Refugees, Crisis and Bureaucratic Performance

Unmasking State Harm: The Border as a Theatrical Space of Gendered Violence

“…Scholars and practitioners within the arts have been exploring the liminal space of the state border and its impact on people, experimenting with different typologies and techniques ( Cox, 2015 ; Cox & Wake, 2018 ; Guterman, 2014 ; Jeffers, 2012 ; Noriega, 2016 ). Artists and activists are capable of pushing and lifting the border boundaries imposed by a narrative of state security, to allow the acts that occur at the border to reach our gaze, thereby improving our understanding of this liminal space.…”

“…Diverse artistic representations and performances of border crossing and its associated violent elements have been explored for some years, and many academic reflections on such productions are now available (including, among others, Cox, 2015 ; Cox & Wake, 2018 ; Guterman, 2014 ; Jeffers, 2012 ; Lanz, 2016 ; Noriega, 2016 ). As pointed out by Staudt (2008 , p. 18), the purpose of such representations is to raise awareness: “[p]erformance is a useful concept around which to analyze anti-violence social movements at the border.” In Italy, for example, every year there are hundreds of these representations (such as Teatro di Roma, 2019 ) using different means, which are produced and acted, in some cases, by those subjected to border practices (see, e.g., Cimoli, 2014 ).…”