Ex-Centric Migrations

Hakim Abderrezak

Description

Ex-Centric Migrations examines cinematic, literary, and musical representations of migrants and migratory trends in the western Mediterranean. Focusing primarily on clandestine sea-crossings, Hakim Abderrezak shows that despite labor and linguistic ties with the colonizer, migrants from the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) no longer systematically target France as a destination, but instead aspire toward other European countries, notably Spain and Italy. In addition, the author investigates other migratory patterns that entail the repatriation of émigrés. His analysis reveals that the films, novels, and songs of Mediterranean artists run contrary to mass media coverage and conservative political discourse, bringing a nuanced vision and expert analysis to the sensationalism and biased reportage of such events as the Mediterranean maritime tragedies.

Introduction: Mediterraneans and Migrations in the Global Era
1. Disimmigration as a Remedy for the Illness of Immigration in Ismaël Ferroukhi's Le grand voyage
2. "Burning the Sea": Clandestine Migration Across the Mediterranean in Francophone Moroccan Illiterature
3. Southward Road Narratives: How French Citizens Become Clandestine Immigrants in Algeria
4. The New Eldorado in Mediterranean Music
5. Europe Bound: Shooting "Illegals" at Sea
6. Heading Home: Post-Mortem Road Narratives
Conclusion: "White Sea of the Middle" or "Wide Sea to Meddle In"?
Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
Discography
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• African Studies
• Social Science
• African
• Francofonía
• Película fotográfica
• África
• Literature
• African people
• Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
• Social sciences
• Politics
• History of film
• European Union
• Cinema
• Union européenne
• European
• Africa
• French
• Migration
• Film
• Francophonie
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 20 juin 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253020789
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

EX-CENTRIC MIGRATIONS
EX-CENTRIC MIGRATIONS
Europe and the Maghreb in Mediterranean Cinema, Literature, and Music
Hakim Abderrezak
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B. Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2016 by Hakim Abderrezak
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 978-0-253-02065-9 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-253-02075-8 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-253-02078-9 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
For my parents, sisters, brother, nephews, and nieces
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation and Transliteration
Introduction: Mediterraneans and Migrations in the Global Era
1 Disimmigration as a Remedy for the Illness of Immigration in Isma l Ferroukhi s Le Grand voyage
2 Burning the Sea : Clandestine Migration across the Mediterranean in Francophone Moroccan Illiterature
3 Southward Road Narratives: How French Citizens Become Clandestine Immigrants in Algeria
4 The New Eldorado in Mediterranean Music
5 Europe Bound: Shooting Illegals at Sea
6 Heading Home: Post-Mortem Road Narratives
Conclusion: White Sea of the Middle or Wide Sea to Meddle In ?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
T HE TOPIC OF clandestine migration was a personal concern of mine before it became an academic avenue of research that led me to write Ex-Centric Migrations and several articles and book chapters. The theme of clandestine migration has been a crucial part of my scholarship and inspired my work in the fine arts. One of my paintings, Burning the Sea , appears on the cover of this volume. The work illustrates the major topic of the book, namely, the concept of burning, a Maghrebi term for clandestine migration, which the painting presents in a literal as well as a figurative fashion.
When Ex-Centric Migrations was in its last stage of production, the maritime tragedies of 2015 occurred, in which thousands of individuals attempted to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Some of the journeys were successful, but many overloaded boats capsized and individuals drowned. These events were named the refugee crisis and designated as Europe s biggest humanitarian crisis since WWII. Although this book examines the Western Mediterranean (migrations from Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, mostly to France, Spain, and Italy), many of its ideas and conclusions apply to the refugee crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. The attention and reactions the phenomenon has garnered is similar to the ways in which the Western Mediterranean migrations have been internationally received, with the same broad themes at work: identity politics, nativism, globalism, Islamophobia, and clash of civilizations mind-set. There are major similarities in the coverage of clandestine crossings by mass media and the many political reactions and discourses that have ensued. Although to date-with the exception of Turkish writer Hakan G nday s novel Encore about human trafficking, which won the prestigious Le Prix M dicis du roman tranger in 2015-there are not yet cinematic, literary, and musical accounts of the recent Middle Eastern refugee tragedies, Ex-Centric Migrations may serve as a valuable resource for future comparative studies. Indeed, both Syria and Tunisia have experienced an unprecedented exodus of individuals ensuing the Arab Spring and the resultant regional chaos. Furthermore, because of shared languages (mostly Arabic) among the Western and Eastern Mediterranean migrants and refugees, common exclusionary, anti-immigration politics from the West, and a war that has caused a strong enough sense of despair to lead individuals to flee regardless of the risks of drowning, this book provides a study that helps understand the refugee crisis-its causes, its consequences, how the crossing of the Mediterranean Sea is translated into mass media, and the political ramifications when it comes to depicting the Arab making his or her way toward the West. An in-depth linguistic analysis allows for a more informed vision than that of many media accounts. For instance, the latter have often used the terms migrants and refugees interchangeably, while these terms in fact denote statuses that are differentiated clearly by international law. Whereas a potential host country facing an economic crisis or not needing labor could decide to refuse to welcome a migrant on the grounds that a migrant is an individual who attempts to settle abroad primarily to improve his standard of life, a refugee is an individual whose life back home is threatened. On its website s landing page in late 2015, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees warned, Refugee or Migrant? Word Choice Matters. Indeed, the distinction is crucial in order to avoid misconceptions that could potentially contribute to nationalist, populist, and xenophobic discourse, that in turn, impact upon foreigners arriving in Europe. Additionally, this sort of imprecision can obfuscate the dangers humans face when their right to asylum is not respected. This common error in naming is menacing in that it masks Europe s moral responsibility to refugees, who are protected by international law.
The link between this book and the global refugee crisis is the 2013 and 2015 tragedies of capsized ships of migrants departing from Libya and Syria. With these events, the phenomenon of clandestine migration, which had been occurring for decades, finally reached an international audience and shocked the world. But as this book exemplifies, contrary to portrayals in popular news reports, these crossings are not a new phenomenon; furthermore, they are not always the consequence of violent political instability. Before Tunisia, clandestine migrants from Algeria and Morocco had been on the Western media s radar. The global refugee crisis makes the examination of Mediterranean clandestine crossings a timely one, but most importantly represents a call for attention to the dangerous nature of migrating when migration is in fact a right also granted by international law. I hope that Ex-Centric Migrations will make its own modest contribution to shedding light on these dynamics, their causes, and consequences, as well as the media reportage and the political rhetoric-both of which are complex machines that shape opinion and policy. In the meantime, cinematic, literary, and musical productions propose their own visions of the events, offering alternative and highly informative views on how the objects of hegemonic discourse see themselves and what narratives they propose as subjects in their own accounts.
Acknowledgments
E X-CENTRIC MIGRATIONS started as a new project when I was an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. I am indebted to my colleagues who read early versions of chapters: Daniel Brewer, M ria Minich Brewer, Susan Noakes, Judith E. Preckshot, Eileen Sivert, and Christophe Wall-Romana. Dominic Thomas read the manuscript and gave excellent advice, for which I am deeply appreciative.
Throughout the writing of Ex-Centric Migrations , I was able to share my work in the United States and overseas in many professional conferences, symposia, and colloquia. I thank the scholars, their departments, and institutions for inviting me to speak: Silvia Berm dez (Spanish and Portuguese) and Roberto Strongman (Black Studies), University of California, Santa Barbara; Sylvie Durmelat and Mil na Santoro (French and Francophone Studies), Georgetown University; Nouri Gana (Comparative Literature and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures), University of California, Los Angeles; Ralph Heyndels and Gema P rez-S nchez (Modern Languages and Literatures), University of Miami; and Christopher L. Miller and Edwige Tamalet-Talbayev (French), Yale University. Other venues where I presented parts of this book include the Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century French and Francophone Studies International Colloquium, the Middle East Studies Association, and the Modern Language Association. I thank my interlocutors on panels and in audiences for their questions.
Several grants at the University of Minnesota were instrumental in bringing the manuscript to completion. A College of Liberal Arts course release allowed me to craft one of the chapters and two Imagine Fund Faculty Research Awards helped to fund the research I did in Paris, France. The Institute of Global Studies, the Imagine Fund Special Events, and cosponsoring institutes, centers, departments, and programs provided substantial financial aid that allowed me to organize a symposium titled Burning the Sea: Clandestine Migrations in the Global Age in April 2013. This was the first U.S.-based interdisciplinary symposium on clandestine migration and its literary and artistic representations bringing together a wide array of distinguished scholars working across national languages in the humanities and social sciences.
At Indiana University Press, I wish to thank Raina Polivka for her enthusiasm for the book. My thanks also go to Jenna Lynn Whittaker, Janice Elizabeth Frisch, and Nazareth Panta