Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present Volume 7

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Emergency in Transit responds to the crisis framings that dominate migration debates in the global north. This capacious, interdisciplinary study reformulates Europe's so-called "migrant crisis" from a sudden disaster to a site of contested witnessing, where competing narratives threaten, uphold, or reimagine migrant rights.

Focusing on Italy, a crucial port of arrival, Eleanor Paynter draws together testimonials from ethnographic research--alongside literature, film, and visual art--to interrogate the colonial, racial logics that inform emergency responses to migration. She also examines the media, discourses, policies, and practices that shape lived experiences of migration well beyond international borders. Centering the witnessing of Black Africans in Italy, Emergency in Transit reveals how this emergency apparatus operates and posits a vision of mobility that refutes the notions of crisis so often imposed on those who cross the Mediterranean Sea.


Author: Eleanor Paynter
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 11/26/2024
Series: Critical Refugee Studies
Pages: 296
Weight: 1.06lbs
Size: 8.80h x 5.90w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780520402904