Traces, Roots, Routes: Carto-Graffiti in the Black Mediterranean

Abstract

In this article, I will briefly focus on graffiti made by migrants during their journey as drawn stories of the different stages of the crossing.3 Among these, names of people present, names and drawings of cities and neighbourhoods, love poems or prayers and maps play a specific role. As a matter of fact, these graffiti inscriptions in the refugee camp – or in the boat, in the hotspot, in the detention center and in the lager – co-compose the counter-archive of the Black Mediterranean: carto-graffiti that excavate interstices in our world as a pris-de-mot from the margins against the hegemonic and dominant narration