1. Can “migrants” speak? Voices, narratives and performances

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the multiple voices of exiles, asylum seekers, adventurers, travelers, or migrants. To understand migration processes, it is necessary to understand that language practices are social practices that create and throw into play interactional and socio-political contexts. In opposition to a media, state and police conception of the speech (parole) of exiles, a plethora of academic and artistic productions related to migration issues have shaped a new approach to mobility and language practices in Europe. By freeing the speech of exiles themselves, through life narratives in particular, these works offer a different perspective on women and men whose discourse and language registers have been obscured or erased. By shifting gazes, I suggest instead starting out from countries affected by mobility in order to observe language practices as social practices, where they emerge locally through cinema, radio, songs, rap, performances, novels, etc. Keywords migration | voices | narratives | performances | speech | semiotic | language practices 1. Can "migrants" speak? Voices, narratives and performances 1 As parole has no single English equivalent, the words 'speech' , 'voice' and 'words' have alternatively been used (we are referring here to the usual use of parole and not to the Saussure dichotomy langue/parole). 2 Here are some examples in France: Eldorado by Laurent Gaudé (J'ai Lu, 2009), Ulysses from Bagdad by Eric-Emmanuel Schmit (Albin Michel, 2008); Dans la peau d'un migrant by Arthur Frayer-Laleix (Fayard, 2015); Tous migrants ! (Gallimard, 2017); Brûle la mer by Berchache and Nathalie Nambot (2014); Les messagers by Crouzillat Hélène and Tura Laetitia (2014); La traversée by Mathieu Pernot (Le point du jour, 2014); the exhibition I AM WITH THEM: manifeste photographique pour les réfugiés, by Anne A-R., (Gründ, 2016); Weiwei's gesture imitating the dead child Aylan Kurdi. For information on the compassionate rhetoric of images, see Susan Sontag Devant la douleur des autres (Christian Bourgeois, 2003), in particular the analysis of Sebastião Salgado's exhibition Migrations : Humanity in Transition. Concerning the power of images, see Maaza Mengiste How not to photograph the Rohingya genocide in the making. 3The use of the terms "migrants" or "exiles" is not satisfactory, especially since those who they refer to use other terms ("aventuriers" 'adventurers' and "voyageurs" 'travelers' in French, but also many other terms stemming from local linguistic practices, see Canut & Ramos (2014) for West-Africa, for example). Therefore, we will be using several terms throughout this text in order not to settle on one or the other (see Canut, 2020).1. Can "migrants" speak? Voices, narratives and performances 1. Can "migrants" speak? Voices, narratives and performances