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Mobilities in the Americas

Mobilidades nas Américas

The Issue 67 of REMHU, Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana, presents a dossier on "Black Diasporas and Mobilities in the Americas", organized by Cédric Audebert, Handerson Joseph, and Bruno Miranda, whom we thank for their precious collaboration. For further information on the focus of the dossier and its main contributions, we refer to the introductory text of the organizers. Still, we would like to briefly highlight some aspects:

1. In general terms, the reflection of the dossier focuses on the so-called South-South mobility, a mobility that is neither an exception nor a mere consequence of the restrictive policies of the so-called Global North. It is a growing mobility with sometimes peculiar characteristics in relation to the more mediatized South-North mobility. It deserves, therefore, a due in-depth study.

2. This is mobility that tends not to follow traditional migration patterns, where there is a country of origin and a specific country of destination, aiming for stable residence. In many cases, it is mobility with traces of circularity, of transit with long temporary stays, of constant mobility, always in search of new opportunities, being also common displacements within the country of arrival, the passage through several Latin American countries, and even the possible decision to leave the region.

3. In the specific case of mobility and the black and African diaspora, there is also a mobility in time - to paraphrase an expression of Marc Augé (2010)AUGÉ, Marc. Per un’antropologia della mobilità. Milano: Jaka Book, 2010. - in the sense of a geographical displacement that brings with it a history, a memory that passes through numerous generations and links the diaspora with the land of origin. In this perspective, it is also a project for the future, to the extent that the present is lived in dialogue with the past and projecting the time to come.

4. It is also mobility of struggles (Mbembe, 2016MBEMBE, Achille. Nanorazzismo, il corpo notturno della democrazia. Roma: Laterza, 2016.), resistances, and liberations. Mobility in space and time articulates paths of emancipation and promotes the formation of strategies for overcoming and empowerment, including by drawing on cultural elements such as music and dance. Mobility, in some cases, also becomes mobilization.

5. Finally, this Black and African mobility in the Americas indicates new challenges for the defense and promotion of the rights of human beings who find themselves outside their place of birth or outside their countries of nationality. In this specific case, the diversification in ethnic, cultural, and religious terms, as well as the persistence of racism, sexism, and xenophobia in the region, point to the need for new approaches that consider intersectionality in order to promote rights.

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In the first text of the "Articles" section, Igor Machado addresses the theme of migration policies and their consequences on the lives of migrants. The case in question is represented by Brazilians living in Ireland. According to the author, there are "regimes of materiality and immateriality" related to documentation policies (visas) that determine the visibility and invisibility of migrants. In Machado's words, "each of these regimes establishes its own game of shadows and lights, in which the immigrant becomes more or less visible to the state, more or less a subject of rights, more or less 'material'. The paradox highlighted by the author is not only the presence of a hierarchization between desirable and undesirable migrants that these regimes establish, but also how the same migrant person can-synchronically and diachronically-be visible and invisible, material and immaterial, depending on different factors and contexts. Machado's reflection attests to how the rights of the migrant human being are determined by his passport and, more broadly, by his ability to fit into the desirability parameters of the receiving country. In other words, when he leaves his country of nationality, his inalienable rights become, in fact, mere concessions.

Ângela Cristina Salgueiro Marques, Ricardo Lessa Filho, and Luiza Araújo Oliveira offer a reflection based on the film El mar la mar by Bonnetta and Sniadecki. The feature film focuses on migrants' crossings through the Sonora desert, located between the states of Arizona and California, on the border between Mexico and the USA. The text analyzes, above all, the editing and fabrication processes of the film that, according to the authors, brings a "counter-narrative" that leads the spectator to look "differently" at a phenomenon increasingly stereotyped by contemporary media. Specifically, it is worth noting how the montage seeks to highlight the agency of migrants, offering "flashes" of their perspectives, mainly through voices and images. The article, in essence, highlights how a social phenomenon - in this case, migration to the US - can be subject to different looks, different narratives, and different perspectives. In the words of the authors: "Acting against the erasure of the lives of migrant peoples through stigmatizing frames, it is possible to fabricate some moments of beauty in which precarious lives reach us and move us, affect us, and move us in such a way that we can listen to their stories, crossing and piercing all the traditional media narrative of erasure and disfiguration. This is a potentiality of the seventh art.

In the last article, José María García Martínez discusses forced migration from Honduras and El Salvador to Spain. The objective of the article is to present the structural factors that condition the displacements, considering above all the historical, political, economic, and social contexts of the two countries in question. The paper starts from the perspective that the violations and exploitation inherent in the capitalist system - especially the deterioration of public institutions - end up making migration almost inevitable (forzada) both because of the widespread human rights violations and the lack of opportunities and prospects. In approaching this theme, the author highlights the debate about two central topics in migration literature: a) the so-called "right not to migrate," that is, the right that every human being must live in his own land and decide freely enough whether to stay or migrate; b) capitalism as a system that intrinsically expels dispossessed and vulnerable populations.

Marcos Antonio da Silva and Ricardo Ojima's review of the book, El sistema migratorio haitiano. En américa del sur, organized by Handerson Joseph and Cédric Audebert, closes the issue.

We wish you all a good read!

References

  • AUGÉ, Marc. Per un’antropologia della mobilità Milano: Jaka Book, 2010.
  • MBEMBE, Achille. Nanorazzismo, il corpo notturno della democrazia Roma: Laterza, 2016.

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    29 May 2023
  • Date of issue
    Jan-Apr 2023
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