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P090


Migration and memory in/from Africa 
Convenors:
Marie Rodet (SOAS)
Francesca Declich (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo)
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Location:
2E05
Start time:
28 June, 2013 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Session slots:
3

Short Abstract:

By exploring the complex and multilayered relationship between memory and migration in/from Africa, this panel aims at re-embedding individual experiences and collectively shared narratives into a longue durée framing of migration, focusing on both historical and contemporary contexts.

Long Abstract:

Current research and debates about migration and memory have primarily focused on the representation of migration history and histories, on migrants as objects of specific discourses in exhibitions, museums, and textbooks, as well as on political narratives of national identity and public debates on migration. By exploring the complex and multilayered relationship between memory and migration in/from Africa, the ambition of this panel is to go beyond the debates about memory and individual and collective identity in national frameworks. We aim at re-embedding individual experiences and collectively shared narratives into a longue durée framing of migration, focusing on both historical and contemporary contexts.

For migrants who speak of and remember in alternative ways, their migratory experiences have challenged discourses on migration. It is therefore important to examine the positions from which migrants could speak and / or (re)present their own narratives.

We will discuss, in particular, how and why narratives are made invisible by hegemonic political and scholarly discourses. Remembering and narrating experiences of migration tend to be especially obscured by hegemonic discourses when it concerns shameful experiences, e.g. colonialism, slavery, oppression, destruction, and war. One of the principal intents of this panel is therefore to discuss the specific relation between individual and collective experiences of oppression, migration and memory.

Accepted papers:

Session 1