{"title":"“A Ḥarrāg’s Account”: Craftily Narrating and Navigating the EU’s Morphing Borderscape","authors":"Graham Liddell","doi":"10.1353/mgs.2022.0025","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Neoliberal borders inconspicuously morph, now facilitating the free passage of goods and citizens from rich countries, now violently excluding irregular travelers departing from impoverished and repressive environments. In turn, unauthorized migrants demonstrate narrative and performative craft(iness) by tactically shapeshifting to fit themselves into the highly particular mold of a “worthy refugee.” The 2019 Arabic-language memoir Anthems of Salt, which chronicles its Algerian author’s attempt at clandestine migration to northern Europe via Turkey and Greece, provides a backdrop for recent scholarship on twenty-first-century borders and the so-called refugee crisis. A close reading of Ramdani’s account, in conjunction with examples from fieldwork as a volunteer for asylum aid organizations in Greece, provides a view of what is produced in the interaction between morphing borderscapes and shapeshifting migrants—namely, incarnations of the very essentialized images that states project onto their unwanted entrants. But candid border-crossing narratives like Ramdani’s are produced as well, revealing the many cross-territorial linkages through which borderlines slice. These linkages suggest the potential for alternative cartographies that challenge dominant notions of nation-statehood.","PeriodicalId":43810,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF MODERN GREEK STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF MODERN GREEK STUDIES","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/mgs.2022.0025","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:Neoliberal borders inconspicuously morph, now facilitating the free passage of goods and citizens from rich countries, now violently excluding irregular travelers departing from impoverished and repressive environments. In turn, unauthorized migrants demonstrate narrative and performative craft(iness) by tactically shapeshifting to fit themselves into the highly particular mold of a “worthy refugee.” The 2019 Arabic-language memoir Anthems of Salt, which chronicles its Algerian author’s attempt at clandestine migration to northern Europe via Turkey and Greece, provides a backdrop for recent scholarship on twenty-first-century borders and the so-called refugee crisis. A close reading of Ramdani’s account, in conjunction with examples from fieldwork as a volunteer for asylum aid organizations in Greece, provides a view of what is produced in the interaction between morphing borderscapes and shapeshifting migrants—namely, incarnations of the very essentialized images that states project onto their unwanted entrants. But candid border-crossing narratives like Ramdani’s are produced as well, revealing the many cross-territorial linkages through which borderlines slice. These linkages suggest the potential for alternative cartographies that challenge dominant notions of nation-statehood.
摘要:新自由主义的边界在悄然变化,时而便利来自富裕国家的货物和公民的自由通行,时而粗暴地排斥来自贫困和压迫环境的非正规旅行者。反过来,未经授权的移民通过战术上的变形来适应“有价值的难民”的高度特殊的模式,展示了叙事和表演技巧。2019年出版的阿拉伯语回忆录《盐之歌》(anthem of Salt)记录了阿尔及利亚作者试图通过土耳其和希腊秘密移民到北欧的经历,为最近有关21世纪边界和所谓难民危机的学术研究提供了背景。仔细阅读Ramdani的叙述,结合他作为希腊庇护援助组织志愿者的实地工作实例,可以看到在不断变化的边界景观和变形的移民之间的相互作用中产生了什么——也就是说,国家投射到他们不受欢迎的入境者身上的非常本质的形象的化身。但像拉姆达尼这样坦率的越境叙述也被制作出来,揭示了许多跨地域的联系,通过这些联系,边界被分割开来。这些联系表明,有可能出现挑战民族国家地位主流观念的另类地图绘制方法。
期刊介绍:
Praised as "a magnificent scholarly journal" by Choice magazine, the Journal of Modern Greek Studies is the only scholarly periodical to focus exclusively on modern Greece. The Journal publishes critical analyses of Greek social, cultural, and political affairs, covering the period from the late Byzantine Empire to the present. Contributors include internationally recognized scholars in the fields of history, literature, anthropology, political science, Byzantine studies, and modern Greece.