"A Dance Between the Visible the Invisible": Fragments of (forced) Migration in Comics from Italy and the Mediterranean
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Italian
Abstract
Focusing on comics narrating the experience of (forced) migration in the Mediterranean, the project
investigates the political potential embedded in comics' form and aesthetics. As a culturally marginalized
medium, the research studies comics as "minor narratives" (Deleuze and Guattari 1986) and asserts that
the medium's cultural stigmatization is essential both for its political potential and for its adoption by
marginalized communities. Whose stories are told, whose voices are heard, and how individual agency is
reaffirmed are pivotal questions when considering the political affordances of comics. Drawing together
literary theory, formalist comics scholarship, migration and globalization studies, with a specific focus on
Italy and the Mediterranean area, the project aims attention at a variated corpus of comics narrating the
experience of (forced) migration produced in Italy between 2000-2020.
The research analyses the potential of comics to challenge dominant narratives that universalize
migratory experience and examines the medium's formal and aesthetics potential to blur the boundaries
between forms of individual and collective narration. Comics are understood to reaffirm migrants as
mobile (Burns 2018), political (Sigona 2014), and experiencing subjects (Eastmond 2007). Following
three different perspectives (autobiography, reportage, autofiction) in a comparative approach, the
research first investigates graphic-journalist comics giving an external account of migration, such as
Marco Rizzo and Lelio Bonaccorso's documentary comic "Salvezza" (2018). Second, the study inquires
fictional accounts of migration by Italian comic artists, yet narrated through the perspective of migrant
individuals, such as "Mediterraneo" (2018) by Sergio Nazzaro and Luca Ferrara. Third, the project looks at
autobiographical and co-authored comics where migrants bear agency in directly voicing their
experience, such as in the autobiographical comic "La rivoluzione dei gelsomini" (2018) by Italo-Tunisian
cartoonist Takoua Ben Mohamed and collaborative comic "Etenesh" (2015), the true story of an Ethiopian
woman's voyage to Lampedusa.
investigates the political potential embedded in comics' form and aesthetics. As a culturally marginalized
medium, the research studies comics as "minor narratives" (Deleuze and Guattari 1986) and asserts that
the medium's cultural stigmatization is essential both for its political potential and for its adoption by
marginalized communities. Whose stories are told, whose voices are heard, and how individual agency is
reaffirmed are pivotal questions when considering the political affordances of comics. Drawing together
literary theory, formalist comics scholarship, migration and globalization studies, with a specific focus on
Italy and the Mediterranean area, the project aims attention at a variated corpus of comics narrating the
experience of (forced) migration produced in Italy between 2000-2020.
The research analyses the potential of comics to challenge dominant narratives that universalize
migratory experience and examines the medium's formal and aesthetics potential to blur the boundaries
between forms of individual and collective narration. Comics are understood to reaffirm migrants as
mobile (Burns 2018), political (Sigona 2014), and experiencing subjects (Eastmond 2007). Following
three different perspectives (autobiography, reportage, autofiction) in a comparative approach, the
research first investigates graphic-journalist comics giving an external account of migration, such as
Marco Rizzo and Lelio Bonaccorso's documentary comic "Salvezza" (2018). Second, the study inquires
fictional accounts of migration by Italian comic artists, yet narrated through the perspective of migrant
individuals, such as "Mediterraneo" (2018) by Sergio Nazzaro and Luca Ferrara. Third, the project looks at
autobiographical and co-authored comics where migrants bear agency in directly voicing their
experience, such as in the autobiographical comic "La rivoluzione dei gelsomini" (2018) by Italo-Tunisian
cartoonist Takoua Ben Mohamed and collaborative comic "Etenesh" (2015), the true story of an Ethiopian
woman's voyage to Lampedusa.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Jennifer Burns (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Silvia Vari (Student) |