Envisioning asylum/engendering crisis: or, performance and forced migration 10 years on

Abstract

The questions of migration, asylum, the management of international borders, security, and "terror" are at the political heart of our age'. This statement could have been written yesterday but in fact, it was published 10 years ago, as the opening sentence of Helen Gilbert and Sophie Nield's editorial for their special issue of RiDE, 'Performance and Asylum: Embodiment, Ethics, Community' (2008, 133). In this introduction, we outline connections and disruptions according to our special issue's foregrounding terminology of 'envisioning asylum' and 'engendering crisis', before offering an overview that situates its contributions in terms of current debates, agendas and trajectories.

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

“…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 ).…”

“…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."…”