(Un)Sighted Archives of Migration—Spaces of Encounter and Resistance: An Introduction

Abstract

This special issue of Visual Anthropology takes a close look at (un)sighted migratory archives and archives of migration. Acknowledging migration as part of social practice and collective memory, it highlights the relevance of migratory archives for individual and collective subjectivities. With a transversal perspective across the fields of art, anthropology and social activism, the contributions analyze the complexities of power relations, spatial and temporal dynamics, media practices, and meaning production involved in the making, maintaining, contemplation, appropriation, destruction and loss of such archives. Rethinking methodological and theoretical approaches, these engage with archives as spaces of encounter and resistance in a liminal zone of visibility and invisibility. THE CIRCULATION OF IMAGES AND ARCHIVES OF MIGRATIONAlthough scholarly discussions and theories have challenged static and hegemonic notions of the archive in recent decades (

Unsettling Borders of Archives: Activating the Audiovisual Heritage of the Turkish Community in the Netherlands

“…As Fiona Siegenthaler and Catherine Bublatzy recently emphasised, 'there is little awareness for archives of migration that come into being and disappear outside institutionalised national or communal archives'. 20 The audiovisual heritage of the Turkish community provides valuable insights in this regard. My attempt to locate this audiovisual heritage in the Netherlands has brought up a complex map of items scattered across various institutions.…”

“…The experiences of migration remain outside of archival borders, perpetuating the limbo state of migrants 'perceived as stuck somewhere between a "here" and a "there", somewhere liminal --and mostly precarious--state of not belonging anymore but not belonging yet'. 2 This is the same for archival artefacts relating to migrant communities. When they make their ways into institutional archives, they are largely perpetuated in their silence due to a set of reasons that I explain below.…”

In-cóg-ni-tas (n.f.). Mulheres, migrações e artivismo na sociedade portuguesa contemporânea

“…O conceito de artivismo expresso neste artigo e concernente à discussão que pautou a mesa-redonda aqui em análise, prende-se, sobretudo, a um lastro de experiências imigratórias. Os migrantes de modo geral, e as mulheres migrantes em específico, podem ser vistas como corpos que se encontram presos entre um limbo, ou seja, nem "aqui" nem "ali" (Siegenthaler & Bublatzky, 2021). A arte e as práticas artísticas tornam-se, assim, em canais acessíveis, através dos quais as mulheres migrantes podem criar e/ou encontrar uma sensação de comunidade e, a par disso, o artivismo pode ser entendido como um meio para aumentar a visibilidade e para aumentar a consciência face a determinadas situações, tais como as dificuldades sentidas pelas mulheres migrantes em termos de inserção social.…”