Out of time/in place: Norwegianness, ‘immigration’, and spatial belonging in Beforeigners

Abstract

Television – as a form of representation, a space of affect, and an instrument of identity production – is a growing force in shaping perceptions of and views on international immigration. While geographers have examined the ways in which films, documentaries, and social media engage with the so-called ‘migrant crisis’ in Europe, there has been little work on fictional TV series as a force in world-building and place-making against the spectre of ‘unchecked migration’. Building on recent research on televisual interventions into the issues of migration, (b)orders, and securitisation, this article interrogates HBO Europe’s Norwegian-language sf series Beforeigners. With a focus on fantastical constructions of spatiality against temporality, the primary focus of this article is on the ways in which near-future science fiction engages with ontological insecurities around integration, xenophobia, and territorial belonging. This is accomplished by engaging the ‘temporal turn’ in cultural geography, which is increasingly focused on linking time, space, and migrant lives/bodies. Recognising TV series’ contributions to cultural, social, and political transformations that are of geographical significance, this essay seeks to expand and complicate scholarship on the suasive power of migrant representation on the small screen.