Postcolonial Publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe
edited by
abstract
Postcolonial Publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe presents a collection of sixteen chapters that explore the themes of how migrants, refugees and citizens express and share their political and social causes and experiences through art and media. These expressions, which we term ‘citizen media’, arguably become a platform for postcolonial intellectuals as the studies pursued in this volume investigate the different ways in which previously excluded social groups regain public voice. The volume strives to understand the different articulations of migrants’, refugees’, and citizens’ struggle against increasingly harsh European politics that allow them to achieve and empower political subjectivity in a mediated and creative space. In this way, the contributions in this volume present case studies of citizen media in the form of ‘activistic art’ or ‘artivism’ (Trandafoiu, Ruffini, Cazzato & Taronna, Koobak & Tali, Negrón-Muntaner), activism through different kinds of technological media (Chouliaraki and Al-Ghazzi, Jedlowski), such as documentaries and film (Denić), podcasts, music and soundscapes (Romeo and Fabbri, Western, Lazzari, Huggan), and activisms through writings from journalism to fiction (Longhi, Concilio, Festa, De Capitani). The volume argues that citizen media go hand in hand with postcolonial critique because of their shared focus on the deconstruction and decolonisation of Western logics and narratives. Moreover, both question the concept of citizen and of citizenship as they relate to the nation-state and explores the power of media as a tool for participation as well as an instrument of political strength. The book forwards postcolonial artivism and citizen media as a critical framework to understand the refugee and migrant situations in contemporary Europe.
Colonialism • Black Italian women intellectuals • Literature of migration • Mainstream media • Participatory art and public spaces • Relay • Research • Documentary auto-ethnography • Estonian art • Warsan Shire • Performance and spatial politics • Hostile environment • Decolonial citizenship • Decoloniality • Activism • African-European • Renaming • Syria war • Visual art • Citizen media • Flesh witnessing • Reni Eddo-Lodge • Palestine • Italy • Anticolonialism • Coloniality • Relation • Migrant Voices • Theatre and refugees • Borderscape • Intellectual • Activist curating • Black portraitures • Eastern Europe • Postcolonial • Refugee Tales • Failure • Multimodal narration • Black comedians • Slavery • Postcolonial theory • Humour • Memory • Citizenship • Borders • Blackness • Visibility • Postcolonial Europe • Post-socialism • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie • New media • Romania • Celebrity • Podcasts • Discrimination • Artivist engagement • Radio • User-generated content • Bowie • Racism • Counter-publics • Postsocialism • Rhythm • Knowledge • Structural racism • Diaspora • Politics • Postcolonial France • Decoloniality of knowledge • Intersectionality • Cinema • Digital activism • Social media • Crisis ordinariness • Border culture • Conflict news • Social engagement • Black intellectuals • Teju Cole • Justice