Contemporary Representations of Forced Migration in Europe Beyond Regime and Refuge

While the predominant response to the increasing numbers of refugees seeking asylum in Europe has been to harden the borders (regime), on the one hand, or to stress the common humanity of those displaced (refuge), on the other, this volume argues that both approaches result in refugees becoming objectified, othered, and abstracted as vectors ofexile. It explores what recent cultural production can achieve in engaging with and representing issues of dispossession, detention and resettlement, and probes the limits of artistic potential to mediate the refugee experience. It examines transnational approaches to cultural production that both occupy and exceed the borders of Europe, with a focus on borderscapes, spaces of detention, and (neo-)colonialism. Bringing together original contributions from an international range of scholars, it analyses contemporary textual and visual representations of forced migration to argue that other forms of solidarity and hospitality towards refugees in Europe and beyond must be possible.
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