Stitching the cloths of serial migrant life: The quilts of Barbara James

Abstract

In this article, I study the quilting practice of Barbara James to investigate the making of serial migrant subjects. Serial migrants are not from a single place, nor do they travel in the same direction. They have moved beyond a first experience of immigration and in so doing, step beyond the home/host dualities of immigration. One might see the project of following their paths as a move from accounts of the creative, imaginative ‘third space’ produced by immigrants’ arrival in their new homes, toward a consideration of the concrete ‘third place’ of the second or third-time immigrant. Exile, economic migrant, love migrant, exchange student, refugee: a serial migrant adds up not just several identities but systems of categorisation over time. This migratory subject often changes ‘positions’ not only geographically but socially, making us question the static assumptions of social theory with their experiences of diverse approaches to nationality, class, race, ethnicity and gender.

Reconsidering the vignette as method

“…As the anthropology of refugeehood increasingly considers the work of others and the power dynamics it is embedded in, we look to the work of humanitarians (Feldman, 2010; Malkki, 1996; Rozakou, 2012), NGOs (Billaud, 2020; Fassin, 2007; Ticktin, 2011), artists (Ossman, 2019; Strohm, 2012; Yalouri, 2019), and legal professionals (Cabot, 2014; Good, 2007; Harrell‐Bond & Voutira, 1992; Knudsen, 2009). In a field in which knowledge is ever complex and political (Demetriou, 2022; Scheel & Ustek‐Spilda, 2019), these communities are at once research subjects and researchers.…”