Parole che aprono, parole che chiudono: studi culturali, keywords e i discorsi della migrazione e dei confini

Relying on a Cultural Studies perspective, this essay aims to analyze, both diachronically and synchronically, the role and scope of the nature, selection and use of cultural keywords, starting from the ground-breaking work of Raymond Williams in 'Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Societ'y (1976, 1983) and its expansion by Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg and Meaghan Morris in 'New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society' (2005), in order to focus on current works which adopt keywords as a primary organizational principle and epistemic tool. Special attention will be paid to the ongoing collaborative project of “militant investigation” carried out by the New Keywords Collective and coordinated by Nicholas De Genova, Sandro Mezzadra, and John Pickles, on the pressing imperative of denaturalizing the mainstream discourse of migration and borders through the establishment and counter-discursive framing of new, performative keywords.