{"title":"Cultural artefacts and the ‘migration crisis’: Disruptive materialities in works by Navid Kermani and Maxi Obexer","authors":"Sabine Zimmermann","doi":"10.1386/CJMC_00029_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/CJMC_00029_1","url":null,"abstract":"Amplified worldwide fragility and growing mobility have contributed to increased forced migration towards Europe. However, Europe’s present focus on border protection has furthered the ‘migrant crisis’ which is very much a crisis of response. News about the ‘migrant crisis’ continues to dominate political discourse in Europe and elsewhere. The discussions typically focus on Europe’s supposed solutions in the form of increased border security, new political agreements, and various forms of humanitarian aid. This article reviews four literary texts about Europe’s responses to forced migration and proposes that the literary treatment of various cultural artefacts employed in these texts critiques Europe’s current restrictionism. Two speeches by Navid Kermani, ‘Towards Europe’ and ‘On the sixty-fifth Anniversary of the Promulgation of the German Constitution’ and two novels by Maxi Obexer, Wenn gefährliche Hunde lachen (‘When dangerous dogs laugh’) and Europas längster Sommer (‘Europe’s longest summer’) make reference to several phenomenal objects and also to gestures. In and of themselves, these cultural artefacts such as beds, blankets, buses, lipsticks, T-shirts, shoes, and even the gestures of kneeling and bowing, may not possess anything disruptive. However, there is an unruly quality about them that puts a spotlight on the precarity of survival migrants who cannot access the European asylum process.","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128581982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"¡Toma la Plaza!: Reading Spain’s 15-M movement through the Ecuadorian experience1","authors":"Araceli Masterson-Algar","doi":"10.1386/cjmc_00017_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc_00017_1","url":null,"abstract":"The economic downturn of 2008, inseparable from the accelerated privatization of Spain’s public services, led in May of 2011 to the Social Movement popularly known as ‘15-M’. Sol, Madrid’s Central Plaza, became the movements’ main scenario. Participants of the movement, self-identified asindignados(‘outraged’), encouraged answers from a diversity of social perspectives regarding ways of living, moving and thinking the city through discourses of ecology and sustainability. This article reflects on the 15-M movement from the migrant experience in general, but with particular attention to the Ecuadorian context. Through various forms of cultural expression, the 15-M movement should be read from a transnational perspective and from the lived realities of many Spanish residents with ties to the Andean context and to Ecuador’s national space.","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117271033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mothering the state: Ecuadorian migrant mothers in the United Kingdom","authors":"K. Roitman","doi":"10.1386/cjmc_00013_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc_00013_1","url":null,"abstract":"Women, as immigrant mothers, embody the creation of new identities that drink from distant roots but must survive in the present land. This article investigates the experience of Ecuadorian women who have become mothers in the United Kingdom, seeking to understand how they conceptualize their identity as Ecuadorians and whether and how they are relaying and nurturing this identity in their children. The article’s analysis is based upon semi-structured, extended interviews with several Ecuadorian women in southern England, with a focus upon the individual experiences of these women as migrants; how they experienced their changing identity as they entered motherhood; how they straddled two cultures as their children grew in Europe; how they understand themselves and their children as Ecuadorian; and how they see Ecuador from the perspective of immigrant mothers. Delving into discussions of the gendered creation of national identities, this article also explores how immigrant mothersbirththe state through narratives and memories and seeks to understand how these narratives have been affected by migration and acculturation.","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121623801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A stranger in my own home: Prolonged travel and the (re)negotiation of Otavalo identity in Carlos Arcos Cabrera’s Memorias de Andrés Chiliquinga (‘Memories of Andrés Chiliquinga’) (2013)","authors":"M. O'neil","doi":"10.1386/cjmc_00016_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc_00016_1","url":null,"abstract":"As one of Ecuador’s largest indigenous groups, Otavalos have become unique in their successful marketing of cultural products both nationally and internationally. The Otavalo diaspora has led to sizeable communities settling not only in larger cities within Ecuador, but around\u0000 the world. Travel, especially to Europe and the United States, is now a rite of passage for young Otavalos, and these travelling merchants spread their heritage through the sale of products, from clothing and fabrics, to music and handicrafts. In turn, many spend a significant portion of the\u0000 year (and their life) detached from the Otavalo community, moving through spaces in which they are labelled as ‘other’ to ones in which they are exclusive members of an ‘imagined community’. With a focus on Carlos Arcos Cabrera's 2013 novel Memorias de Andrés\u0000 Chiliquinga (‘Memories of Andrés Chiliquinga’), this article explores the effects of prolonged travel on indigenous identity, and the ways in which the young Otavalos today are facing traditional and Eurocentric stereotypes in order to (re)negotiate what it means\u0000 to be indigenous in a globalized world.","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126459948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The (re)construction of identity: Representation of migrant Ecuadorians in La utopía de Madrid (‘The utopia of Madrid’)","authors":"Francesco Masala-Martínez","doi":"10.1386/cjmc_00015_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc_00015_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the representation of Ecuadorians in Spain during the first decade of the twenty-first century as reflected in the novel La utopía de Madrid (‘The utopia of Madrid’) by Carlos Carrión. Following the theories developed by\u0000 Erik Erikson about identity and the psychosocial stages, and Stuart Hall and Paul Du Gay about the construction of identities, this work explores the representation of Ecuadorians using the voice of Lucy, the main character of the novel. Her experience, based on a true story, exposes a troubled\u0000 reality that highlights the several cases of discrimination against this population in which they were (and still are) verbally and physically attacked1 based on their ethnicity. Additionally, it shows how the Ecuadorian identity changes and evolves, congruent with Erikson’s\u0000 stages of development.","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"206 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115731977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The other side of immigration in Prometeo Deportado (‘Prometheus deported’) and Vengo Volviendo (‘Here and there’)","authors":"Manuel F. Medina","doi":"10.1386/cjmc_00014_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc_00014_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on two films ‐ Prometeo Deportado (‘Prometheus deported’) directed by Fernando Mieles and Vengo Volviendo (‘Here and there’) directed by Isabel Rodas León and Gabriel Paez Hernandez ‐ that relate to Ecuadorian\u0000 emigration and immigration. Both cultural products call attention to the realities behind the traditional presumption that the economic benefit of living outside the Ecuadorian borders outweighs the human price most people must pay in return. Using a border studies theoretical framework, this\u0000 article analyses concepts such as dehumanization and deterritorialization within the conversation about emigration, immigration, cultural adaptation and assimilation of Ecuadorians who venture abroad or dream of relocating outside of their country.","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"95 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131925676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"You think, therefore I am: Constructing and (re)presenting identity in and outside Ecuador","authors":"Francesco Masala-Martínez","doi":"10.1386/cjmc_00012_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc_00012_2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131610086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mediating identity crisis: A discourse analysis of conflict reporting in the African diasporic press in the United Kingdom","authors":"O. Ogunyemi","doi":"10.1386/CJMC.9.1.107_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/CJMC.9.1.107_1","url":null,"abstract":"People in the diaspora exhibit a dual identity, that is, an identity connected to their homeland and to their host country. This duality creates a constant tension, which could escalate into a crisis when they are exposed to negative messages about events at home such as conflict, political and economic instability and/or to negative messages about events in the host country such as unfavourable changes in immigration policy, physical attacks on group members and negative stereotyping in the mainstream media. This study focuses on the role of diasporic media in mediating identity crisis among black African diasporas. Adopting interview and critical discourse analysis methods, this study found that the African diasporic press de-escalates identity crisis by projecting African diasporas as ‘doers’ rather than as ‘villains’ in the news. But it fails to drastically reduce identity crisis because of a limited use of conflict-sensitive reporting criteria in news stories of African conflicts.","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127372325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Mediating identity and conflict through diasporic media","authors":"O. Ogunyemi","doi":"10.1386/CJMC.9.1.3_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/CJMC.9.1.3_2","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue on ‘Global identity and conflict through diaspora media’ expands the literature on diaspora and media beyond the framework of fostering identity as communal practices and communitarian meanings to the framework of continuity of commitment, behaviour and identity crisis that emerge due to diasporas’ engagement with different genres in the media. The collection of original papers highlights some intra-media and extra-media factors in media’s mediation process while providing an opportunity to develop theories, research, and frameworks that might guide emerging theoretical frameworks to help think about and discuss the interplay between these phenomena.","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115636726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Convergence through conflict: A case study of a US Spanish-language publication’s efforts to grow a national audience","authors":"Andrea A. Hickerson","doi":"10.1386/CJMC.9.1.13_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/CJMC.9.1.13_1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":135037,"journal":{"name":"Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture","volume":"101 7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123162891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}