Perl, Gerhild (20 November 2016). Between stasis and movement: Remembering and imagining multilocality in a migrant’s detention centre in Spain. (Unpublished). In: Annual Conference of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). Minneapolis, USA. 16.-20.11.2016.
Migrants’ detention centers (C.I.E.) in Spain are heterogeneous sites of power marked by the dialectic of movement and stasis. They are places of encounter between migrants from sub-Saharan and North African, Eastern European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries who interact and negotiate their day-to-day existence among themselves as well as with the police, physicians, and NGOs.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork with mostly imprisoned sub-Saharan women, I explore the multilocal dimension within an enclosed place. After having left behind the country of provenance, sub-Saharan migrants usually dwell for several years in Morocco, suffering displacement and forced relocation. The remembrance of their journeys, the aspirations for a better future in Europe, and the disillusions with Spanish (and European) immigration policy, echoes in women’s narratives. At the same time, their present stay is marked by waiting, worrying, and boredom, for they have to spend up to 60 days in the C.I.E., condemned to a state of not knowing whether they will be deported or not. “Eat and sleep” is a common narrative used by migrants to describe their daily routine. By applying a temporal and spatial lens, this paper explores how migrants remember and imagine multiple spaces of the past and the future while coping with existential uncertainties and temporal stasis in the present.
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Speech) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Social Anthropology |
UniBE Contributor: |
Perl, Gerhild |
Subjects: |
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Gerhild Perl |
Date Deposited: |
31 May 2017 12:34 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 15:03 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/96499 |
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