Academic literature on the topic 'Migratory imaginary'

Research background: Starting from the concept of "post-colonial cultural dependence" and its significance for the contemporary Ukrainian society, imaginary geography is analyzed by describing the representations of the characteristics of countries, regions, places, and people living in these territories. Imaginary geography as a cultural structure implies material consequences. In the context of this paper, it is necessary to provide representations of potential migrants about the characteristics of the host countries, including details about population and the real economic, social and political opportunities after migration. The association between imaginary geography and migration in the expectations of postcolonial cultural dependence has been hardly analyzed before.
 Purpose of the article: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of post-Soviet cultural dependence on migration expectations of the Ukrainian population from the postcolonial study perspective.
 Methods: The methodology is composed by two elements: a synthesis of neo-institutionalism and social constructivism. The paper hypothesizes that macro and meso level discourses in the emigration environment might have an impact on aspirations through perceptions of “migratory imaginations” and “geographical imaginations”.
 Findings & Value added: Findings are based on the cross-national study on external migration conducted within the EUmagine project. The findings show a strong correlation between migration expectations and perceptions of Ukrainians and post-Soviet cultural dependencies. In addition, the country represents a “post-imperial borderland” that results in the political split of the Ukrainian society. Our results might contribute to the establishment of connections between the imaginary geography of the Central, Western, and Southeastern regions of Ukraine and their migration expectations and orientations.

Many studies have addressed the issue of migration and displacement, one of themain geopolitical challenges of our time, but far fewer have analysed it using aninterdisciplinary framework and selecting literary and artistic practices from atransnational context. !e purpose of this paper is to describe the way in whichthe artists use the specificity of medium and mechanism in their projects to reflecton the current migratory crisis and forced migration, to critique the securitizationor the politics of immigration in recent years and to explore a tactical use of technologiesin order to expand public consciousness and political debate. It is directlyfocused on the migratory processes involving Mexicans who go to the United Statesand its connection to the complex political imaginary of these regions, and on therelationship between identity and marginalization, particularly the influence ofthe conceptualization of migrants as the Other in contemporary European society.Based on the analysis of a series of case studies both from a theoretical and froman artistic point of view –, this research intends to understand how these projectsexplore forms of critical intervention, dissent or disruption of a dominant semioticregime by stimulating critical thinking about consolidated narratives and sign systemsof identity and difference.

Antón Villar Ponte (1881-1936) was one of the leading figures of Galician nationalism, as well as a significant playwright. This analysis of Villar Ponte’s theatre builds on a combination of, on the one hand, theories of the imagological potential of literature and, on the other, studies of the role of emigration in the construction of cultural identities. The purpose of this analysis is to identify and analyse the images of the migratory phenomenon conveyed by Villar Ponte in his plays, and to link them to his political ideology, shaped in other texts, mostly essays, over a span of three decades. The issue of emigration, central to Villar Ponte’s thought, gradually acquired a complexity and richness that would eventually contribute to Galicia’s cultural and political imaginary.

<p class="abstract">An accessory tragus is a small elevation of skin that contains a bar of elastic cartilage and is usually found along an imaginary line drawn from the tragus to the angle of the mouth or, uncommonly, along the anterior margin of the sternocleidomastoid muscle. These malformations are present at birth. It is usually located unilaterally in the preauricular region. Accessory tragi may occur along the migratory line, as the auricle ascends from the neck area and their origin is the mandibular branchial arch. Other auricular abnormalities are not usually associated with accessory tragus, since the majority of the external ear evolves from the second branchial arch. To the best of our knowledge this is the first accessory tragus case that seen on the lateral cervical region bilaterally.</p>

Interrogations of diasporic relations between place, subjectivity, and sexuality have transformed representational practices and paradigms of both Cuban and Cuban-American identity on multiple fronts. Through a consideration of two texts representing the Cuban diaspora-Achy Obejas's 1996 novel Memory Mambo and Carmelita Tropicana's performance piece “Milk of amnesia/Leche de amnesia”, first developed in 1994–I explore the centrality of sexuality in constructions of self, community, and nation. These works effectively ‘queer’ notions of immigrant belonging and Cuban diasporic consciousness, particularly in the sense of exploring the spatial imaginary of diaspora to expose and question the heteropatriarchal, and hence nationalist, underpinnings of more dominant models of diaspora. In their work, Obejas and Tropicana indicate the spatial dimensions of cultural memory and the imbrication of diasporic politics and sexualities. Attending to differences in genre, each work mines a crucial interplay between diasporic and sexual histories. In Tropicana's performance piece she uses a parodic sensibility and the broad humor enabled by the stage to engage, in a new register, with the politics of memory and the uses of place and sexuality, both in relation to Cuba and to the United States. Obejas works through and against the conventions of the contemporary novel (both immigrant and lesbian coming-of-age stories, in particular) to undo many of the assumptions regarding memory, sexuality, and cultural nostalgia as they are represented in her narrative. Both Obejas and Tropicana assert an imbrication of histories of colonialism, migration, and national attachment with experiences and practices of sexuality and gender in ways that underscore the importance of space and place in the constitution of collective memories.

This paper will discuss the kinds of communities that evolve through historical practices of migration. The migrant house is associated with a new architecture that had appeared in the cities of immigration of the new worlds (Melbourne, Toronto, Chicago). It is perceived as a stereotypical symbolisation of immigrants from Southern European origins that had arrived in the decades following the Second World War. The appearance of houses built by returning migrants in sites of origin suggests other trajectories, other modes of travel, and other forms of community. Central to the thesis of this paper is the testimony of two types of migrant houses. The study draws on theories of migration that address the site of departure, the site of arrival, and the question and conflict of return which is at the centre of the migrant's imaginary. This study will examine the migrant houses in the village of emigration (Zavoj in Macedonia), migrant houses built by returning emigrants. A study of the two houses of migration implicates a set of networks, forces, relations, circumscribing a large global geopolitical and cultural field that questions our understandings of diaspora, the binary structure of dwelling/travelling, and the fabric and fabrication of community. In addition, the paper will explore the notion of house as an imaginary landscape, a psychic geography narrated through migratory travels.

The article argues that the post-Soviet youth construct their migratory projects as an effort towards social distinction vis-a-vis post-socialist imaginary. We argue that their migration can be understood as a search for distinctiveness and for what is perceived as a ‘better’, that is, more western, lifestyle. Analysing their narratives through the prism of imagination, we demonstrate how young Russian-speakers vision the position of the post-socialist condition within the global coloniality of power and claim their belonging to the western project as educated young people with global cultural capitals. The article brings the case of Russian-speakers’ migration within debates on global coloniality and offers a contribution to the theorising of post-socialist imaginaries in the context of global coloniality and sociological imagination. The analysis is based on a multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in 2014–2016 in Helsinki, Finland.

Cette thèse porte sur la constructions des carrières migratoires de femmes issues de la Corée du Nord, de la Corée du Sud et du Japon. L’enjeu est de comprendre la construction objective et subjective de ces parcours à partir d’héritages historiques et culturels des sociétés d'origine, de politiques migratoires, de bifurcations biographiques, d’expériences sociales et de travail au sein d’« espaces totalitaires ». Dans la première partie, la thèse se penche sur les migrations internationales de femmes ainsi que sur la démarche méthodologique mise en place pour collecter des données comparatives auprès de femmes en souffrance au cœur de terrains « minés » et pour les analyser. La deuxième partie s’efforce de reconstituer les carrières objectives des migrantes en se concentrant sur les contextes de départ, la construction des projets migratoires et les contextes d’arrivée. Les migrantes se heurteront à la réitération des grammaires du mépris et de l’injustice – au sens de L. Roulleau-Berger – , aux violences et aux dominations influencées par les imaginaires coloniaux ou nationaux de la population hôte. Les corps « faibles » de ces femmes, au regard des imaginaires individuels et collectifs des sociétés d’accueil, deviennent des corps sensuels, sexuels, résistants etc. et devront se construire socialement au sein « d’espaces totalitaires » érigés au regard de ces imaginaires. La troisième partie analyse la construction des carrières subjectives des femmes issue de la péninsule coréenne et du Japon. Entre les obligations hypertrophiées de s’adapter imposées aux migrantes par le biais de techniques de mortifications – au sens de Goffman – les rôles infligés et les stratégies d’adaptation, elles tentent de survivre à leurs imaginaires migratoires déçus en déployant des tactiques qui se définissent par le refus de toute participation personnelle, l’assimilation du rôle imposé par la société d’accueil ou l’émancipation<br>This thesis focuses on the construction of migratory careers of women from North Korea, South Korea and Japan. The challenge is to understand the objective and subjective structure of these routes from historical and cultural heritage of the societies of origin, from migration policies, from biographical bifurcations and from social and work experiences in “totalitarian spaces”. In the first part, the thesis focuses on international migration of women as well as the methodology established to collect comparative data from suffering women in "mined" fieldwork and to analyze them. The second part tries to reconstruct the objective careers of migrants focusing on starting contexts, on the construction of migration projects and on the arrival contexts. The migrants will face the reiteration of grammar of contempt and injustice - in the sense of L. Roulleau-Berger – and the violence and dominations influenced by colonial or national imaginary of the host population. The “weak” bodies of these women, under individual and collective imaginary of host societies, become sensual bodies, sexual bodies, resistant bodies etc. and will build socially in "totalitarian spaces" erected in view of these imaginary. The third section analyzes the construction of the subjective Career of Women of the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Between the bloated obligations to adapt (imposed on migrants through process of mortifications - in the sense of Goffman –), the imposed roles and the adaptive strategies, they try to survive their disappointed migration imaginary by deploying tactics that define by the refusal of any personal participation, assimilation of the role imposed by the host society or emancipation

Jusqu’à date, les sociologues du travail étudient le phénomène de la subjectivité au travail sans considération du paramètre de l’expérience migratoire. Dans une perspective qualitative, cette thèse part des bases théoriques et méthodologiques posées par Abdelmalek Sayad et se donne pour but de rendre compte des liens existant entre la condition migrante et le rapport au travail des migrants internationaux, à partir du cas des Haïtiens vivant au Canada. Comment la condition migrante influe-t-elle sur le rapport au travail des individus ? Telle est sa préoccupation centrale. Pour y répondre, la sociologie clinique est couplée à l’approche biographique et la technique d’enquête priorisée consiste en des entretiens semi-dirigés réalisés auprès de dix migrants d’origine haïtienne vivant dans la région d’Ottawa-Gatineau. Cette enquête empirique révèle que l’imaginaire migratoire dominant en Haïti et les réalités qui constituent la condition migrante sont les facteurs qui structurent les modes d’engagement et d’identification au travail, les vécus et les représentations du travail, et aussi les trajectoires socioprofessionnelles post-migratoires. À cause de la déqualification et des pratiques de discrimination systémique, le travail en contexte de migration produit ce que Marcelo Otero appelle « l’épreuve dépressive », que ces migrants surmontent grâce à la force de leur résilience et une logique de (re)construction identitaire et de reconnaissance sociale. Néanmoins, cette logique bouleverse les rapports familiaux pré-migratoires, particulièrement les rôles sociaux de sexe, la structure de la famille et la place que l’enfant y occupait avant. Vues les responsabilités morales attachées au statut de « diaspora » dans la société haïtienne et la perception (de soi) du migrant, le travail revêt d’une éthique de devoir. Si le travail permet à certains de surmonter la désaffiliation communautaire causée par l’émigration, pour ceux en situation de déqualification et de précarité socioprofessionnelle, il n’a qu’une fonction instrumentale en servant de moyen pour parvenir à d’autres fins comme l’accomplissement de la parentalité, la solidarité familiale et intergénérationnelle et la procuration des biens symboliques. La condition migrante est donc le principal facteur qui structure le rapport au travail de ces individus.

La tesi s’apropa al fet migratori mitjançant dos actors principals, que configuren els objectius generals del l’estudi, les persones immigrants i les seves trajectòries i els treballadors socials que sovint els atenen. Les referències teòriques deriven de disciplines diverses, com la psicoanàlisi, en concret les nocions d’imaginari i de dol; l’estrès, concepte extern al cos teòric esmentat i referit a les modificacions físiques i psíquiques d’un organisme sotmès a situacions de tensió variables, i finalment, les nocions d’inserció, vulnerabilitat i desafiliació, procedents de la sociologia, les qual permeten dibuixar trajectes bidireccionals per l’espai social. Altrament, s’analitza l’acompanyament i escolta que, des del Treball social, es fa a les trajectòries de les persones immigrants i les eines de la professió per l’abordatge d’una qüestió específica. Aquests objectius han estat plasmats en diferents hipòtesi. La metodologia emprada en la recerca ha estat de caire qualitatiu, entenent que aquesta aportava una imatge més propera l’objecte d’estudi. S’han emprat tres tècniques diferents, dues adreçades a les persones immigrants, l’estudi de cas i l’entrevista, i la tercera, els grups de discussió, referida als professionals. S’analitzen sis casos, treballats en diferents temps pel signatari de la tesi, quatre com a professional del treball social i dos com a psicòleg; catorze entrevistes a immigrants extracomunitaris de diferents procedències: Quatre del nord d’Àfrica, cinc de l’Àfrica subsahariana i cinc d’Amèrica Llatina. Finalment s’ha treballat amb les aportacions de dos grups de discussió, un de persones vinculades al fet migratori, anomenat grup d’experts, i un segon grup de persones que tot i trobar-se el fet migratori, no l’havien abordat o de manera exclusiva o de manera intensa. Per l’anàlisi de la informació s’ha emprat un sistema de categories el qual s’ha estabilitzat progressivament a mesura que avançava la recerca. L’anàlisi de la informació obtinguda té varis subapartats, en un primer es treballen casos i entrevistes per separat. El segon ítem es refereix als professionals del treball social i analitza, també per separat, els continguts extrets de cadascun dels grups de discussió. Un darrer punt d’aquest apartat pren les categories com a unitat d’anàlisi, en relació a les hipòtesi plantejades, permetent aquesta darrera tasca el creuament de les dades globals obtingudes. Entre els resultats més remarcables s’ha d’esmentar la discordança entre la representació originaria i la derivada els transit migratori, essent la primera un marc idealitzat. Aquesta discordança genera percepcions diverses i contraries entre la persona immigrant i els familiars que rauen en origen. L’imaginari en tant expectativa és susceptible de noves significacions derivades de la transició migratòria. Un fet que ha erosionat les representacions originàries ha estat l’anomenada crisi econòmica, que s’ha addicionat als estressors que van, sovint, aparellats al procés. L’elaboració dels processos de dol té temporalitats diferenciades, és però perllongada en el temps, un facilitador d’aquests processos és el suport dels familiars al projecte migratori, mentre que solitud i l’aïllament configuren un entrebanc. La dificultat augmenta notòriament quan la separació implica els fills. Evitar el dolor derivat de les pèrdues implica l’ús de defenses diverses, entre les quals cal comptabilitzar la idealització d’un retorn futur, la negació o l’escissió. L’estrès associat a la transició migratòria i les seves circumstàncies duu aparellades malalties de caire orgànic, que especialment semblen tenir major incidència en els primers moments del procés. La procedència és rellevant, ja que el viatge s’esdevé per algunes persones com a estressor d’altra intensitat. Un dels estressors més assenyalats és la situació d’inseguretat jurídica. Aquesta darrera afecta el procés en tant obstacle. Pel treball social és important la incorporació de la biografia, tradicions i costums dels immigrants atesos al si de l’espai assistencial. L’enquadrament assistencial s’esdevé, en determinades situacions, com eina facilitadora de processos d’interculturalitat, de contenció de l’estrès i d’escolta del dol. Aquest espai d’atenció requereix formació i suports, tanmateix, no sembla necessitar la mediació intercultural. De les situacions d’irregularitat administrativa en deriva manca d’atenció, especialment des de les àrees bàsiques d’atenció primària. Contràriament, el suport des del tercer sector es presenta de manera clara i generalitzada .<br>This thesis attempts an approach to the migration phenomenon by using two of the main factors that form the general aim of the study: first the immigrants and their experiences on one hand and the social workers that assist them on the other. The theoretical references come from different disciplines such as Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Sociology; the essential concepts are imaginary, mourning, stress, inclusion, vulnerability and discrimination. Besides these, there is also an analysis of the work carried out by social services, how they counsel and assist immigrants with their life experiences and the tools and skills used in solving each specific issue. These goals appear in various hypotheses along the thesis. The research methodology used is qualitative, applying three different techniques: case study, in-depth interview (both carried out with immigrants) and discussion groups (professionals). The object of study is 6 cases, 14 interviews and two discussion groups. To analyse the information it has been divided in categories and these categories changed and adjusted as the work progressed. The analysis of the information obtained is divided in various subcategories; in the first category case study and interviews are treated separately. The second item is related to social work professionals and analyses, also separately, the ideas obtained from each one of the discussion groups. A last item in this section takes each category as a unit for analysis, in relation to the hypotheses presented, thus enabling the final task of cross-analysing the total data obtained. One of the most remarkable results of these analyses is the discrepancy between the idealization of the country of origin and its resulting representation after the migration. Development of mourning is prolonged along different time stages. With family support these stages can become shorter and easier to deal with, but on the other hand the process becomes again more difficult when migration involves children. The stress created by the migration process and its circumstances, are subsequently the cause of physical illnesses that seem to have more impact during the first stages of the process. The country of origin is relevant in the study since the journey can be more stressful for different people coming from different points in the world. Illegal or irregular status in the country of arrival is one of the stress factors mentioned more often. Within Social Work practice is important to take in account the biography, traditions and customs of immigrants assisted at the centres. This assistance consists often in facilitating processes of cross-cultural understanding, stress control and mourning counselling. As a result of their illegal situation or lack of sufficient documentation, immigrants endure lack of assistance, especially in primary care. In opposition to the public sector it becomes clear that the strongest support to the immigrant community comes from the third sector (as in voluntary sector).

La présente recherche s’intéresse au parcours migratoire entre le Mexique et le Canada de demandeurs d’asile mexicains déboutés. Privés des droits et des libertés fondamentales conférés par la citoyenneté, les Mexicains vivent dans un espace-temps constrictif et détiennent un accès limité à la mobilité. Victimes des déroutes et de la défaillance du système socioéconomique et politique du Mexique, l’asile devient bien souvent l’unique option à leur survie. Une fois au Canada, les demandeurs d’asile mexicains sont percutés dû à la prédominance de la criminalisation de l’asile et au discours stigmatisant de la figure du demandeur d’asile qui encouragent un flux considérable de migrations de retour forcé. Dépossédés du droit de choisir là où ils veulent vivre, les demandeurs d’asile mexicains font face à une double exclusion de l’espace. En ce sens, cette recherche explore le parcours migratoire des demandeurs d’asile mexicains à travers le vécu et l’imaginaire migratoire qui l’entourent. Elle tente de saisir les raisons qui motivent la migration et les éléments à l’origine de la modulation et de la transformation de la quête migratoire initiale. Ainsi, elle cherche à percevoir en quoi le processus d’octroi d’asile canadien affecte l’intégration et le sentiment d’appartenance à la société d’accueil. Elle évoque également les difficultés du processus de réintégration à la société d’origine. Finalement, cette étude cherche à s’éloigner du cadre administratif et s’attarde donc particulièrement aux conséquences humaines et vécues de ces phénomènes par l’exploration des perceptions et des interprétations spécifiques à chacun. Les conclusions de cette recherche établissent que les demandeurs d’asile mexicains déboutés par le Canada font face à un double rejet de l’espace. Ayant a priori opté pour l’asile en raison d’une incapacité à accéder à la sécurité et à garantir leur intégrité, l’exil les confronte à un système d’octroi d’asile restrictif et punitif qui freine leur intégration et mène majoritairement à un refus de leur demande. Au retour, la réintégration est bien souvent brimée par la continuation de l’exclusion et la persistance de la discrimination des migrants de retour. La quête migratoire originale se réinitialise, soit la recherche de droits, de libertés et de dignité.<br>This research focuses on the migratory path between Mexico and Canada of disallowed Mexican refugee claimants. Deprived of fundamental rights and freedoms of citizenship, Mexicans live in a constrictive space-time and hold a limited access to mobility. Victims of the failures in the socioeconomic and political systems of Mexico, asylum is often the only option for survival. Once in Canada, Mexican refugee claimants are often confronted with the predominance of asylum criminalization and stigmatization discourse creating a context of massive forced return migrations. Dispossessed of the right to choose where they want to live, Mexican asylum-seekers are facing a double exclusion of space. In this regard, this study explores Mexican refugee claimants’ migratory path through the lived experience and migratory imaginary surrounding it. It also attempts to understand the reasons behind migration as well as the elements responsible of the initial migratory quest’s modulation and transformation. Thus, it seeks to identify to what extent the Canadian asylum granting process affects the integration and sense of belonging to the host country. This research also raises the difficulties of the reintegration process within the society of origin. Finally, this study seeks to move away from the administrative framework and therefore focuses mainly on lived experience and human consequences of these phenomena, by exploring each person’ specific perceptions and interpretations. In conclusion, this research establishes that Mexican refugee claimants disallowed by Canada are facing a double rejection of space. Having a priori opted for asylum because of an inability to obtain safety and ensure their integrity, exile then opposes them to a restrictive and punitive grating system that hinders their integration and often leads to their request being refused. When returning, reintegration is often impeded by the continuation of exclusion and persistent discrimination of returnees. The original migratory quest resets itself, it being the search for rights, freedoms and dignity.

Différentes réalités et contextes actuels mondiaux font en sorte que de plus en plus de gens envisagent la migration comme projet de vie. La présente recherche s’intéresse à l’imaginaire migratoire comme facteur de mobilité, mais également comme facteur de modulation des réactions et du regard qu’entretiendra le migrant en rapport avec son vécu migratoire. Ainsi, la réflexion s’amorce en Afrique de l’Ouest, tandis que de jeunes Africains instruits et qualifiés élaborent un projet de migration volontaire vers le Canada, plus précisément dans la région du Québec. C’est investi de leur désir de l’Ailleurs, des représentations de l’Occident, de leur besoin de se réaliser et de l’impossibilité qu’ils rencontrent à accéder à la vie professionnelle souhaitée en Afrique qu’ils migrent vers le Canada. Quoiqu’ils soient dotés d’une détermination et d’un optimisme considérable, la rencontre entre l’imaginé et le quotidien de la vie au Québec comme immigrant et comme émigrant n’est pas toujours facile. Elle viendra révéler la profondeur du rêve, des mythes et des ambitions; les failles intérieures individuelles, les valeurs et les ambivalences de chacun, mais surtout la capacité qu’aura l’individu à revoir son imaginaire, à effectuer la réappropriation de son expérience migratoire et à élaborer de nouveaux projets. L’écart vécu par le sujet entre l’imaginé et le rencontré nous questionnera sur ce que véhiculent les messages et les images en circulation sur le Canada et l’Occident. Aussi, il témoignera de la prédominance de la préparation factuelle et psychologique de l’individu pour anticiper et mieux accueillir les réalités du parcours migratoire.<br>Different realities and contexts in today’s world are causing more and more people to consider migration as a life plan. This study is interested in their imagined migration as a mobility factor, but also as a modulation factor in the reactions and views of migrants in relation to their migration experience. Thus, this study begins in West Africa, where young educated and qualified Africans eagerly plan their migration to Canada, and Quebec in particular. Their migration to Canada is fuelled by a longing to go abroad, representations of the West, their quest for self-fulfillment and the impossibility of achieving their desired career plans in Africa. Although they are filled with a great deal of determination and optimism, the clash between what they imagined and the reality of daily life in Quebec as immigrants and emigrants is not always easy. This study will not only reveal the depth of their dreams, myths and ambitions, but their individual flaws, values and uncertainties, and above all, their ability to re-examine their imagined migration, reclaim the migration experience and make new plans. The difference between the imagined experience and the actual experience will lead us to question what conveys the messages and images that circulate about Canada and the West. Moreover, it will demonstrate the predominance of the factual and psychological preparation undertaken by individuals to anticipate and more readily accept the realities of the migration experience.

Il n’a que 14 ans. En 1956, István Borsodi pense choisir la liberté en traversant le Rideau de fer. Il quitte une Hongrie morose – où la Révolution contre l’occupant soviétique a été écrasée – et rejoint la Suisse. István se souvient de son arrivée en terres helvétiques, des applaudissements, « des gens qui venaient nous saluer » dans chaque gare où le convoi spécial faisait halte. Il a conservé la première carte postale destinée à sa famille restée en Hongrie « Je suis à Bière, je me sens bien, j’embrasse tout le monde ». Mais, après quelques temps, le mal du pays, l’ennui des proches commencent à le ronger et ses perspectives professionnelles en Suisse sont moins attrayantes que ce qu’il imaginait. Sa tante restée au pays lui écrit que les jeunes rapatriés bénéficient d’une amnistie. En 1959, István Borsodi choisit alors de rentrer dans la Hongrie de János Kádár. Cet ouvrage retrace l’exode de quelque 200 000 Hongroises et Hongrois de 1956, l’arrivée d’une partie d’entre eux en Suisse, avant d’éclairer le parcours de celles et ceux qui ont décidé de rentrer en Hongrie quelques semaines, mois ou années après leur exil. Ce phénomène migratoire « à contre sens » est au coeur de ce livre. Arrivés dans le « paradis capitaliste » des Trente glorieuses, pourquoi ces personnes choisissent de rejoindre l’ « enfer » communiste ?

Through close-readings of two video installations, Chapter 6 addresses the problematics of the increasing securitisation of nation-state borders in ‘Fortress Europe’ and beyond, which restricts the movements of people who are forced to migrate by war, destitution, persecution or environmental reasons. Ursula Biemann’s video-essay Sahara Chronicle (2006-7) is used to unpack the general question of how artistic productions can respond to discourses on complex political issues such as forced migration, European border policies, and the risk of reducing migrants to ‘bare life’ (Agamben) in the politico-juridical order. Isaac Julien’s video installation Western Union: Small Boats (2007) is used to examine how the enforcement of European borders against irregular migration surfaces in the artistic-cinematic imaginary. Chapter 6 explores the tensional interpenetration of politics, ethics and aesthetics in Julien’s installation. Using a concept coined by Mieke Bal, it proposes that Isaac Julien’s installation could be conceived of as an instance of ‘migratory aesthetics’. However, the sheer beauty of his cinematic representation of the real-life tragedies of migrants makes it necessary to move beyond the question of aesthetics and consider the issue of aestheticisation and the ethical relation of the artist to his subject matter.

Innovations in novelistic form that appear at the end of the Napoleonic Wars do so in the context of a national discussion about colonial emigration, and an uprooting and dispersing of British people on a profound scale, that provoked a reimagining of global space. Poverty, unemployment, and security, both domestically and in the colonies, were concerns about which emigration was proposed as a possible solution. This helps to explain two influential formal innovations made by Walter Scott in Guy Mannering (1815). The first is the invention of a new geographical imaginary. The novel is distinctive for its international backstory that takes place in India outside the main temporal and geographical frames of the novel, as well as a mode of calibrating distance in relation to details of size and scale, and through manipulating levels of readerly attention. The second innovation is its eccentric character, the gypsy, Meg Merrilies, who specifically derives from these spatial concerns. Her character is especially topical as it draws on contemporary beliefs about gypsies, a displaced people thought to have originated in India, but who are also identified with Scottish peasants displaced during the Highland Clearances, and other indigenous displaced people. Through the character of Meg, the novel examines contemporary questions about property, place, and belonging, as well as race and indigeneity. Meg’s persistence in print culture through the next several decades, reimagined in theatrical renditions, poems, print commodities, and travel writings, turns her into a celebrity character, and constituent element of a migratory British culture.

Desde finales de los años 90’s el artista belga radicado en México, Francis Alÿs (1959) ha extrapolado su labor artística al abandonar el Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México como su principal laboratorio social, para incidir en diversas regiones del mundo -principalmente territorios de conflicto bélico, socioeconómico, político y migratorio-, en un afán de imaginar realidades distintas a las establecidas por medio de la activación de relatos urbanos, fábulas, moralejas, actividades fútiles y juegos de niños; deviniendo en variadas y aparentemente inocentes metáforas que esconden complejas y poderosas reflexiones sociales. El presente trabajo plantea trazar una acupuntura que sigue algunas acciones de Francis Alÿs fuera del territorio mexicano para construir un imaginario global desde lo poético de su labor: en un mundo gobernado por la desesperanza, y las tensiones generadas por las fronteras de los países, la voz de Alÿs se vuelve un bálsamo necesario que permite visualizar otras soluciones posibles a los conflictos políticos derivados de la independencia y la consecuente autonomía de un determinado territorio. I. En 1997, Alÿs viaja de Tijuana, Baja California, México a San Diego, California, EUA, -ciudades vecinas separadas únicamente por la valla Internacional-; pero el artista lo hace sin cruzar la frontera norte; imaginando una nueva y absurda ruta migratoria que evade la burocracia necesaria para ingresar legalmente a los Estados Unidos; iniciando su viaje en Tijuana, y prosiguiendo por Ciudad de México, Panamá, Santiago de Chile, Auckland, Sydney, Singapore, Bangkok, Rangún, Hong Kong, Shanghái, Seul, Anchorage, Vancouver, Los Ángeles y concluir finalmente en San Diego, California, arribando 35 días después de haber iniciado su travesía. II. En 2005, Alÿs convoca a lancheros voluntarios de Cayo Hueso, Florida, EUA y de La Habana, Cuba, a construir con sus endebles barcas un sólido puente que permita enlazar estas dos naciones sobre el Golfo de México. III. En 2004, Alÿs recorre la ‘Línea verde’, demarcación establecida para promover un alto al fuego entre Israel y Palestina, con una lata de pintura verde agujereada, trazando con su andar una línea verde, que materializa esta división naturalmente imaginaria. IV. En 2008, Alÿs invita a niños de las comunidades pesqueras de Tánger, Marruecos y Tarifa, España a construir una línea humana que permita liberar pequeños barcos de juguete para navegar de norte a sur, y viceversa el Estrecho de Gibraltar. Para Alÿs, la poesía posee una cualidad disruptiva, capaz de hacernos imaginar otros futuros posibles.