{"id":44,"date":"2017-09-04T00:51:47","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T00:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/?p=44"},"modified":"2017-09-04T00:52:31","modified_gmt":"2017-09-04T00:52:31","slug":"liminality-of-migration-through-the-lens-of-art-and-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/2017\/09\/04\/liminality-of-migration-through-the-lens-of-art-and-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Liminality of Migration through the Lens of Art and Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">From Tuesday\u2019s discussion and this week\u2019s readings, I was surprised by the connections I could make between symbols of artwork and concepts in cultural anthropology related to liminality and rites of passage. While I have studied rites of passage and liminality in the context of religious and social rituals, this week\u2019s readings have given me a more artistic perspective on the ambiguities fostered by the dangerous, uncertain transition between countries and the desire to leave behind a difficult past for a promising future. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Similar to the photo of Aylan Kurdi, Larsen\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">End of Dreams<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, for example, provided a tremendous insight into the \u201climinal space\u201d of a migrant\u2019s voyage. This work of art depicts human shaped figures submerged in the Tyrrhenian Sea \u201cto symbolize the thousands of unidentified dead bodies washing up on Italy\u2019s shore\u201d (Welch 2016). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One aspect of this piece that really resonated with me was submersion of these figures in the sea, which is often a symbol of exploration and the unknown&#8212;the liminality of the sea can be directly associated with the liminality of these migrants\u2019 identities as they submerge themselves in this difficult journey between their pasts and futures. I think the structure that these figures are attached to symbolize the identities and desires that these migrants had during their journey. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The unexpected storm and dismantling of these memorialized figures could be interpreted as the detachment from hope and identity that many migrants may have experienced, whether or not their journey met a successful ending. Alternatively, this could be thought of as a postliminal state where migrants ultimately meet dark endings and complete loss of identity after going through the stages of separation and liminality. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The complex postliminal state Bambino had entered after all of his struggles and training during his passage was emotional and upsetting to read about. It was heartbreaking and felt unfair to learn that the fate of this hopeful, jovial boy who survived the crossing was to be trapped \u201cundocumented migrant\u201d in land that provided so much more potential. Overall, I found these readings very insightful and have realized the both investigative journalism and art are so crucial for us to understand the ambiguity faced by migrants. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Tuesday\u2019s discussion and this week\u2019s readings, I was surprised by the connections I could make between symbols of artwork and concepts in cultural anthropology&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4883,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15,3,1],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-identity","category-media","category-migrants","category-uncategorized","tag-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":587,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/themigrantandrefugeecrisis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}