New Faculty Member, a Documentary Photographer, Explores Military Training Villages
September 1, 2021
Chris Sims talked about his work in the season premiere of Sanford's Policy 360 podcast.
Most Americans don’t know that there are several elaborate pretend Iraqi and Afghan villages on U.S. soil. Imagine a house, designed to look like a house in Baghdad, with similar architecture. A variety of such homes, shops and small businesses comprise a makeshift village. There are people inside these villages.
Two women, wearing headscarves, pose near building and gas station
From the book The Pretend Villages.
Many of the people were born in the Middle East and immigrated to the U.S., and now play roles in the communities- a pretend version of themselves, in pretend Middle Eastern villages, in the very real forests and deserts of the U.S.
These pretend villages cover thousands of acres on the training grounds of U.S. Army bases.
https://sanford.duke.edu/story/new-faculty-member-documentary-photographer-explores-military-training-villages
