Material Culture and (Forced) Migration: Materialising the transient

Abstract

Material Culture and (Forced) Migration argues that materiality is a fundamental dimension of migration. During journeys of migration, people take things with them, or they lose, find and engage things along the way. Movements themselves are framed by objects such as borders, passports, tents, camp infrastructures, boats and mobile phones. This volume brings together chapters that are based on research into a broad range of movements – from the study of forced migration and displacement to the analysis of retirement migration. What ties the chapters together is the perspective of material culture and an understanding of materiality that does not reduce objects to mere symbols. Centring on four interconnected themes – temporality and materiality, methods of object-based migration research, the affective capacities of objects, and the engagement of things in place-making practices – the volume provides a material culture perspective for migration scholars around the globe, representing disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, contemporary archaeology, curatorial studies, history and human geography. The ethnographic nature of the chapters and the focus on everyday objects and practices will appeal to all those interested in the broader conditions and tangible experiences of migration.

Materiality in transit: An ethnographic-archaeological approach to objects carried, lost, and gained during contemporary migration journeys

“…On the other hand, the lack of personal items recovered by the ASP led Blake and Schon (2019: 192) to suggest that the particularities of difficult, international migration require strategies of material detachment and a restructuring of the "relationship between possessions and identity." My results underscore this proposal: migration changes and challenges the way material objects are essential to-and indeed, constitutive of-social lives (Lauser et al, 2022). The restructured relationship between possessions and identity which is particular to migrants en route and shaped by contemporary international border regimes is not solely defined by the small number and nature of objects present during journeys, but also by the absence of objects.…”

“…Migrants perceived as criminals must be controlled for security purposes, while as victims they must be rescued and cared for according to humanitarian ethics and hospitality principles. This creates a problematic framework in which people in transit must have nothing, must be tragic victims, in order to be "worthy" of protection and care (Cabot, 2016;Khosravi, 2010;Lauser et al, 2022;Rozakou, 2012). In the same way that border crossers have come to accept intense levels of physical suffering when traversing the Sonoran Desert (De León, 2012), contemporary migrants in the Mediterranean are predisposed to the expectation that they should have nothing for reasons that go beyond the long and demanding nature of their journeys.…”

“…This approach also highlights multiple ways in which migration restructures relationships between people and objects (Blake and Schon, 2019). Contemporary militarized border regimes and reception policies attempt to reduce migrants to a "bare life" (Agamben, 1998;De León et al, 2015;Lauser et al, 2022) and deprive individuals of the ability to reconstitute their material and social selves in spaces of transit and resettlement. Yet it is also crucial to recognize the subtle ways in which people undertaking international migration make strategic use of objects to resist exclusive migration policies and the associated lack of materiality.…”

‘I Brought My Grandma’s Old Cheese Cutter with Me’: Finns’ Domestic Material Culture in the UK as Translocal Assemblage

“…Numerous interdisciplinary studies exist on migrants' material cultures related to identities, taste, home-making and lifestyle (see e.g. discussions by Khrenova & Burrell 2021;Lauser et al 2022;Marschall 2019;Money 2007;Ran & Liu 2021). My approach is to focus on the everyday materialities that generate (dis)connectedness between translocal sites through the idea of 'translocal assemblage.'…”