MIGRATIONS: SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXTS AND CONSTITUTION

Abstract

Rather than being a historicist approach interested in the origins and development of certain social and cultural expressions, cultural studies, in their most recent manifestations, have engaged with the analysis of specific socio-cultural contexts and their constitution, as well as with a critical sensitivity to what is conjunctural and contextual – especially regarding tensions, contradictions and crises. Within this new framework, migration studies – with their interest in forms of regulation and management, control and resistance practices – have become an essential platform to update the conceptual categories but also to highlight the “contested terrain” of contemporary cultural studies. The goal of this volume is precisely to explore the interconnection between these two fields of study, proposing new ideas, themes and approaches that speak to the varied field of migration studies, starting from the approach of cultural studies and postcolonial studies, which can open up visibilities and trajectories invisible in other discourses and narratives. The articles address the issue of migration starting from critical race theory, feminism, and transnationalism (which underline, for instance, the role played by race and sex in the formation of the processes of subjectivation within migratory processes; migration practices and (contested) migration politics, representation and spectacularization of migrations; mapping and counter mapping, media and communication).