Narrating Flight and Asylum

Over the past several decades, migration, displacement and asylum-seeking have become constitutive elements of contemporary conjuncture, generating conditions that are often described as "crises." Since the beginning of what has commonly been referred to as the refugee crisis of 2015, there have been discussions within political, social, media and online contexts about European nation-states closing their borders to asylum seekers and refugees. More often than not, these discussions are accompanied by racism, xenophobia or profound fears. To help mitigate these negative effects, the essays in this volume on NARRATING FLIGHT AND ASYLUM focus on the question of how flight and asylum-seeking are narrated in in-depth analyses of literary and media texts, political and legal contexts, and museum work. More generally, they try to explore opportunities for political intervention and ethical commitment within a European, and specifically Italian-German-British, framework. With this volume, the intention is to focus on the issues of 'making voices heard' and 'making people on the margins seen' in a Europe where it is possible to observe what might be called "a war on immigration." The volume is inter- and cross-disciplinary, aimed at building a conversation that will expand inside and outside of academia, to include diverse, non-canonical cultural voices and methodological approaches and thus explore the topic of refugeeism and asylum-seeking across Europe and beyond.


Contents

MANDY BECK, CLAUDIA GUALTIERI, ROBERTO PEDRETTI AND CECILE SANDTEN
Introduction: Narrating Flight and Asylum 1

PAP KHOUMA
The "Mediterranean" Prison 11

CONTEXT AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE STORIES

DAVID HERD
Erasure, Expulsion and the Hostile Environment 17

MAURIZIO VEGLIO
Is Listening an Art? Behind the Curtains of Refugee Tales 31

VISUAL STORIES OF FLIGHT AND ASYLUM

CECILE SANDTEN
Making the Invisible Visible: Flight and Asylum Stories for Children 43

ANDREA B. FARABEGOLI
The Role of Public History Practices in Storytelling: Graphic Novels and Museums 67

LISA-MARIE PÖHLAND
A New Home? Analysing Recent Children and Young Adult Films' Depictions of Flight and Asylum with Respect to Trauma and Agency 85

STORYING BORDER CROSSING, MOBILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY

CLAUDIA GUALTIERI
Words Beyond Borders: Behrouz Boochani's No Friend but the Mountains 105

LIDIA DE MICHELIS
Beyond 'Consensus Realism': Speculative Imaginings of Relationality, Mobility and Hope in Mohsin Hamid's Exit West 123

HASAN SERKAN DEMIR
Through the Looking Glass: Ethics and Responsibility in The Optician of Lampedusa 141

PEDAGOGY AND TEACHING

STEFANO MULA
Migration, Comics, and Teaching 153

GIGI ADAIR AND CARLY MCLAUGHLIN
Beyond Humanitarianism: Reading Counternarratives of Forced Migration from the Global South 165

Notes on Contributors 183