Call for Chapter Proposals: Immigration Detention Centres and Cultural Production 

Beatrice Ivey Announcement
Subject Fields
Film and Film History, Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies, Human Rights, Immigration & Migration History / Studies, Literature

 

Beyond Regime and Refuge: Contemporary Representations of Forced Migration in Europe will bring together original contributions which analyse contemporary textual and visual representations of migration to Europe, and their limits. While the predominant response to refugees in Europe has been to harden the borders (regime), on the one hand, or to stress the common humanity those displaced (refuge), on the other, the chapters in this proposed volume argue that both approaches produce a state of being in which refugees become objectified, othered, and abstracted vectors of the experiences of exile. The collection will explore and argue how other forms of hospitality and citizenship in Europe must be possible.

 

To complete the volume, we are seeking to commission a chapter centred on the space and function of the Immigration Detention Centre in and around Europe, as it is represented in contemporary cultural production. 

 

Emerging from the interdependent trajectories of capitalism and colonialism, the proliferation and privatisation of IDCs across Europe raises urgent questions about how best to resist the violence of present-day border control. How does the emergence of the new borders of Fortress Europe affect refugee and migrant trajectories and experiences? How should the IDC be situated within the long tradition of detention camps in Europe? In an age of globalised and digital communication, how may the voices of detainees be heard? What is the role of cultural production in mediating and communicating resistance of these regimes of detention? 

 

Academics including doctoral researchers, curators, activists and archivists are invited to propose an abstract for a book chapter that would explore detention centres in contemporary cultural production from around Europe, including the UK. Although not limited to the below, proposals might respond to the following themes:

 

  • Textual representations 
  • Visual cultures
  • Digital campaigns and activism
  • Graphic novels, bandedessinée, comics
  • Protest, resistance, agency
  • Camps and the concentrationary
  • Prisons and abolition
  • Media discourse 
  • Gender and sexuality in detention 

 

Please send abstracts of 300-350 words with a short bio (no more than 150 words) to fiona.barclay@stir.ac.uk by December 11th. Finished chapters would be 8,000 words in length. Completed chapters will be due by end of May 2020. 

 

Contact Information

Dr Fiona Barclay (University of Stirling)

Contact Email
fiona.barclay@stir.ac.uk