Transiting the Corridors of Deportations: Case Studies from the 1980s Switzerland
Oct 19, 2022 | 12pm (ET)
Lecture (Zoom) | Speaker: Barbara Lüthi (University of Leipzig) Comment: Maribel Casas-Cortes (Charlotte, North Carolina)
Second lecture in the series “In Global Transit: Exploring Migrants’ Liminal Spaces and Phases,” organized by Simone Lässig, Carolin Liebisch-Gümüş, Anna-Carolin Augustin and Swen Steinberg.
Barbara Lüthi has been interested in complementing the state-centric view of policies in the field of migration with a bottom-up perspective from the point of view and agency of those affected. Her research on deportation thinks along these lines. Deportations have come to be regarded as the unavoidable way to deal with those foreign nationals who are deemed unwanted. “Transit” must be seen as an inherent part of this form of forced migration, marked not just by immobilization, but also by dynamic processes of resistance and contestations on the side of the deportees. In this context “deportation corridors” present an important theoretical approach of modern deportation processes allowing for a transnational optic. Whereas corridors can be understood as spaces of in-betweenness and movement, “deportation corridors” often shift between visibility and invisibility, between mobility and immobility as well as being marked by precariousness, hierarchies and specific spatial orders. In her talk Barbara Lüthi will shed light on the experience and enactment of the “deportation corridor” starting out from case studies during the 1980s in Switzerland. It examines different temporal and sites of experiences such as arrest, imprisonment, removal, or return, but also looks at the different types of actors involved in the “deportation corridor” such as the reaction of the deportable migrants, solidarity groups, political activists as well as those involved in removal procedures. The question arises as to when the experience of “transit” ends for the deportees.
About the Series
In Global Transit: Exploring Migrants’ Liminal Spaces and Phases
Media coverage about refugee boats on the Mediterranean, transit camps on Aegean islands, migrant children in US border custody, or so-called refugees in orbit remind us on a daily basis of the experiences, precariousness, and politics of being in transit. History has seen innumerable stories of refugees and other migrants with long and twisted itineraries; traveling could take weeks, months, or, when longer stopovers occurred, sometimes years, with the final destination often unknown. Only recently have historians started to follow colleagues from other disciplines in developing analytical tools for exploring “migration along the way.” What can be learned from a focus on transit? Which stories do we find at concrete spaces such as camps, visa offices, ships, airports, and along the routes that connect them? Starting from these questions, the lecture series explores the relevance of transit as an innovative research agenda and the different methods available for grasping the spatial, temporal, sociopolitical, material, and cultural dimensions of in-betweenness. It provides a space for reflecting on the methodological problems and blind spots that necessarily arise when investigating a phenomenon as fluid as transit.
The virtual lecture series “Exploring Migrants’ Liminal Spaces and Phases,” organized by Simone Lässig, Carolin Liebisch-Gümüş, and Swen Steinberg, is part of the GHI’s research focus “In Global Transit.” Bringing together experts on migration and refugee studies from different disciplines and thematic areas in the Summer and Fall of 2022, it opens an interdisciplinary conversation across contexts about the methods, potentials, and challenges of studying transit. Building on past conferences and workshops at the GHI since 2018, which have focused on the global trajectories of Jewish refugees fleeing from Nazi persecution, it also encourages dialogue between the rich research on Jewish refugees in transit and general research on flight and (forced) migration in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Organizers: Simone Lässig, Carolin Liebisch-Gümüş, Anna-Carolin Augustin, and Swen Steinberg
“The sea lays like an insulating layer between the home world and the course of these days”. Times and places of liminality in the emigration process
June 8, 2022 | 12pm ET | Virtual
Joachim Schlör (University of Southampton), comment: Leora Auslander (University of Chicago)
Transiting the Corridors of Deportations: Case Studies from the 1980s Switzerland
October 19, 2022 | 12pm ET | Virtual
Barbara Lüthi (University of Leipzig), comment: Maribel Casas-Cortés (Universidad de Zaragoza)