Migration, Deportability, Memory = The Power of Silences and Self-narration

The aim of this essay is to explore the roles and meanings that might be connected with silence in the social construction of symbolic and material borders between citizens and migrants. The analysis is based on the author’s research experiences both in an exceptional borderland context – Lampedusa’s harbour dock – and in more ordinary settings, such as an Italian language school for migrants and an association, both based in Rome. Comparing these complementary experiences can offer several analytical insights for a deeper understanding of the articulation between silencing and self-narration. Power relationships will be examined through the analysis of various forms of, more or less, active silence taking place in practices, texts, and audio-visuals. Specific attention will be paid to the notion of “deportability”, conceived both as something which is currently under way, and as something which constitutively affects almost every migrant’s life as a potential prospect. The analysis will explore silence and voice in the light of the political economy of migrants’ visibility/invisibility, and will seek to intersect the observation of exceptional and trauma-induced silences – interpreted as absence, emptiness, and aphasia produced by particular arrangements of power – with that of more productive, ordinary, and ambivalent forms of silence related to the desire for opacity. Finally, the materiality of voice, sound, and silence will be discussed in relation to migrant subjectivity and memories.