of those who have come there seeking sanctuary.

The programming concludes at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, with the showing of the film “Hotel Rwanda.” In 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe in a countrywide massacre that took place while the world looked away. “Hotel Rwanda” is the story of a hotel manager who saved the lives of 1,200 people by essentially being very good at his job. A brief discussion will follow the showing of this film.

The events are free and open to the public, and will be presented in the Community Room on the Library’s lower level at 49 Spring St. in Auburn. 

FMI: 207-333-6640, auburnpubliclibrary.org.