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.
Borders • Flesh witnessing • Bowie • Decoloniality • Crisis ordinariness • New media • Celebrity • Decoloniality of knowledge • Podcasts • Research • Theatre and refugees • Counter-publics • Teju Cole • Postsocialism • Conflict news • Migrant Voices • Syria war • Rhythm • Coloniality • Social engagement • Relay • Digital activism • Participatory art and public spaces • Borderscape • Humour • African-European • Postcolonial Europe • Warsan Shire • Estonian art • Social media • Refugee Tales • Artivist engagement • Memory • Reni Eddo-Lodge • Radio • User-generated content • Structural racism • Politics • Black portraitures • Postcolonial France • Citizen media • Knowledge • Activism • Black comedians • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie • Colonialism • Relation • Performance and spatial politics • Failure • Intersectionality • Eastern Europe • Justice • Border culture • Cinema • Documentary auto-ethnography • Postcolonial • Black Italian women intellectuals • Multimodal narration • Anticolonialism • Postcolonial theory • Mainstream media • Black intellectuals • Visibility • Activist curating • Post-socialism • Slavery • Renaming • Blackness • Italy • Romania • Visual art • Decolonial citizenship • Diaspora • Literature of migration • Racism • Discrimination • Intellectual • Hostile environment • Citizenship • Palestine