Against Shame: Refugee Life Stories from Italy and Britain c. 2000
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
Standard
Against Shame : Refugee Life Stories from Italy and Britain c. 2000. / Leese, Peter.
Migrant Emotions: Inclusion and Exclusion in Transnational Spaces. ed. / Sonia Cancian; Peter Leese; Soňa Mikulová. Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2024. p. 203-219 (Migrations and Identities).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Author
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - CHAP
T1 - Against Shame
T2 - Refugee Life Stories from Italy and Britain c. 2000
AU - Leese, Peter
N1 - As acknowledged in the book, this is an version of Chapter 5 in my monograph 'Migrant Representations: Life Story, Investigation, Picture' published in 2022. Also in the LUP series 'Migrations and Identities'. This chapter was originally due for publication before my book, but for various practical reasons was delayed.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - In the late 1990s and early 2000s, faced with the new globalisation of goods, services and peoples, Italy and Britain sought to reassert the supposed sovereignty and racialized hierarchies of their colonial pasts. Refugees arriving in Britain and Italy increasingly felt the effects of this shift in hostile news coverage and anti-‘asylum seeker’ state policies, which trivialised or ignored their motives, journeys and experiences. In response, some refugees turned to self-representation as advocacy and rights activism. This chapter follows social and cultural historian Graham Dawson’s injunction to complicate and expand our understandings of ‘lived emotions’ by exploring in depth two particular self-representations of migrant emotions related to inclusion and exclusion. To achieve this the chapter uses a comparative methodology in the analysis of two migrant self-representations. First, Dagmawi Yimer’s ‘Our Journey’ (2013), by an Ethiopian who settled in Italy (2006). Second, Vesna Maric’s Bluebird (2010), which describes a Bosnian teenager’s early years in Britain (1992-6). Both Yimer and Maric examine how they were ‘misread’ by their host societies and the sensations of shame, fear and resentment this produced. Both represent their singular, but also communal experiences to expand imaginative sympathy, to make sense of, and to help interpret as well as resolve difficult pasts.
AB - In the late 1990s and early 2000s, faced with the new globalisation of goods, services and peoples, Italy and Britain sought to reassert the supposed sovereignty and racialized hierarchies of their colonial pasts. Refugees arriving in Britain and Italy increasingly felt the effects of this shift in hostile news coverage and anti-‘asylum seeker’ state policies, which trivialised or ignored their motives, journeys and experiences. In response, some refugees turned to self-representation as advocacy and rights activism. This chapter follows social and cultural historian Graham Dawson’s injunction to complicate and expand our understandings of ‘lived emotions’ by exploring in depth two particular self-representations of migrant emotions related to inclusion and exclusion. To achieve this the chapter uses a comparative methodology in the analysis of two migrant self-representations. First, Dagmawi Yimer’s ‘Our Journey’ (2013), by an Ethiopian who settled in Italy (2006). Second, Vesna Maric’s Bluebird (2010), which describes a Bosnian teenager’s early years in Britain (1992-6). Both Yimer and Maric examine how they were ‘misread’ by their host societies and the sensations of shame, fear and resentment this produced. Both represent their singular, but also communal experiences to expand imaginative sympathy, to make sense of, and to help interpret as well as resolve difficult pasts.
M3 - Book chapter
SN - 9781835538050
T3 - Migrations and Identities
SP - 203
EP - 219
BT - Migrant Emotions
A2 - Cancian, Sonia
A2 - Leese, Peter
A2 - Mikulová, Soňa
PB - Liverpool University Press
CY - Liverpool
ER -
ID: 385111483