CFP 27.04.2017

Trans|Migration: psychogeographies of the threshold - Zivot umjetnosti magazine

Zagreb
Eingabeschluss : 01.06.2017

Sandra Krizic Roban

TRANS|MIGRATION: psychogeographies of the threshold

A call for papers to be published in the 101st issue of the Zivot umjetnosti magazine

Issue editor: Ana Dana Beroš

Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.
— Wiliam Gibson, Pattern Recognition, 2003

In the contemporary age of the imperative of mobility, which is compatible with the imperative of work flexibility, the forced territorial migrations of precarious workers are parallel to the wanderings and detentions of illegalized migrants and refugees. These simultaneous processes of global movements of people, goods and capital reinscribe identities over many territories of various nation-states and form transnational cultures. However, prevalent discourses on human migration portray migrants as key figures in the abolition of the nation-state and geopolitical borders, by their claim of human rights to free movement, spatial justice and political visibility. Transnational migration towards the industrialized countries of the West, as a form of (post)colonial backlash, is still not fully recognized as a labour market regulatory tool. There is a variety of transmigrants – nomadic, circulatory, refugee, settler – who are all participating, willingly or not, in the light infantry of global capitalism. The ambivalent condition of a transmigrant is represented, on the one hand, as a symbolic figure of fearism responsible for the (un)conscious production of fear on others. On the other, victimising discourses portray migrants as human beings invariably in need to be cared for.

The manifold implacement of transmigrants as opposed to forced displacement, strengthened through their capacity of building polyvalent relationships with immediate surroundings and with what is left behind, shows that migrant subjects skillfully activate transterritorial adaptation processes. Transmigrancy, therefore, does not depend exclusively on the negation of the political, today's walled-off borders of Europe, but rather on the activation of the mechanisms of otherness, which are equally present in the countries of arrival and departure. Perhaps the experience of being a transmigrant is a special quality of those who know multiple languages and cultures as well as techniques to ease uncertainties, tensions and violent situations. Perhaps transmigrants, as bearers of financial, social and cultural capital – potential creators of new social meanings and values – are trusted to be new global leaders, diplomats, and strategists. Perhaps transmigrancy is not a story about those who belong nowhere but of those who belong everywhere. To question the rehearsed narratives and expected roles of the migrant subjects means to introduce a new culture of transmigrancy, for these marginal figures deserve to be considered as central political agents of change in our times.

Authors are invited to submit their academic papers and essays for the 101st issue of the Život umjetnosti (Life of Art) magazine. The submission deadline is June 1st, 2017.

For any questions regarding the edition’s topic, please contact the editors at zivot-umjetnostiipu.hr

The instructions on how to format the article can be found here: https://www.ipu.hr/content/zivot-umjetnosti/ZU_guidelines-for-authors.pdf

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Ana Dana Beroš (1979, Zagreb) is an independent architect and curator who focuses her work on creating fragile, unsettling environments that catalyze social change. Co-founder of ARCHIsquad - Division for Architecture with Conscience and its educational programs urgentArchitecture. Her project Intermundia on trans- and intra-European migration was one of the finalists for the Wheelwright Prize at GSD Harvard and received a Special Mention at the XIV Venice Architecture Biennale (2014). She is currently curating the Zagreb Actopolis – transnational artistic laboratory with urban interventions in Athens, Belgrade, Bucharest, Mardin, Oberhausen, Sarajevo and Zagreb (2015–2017).

Quellennachweis:
CFP: Trans|Migration: psychogeographies of the threshold - Zivot umjetnosti magazine. In: ArtHist.net, 27.04.2017. Letzter Zugriff 29.03.2024. <https://arthist.net/archive/15340>.

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