This book aims to explore political, social, cultural, economic and artistic expressions of, and issues around, Lampedusa as a metaphor of several (visible and invisible) powers that, at different levels (micro, meso and macro), impinges on the relations between Europe and Africa/Asia, etc. The intent is to propose a comprehensive reflection contemplating several approaches and perspectives regarding the relationship of this island as first/last border of the Fortress Europe. Migration is the core topic, but it could be approached with different materials.

Argument

This book aims to explore political, social, cultural, economic and artistic expressions of, and issues around, Lampedusa as a metaphor of several (visible and invisible) powers that, at different levels (micro, meso and macro), impinges on the relations between Europe and Africa/Asia, etc. The intent is to propose a comprehensive reflection contemplating several approaches and perspectives regarding the relationship of this island as first/last border of the Fortress Europe. Migration is the core topic, but it could be approached with different materials.

In fact, the book will mainly include scientific essays but also testimonies, photographs, pictures, comics and all other materials on Lampedusa and its relation with the idea of border and boundaries.

This cfp is open to who is interested in problematizing the threshold in a socio-cultural and historical perspective. Thus, we encourage even non-academic persons – such as artists, poets, musicians and other profiles – to contribute to this book.

The 12th of February 2015 over 300 migrant people left their life in the sea area near Lampedusa. This is only the last of a series of “incidents” happened since the 1992.. The “spectacularisation”, mediatisation and politicisation of the arrival of migrants to the Italian coasts are a long-lasting topic. We seem to be used to watch the periodical news appearing on our television screens and we are periodically shocked to read detailed analysis on incredible relation between human being smugglers, desperate migrant or sank boats.

The issue is much more complex than this very emotional “mise en scene”. It calls for an in-depth analysis that grasp the historical ties between Italy and Libya, the bilateral accords , the “not so new” security policies implemented by European Union, the question of a revision of Dublin II, the birth of new third sectors that work on desperation. Furthermore, Italy is still depicted as the soft underbelly of Europe, but what happens since years in Lampedusa is an overlapping spectacle of desperation and humanity as the several appeals of some militants’ organisations and of the major of the island point out.

Lampedusa is the place where the social relations of race, gender, sex, ages and class are subverted and reproduced. The border of the island reminds us the boundaries of European societies that are living a schizophrenic era of closure (politics, administrations, etc.) and openness (new militant groups, spontaneous bottom-up actions, etc.).

Lampedusa is also a Sicilian island that has suffered of a past of immigration and that has slightly, as all Italy, reflected about it.

These intertwined questions contribute to the construction of Lampedusa a metaphor or better a synecdoche. It is the part of a wider all, the Fortress Europe that is concerned by a lack of understanding of history and social relations in act since more than 50 years. Migration policies, recognition of a debit to African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries in the construction of some European countries and the perpetration of new forms of modern colonisation and imperialism have heavy consequences for the European Union. If still, we believe in this “union”, Lampedusa is just a part of a wider geographical and socio-political space that has to re-invent itself.

For these reasons, to better understand the origins, the causes, the consequences and the nuances of the topic, we are looking for chapters from across the disciplines, and are particularly interested in topics such as:

• Lampedusa as symbol of Italian migration policies
• Gender, Color, Race, Religion and its relationship with Lampedusa
• Boundaries, borders, frontiers, thresholds
• Body disciplinements
• Italian and International press on "accidents" in Lampedusa
• Memories of the diaspora, diaspora of the memory
• Fantasies, hopes, illusions, fears, imaginaries of migrant people
• Human geography across Mediterranean Sea
• Narrations of Lampedusa (documentaries, novels, movies, etc.)

Guidelines submission

Edited by Gabriele Proglio and Laura Odasso

We invite article proposals, in every field of humanities and with an interdisciplinary approach. We would like this book to provide the reader with a clear sense of temporal dynamism as well as geographic differences in the region. We want to illustrate the dynamism of racialization, gender and class in the treatment of the Lampedusa issue, and would like to have at least one chapter that is rooted in Lampedusa local memoires, perhaps with connection to migration of the inhabitants or tourism. In this way, readers will have a clear notion of larger historical and contemporary overview of the island and its role in the migration to Europe.

The deadline for sending to the address borderlampedusa@gmail.com a 500-words abstract

is the 30th of April.

We will communique the acceptance of the proposal by the 15th of May. Articles are due for the 1st of August.