Please join us at the conference
Displacement, Resistance and Representation organized by the
Centre for the Study of Migration (Queen Mary University of London). I'll be there presenting a paper on "Bodies of Lampedusa. Migration, Law and the Image".
All details (including the programme) of the conference can be found
here.There is also a dedicated
facebook page!
This is the abstract of my paper:
Lampedusa, a tiny island that belongs
politically to Italy and geographically to Africa, is today the most
controversial place within the Mediterranean. It lives off tourism for nearly
eight months a year but it is forced to deal almost daily with what is commonly
perceived, in public opinion, as an ‘invasion of Europe’ by migrants from the
African continent. This paper aims at analysing on the one hand, the legal,
political and mass-media discourses, with their related construction of
normative practices, that influence the public imagery of the ‘others’; and on
the other, the representation of these subjects in visual discourses, from mass
media to cinema and visual art.
For a variety of reasons that this paper intends to
explore, migrants are most commonly considered and represented as ‘bodies
without words’ (Agamben 2005). The paper will show how the aesthetics of the
migrant body can lend a ‘voice’ to alternative ways in which we may imagine and
reconsider the conditions under which contemporary migration challenges Italian
and European politics, ethics and aesthetics. In particular, the focus of the paper will be the
representation of migrant bodies of Lampedusa under three specific forms:
compressed bodies in containers and boats, floating or drowned corpses and
clandestine bodies within Italy and Europe.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
