Bodies Folded in Migrant Crypts: Dis/Ability and the Material Culture of Border-Crossing

Vasilis Galis, Spyros Tzokas, Aristotle Tympas

Publikation: Artikel i tidsskrift og konference artikel i tidsskriftTidsskriftartikelForskningpeer review

Abstract

This article considers media narratives that suggest that hiding in trucks, buses, and other vehicles to cross borders has, in fact, been a common practice in the context of migration to, and within, Europe. We aim to problematize how the tension between the materiality of bordering practices and human migrants generates a dis/abled subject. In this context, dis/ability may be a cause or consequence of migration, both in physical/material (the folding of bodies in the crypt) and cultural/semiotic terms, and may become a barrier to accessing protection, to entering and/or crossing a country, and to performing mobility in general. Dis/ability and migration have not been associated in the literature. We adopt an analytical symmetry between humans and non-humans, in this case between bodies and crypts. By suggesting an infected, ambivalent, and hybrid approach to the human subject, the body-crypt traveling border challenges the essentialist dichotomies between technology and biology, disability and impairment. The articles and reports upon which we rely were collected through extensive searches of databases/archives of online newspapers and news websites.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftSocieties
Vol/bind6
Udgave nummer2
ISSN2075-4698
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 4 apr. 2016

Emneord

  • border-crossing
  • crypts
  • dis/ability
  • narratives
  • migration

Fingeraftryk

Dyk ned i forskningsemnerne om 'Bodies Folded in Migrant Crypts: Dis/Ability and the Material Culture of Border-Crossing'. Sammen danner de et unikt fingeraftryk.

Citationsformater