Forms of Migration: Global Perspectives on Im/migrant Art and Literature

Published: 2022
Berlin, Germany: Falschrum Books

Abstract

In public discourse, as much as in academic research, migration is often framed in terms of crises: whilst disaster, hardship, and misery often force people to leave their place of origin, their arrival to a new place is often perceived as a threat to the host community’s integrity. The fact that such movements have, in the past and present, fostered the circulation of thoughts, ideas, images and aesthetics, and enabled encounters and dialogues and even resulted in the emergence of new aesthetic forms, is frequently overlooked. Forms of Migration breaks new ground in transnational im/migrant studies by addressing the current paucity of research dedicated to questions of im/migrant and transnational aesthetics from a global perspective and with a particular interest in the diversity of both migrant experiences and forms of expression. 

This rich collection of essays, poetry, and visual material places emphasis on form, arguing that it is often the compositional structure and rhetoric of texts and images, the literary nature and formal qualities of certain images and stories, that impact readers and beholders, opening up new interpretations of reality. Addressing migration patterns around the globe, and exploring the literary and aesthetic forms of expression that are shaping our understanding of the dynamics in and around transnational migration processes, this interdisciplinary volume includes poetry, creative nonfiction, interviews, analyses of diasporic fashion, cinema, and mixed media installations, as well as performances turned into writing, photographic work, collages, and drawings. Forms of Migration shows how innovative storytelling or artistic material offers a chance to apprehend migration differently, to grasp the complexity of migration processes and to challenge common perceptions of im/migrant experiences.

Contributions by AGYA members

Introduction – Stefan Maneval & Jennifer A. Reimer
p. 10-25

Migration as a Form of Emancipation: An Interview with the Artist and Author Chaza Charafeddine – Stefan Maneval
p. 66-83
 
Tales from a Duffle Bag:
On Getting Emotional by Doing Migration Studies as a German Scholar – Matthias Pasdzierny
p. 120-135
 
Forms of Memoir: Four Case Studies
in Movement, Migration, and Transnational Life Writing – Ikram Hili & Jennifer A. Reimer
p. 244-259