Elena Isayev

Within the ancient corpus we find depictions of people seeking refuge and protection: in works of fiction, drama and poetry; on wall paintings and vases, they cluster at protective altars and cling to statues of gods who seemingly look on. Yet the ancient evidence does not lend itself easily to exploring attitudes to refugees or asylum seekers. Hence, the question that begins this investiga-tion is, representation of whom? Through a focus on the Greco-Roman material of the Mediterra-nean region, drawing on select representations, such as the tragedies Medea and Suppliant Women, the historical failed plea of the Plataeans and pictorial imagery of supplication, the goal of the ex-ploration below is not to shape into existence an ancient refugee or asylum seeker experience. Ra-ther, it is to highlight the multiplicity of experiences within narratives of victimhood and the con-fines of such labels as refugee and asylum seeker. The absence of ancient representations of a ge-neric figure or group of the ‘displaced’, broadly defined, precludes any exceptionalising or ho-mogenising of people in such contexts. Remaining depictions are of named, recognisable protago-nists, whose stories are known. There is no ‘mass’ of refuge seekers, to whom a single set of rules could apply across time and space. Given these diverse stories of negotiation for refuge, another aim is to illustrate the ways such experience does not come to define the entirety of who a person is or encompass the complete life and its many layers. This paper addresses the challenges of rep-resentation that are exposed by, among others, thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Liisa Malkki and Gerawork Gizaw.

This volume brings together the work of practitioners, communities, artists and other researchers from multiple disciplines. Seeking to provoke a discourse around displacement within and beyond the field of Humanities, it positions historical cases and debates, some reaching into the ancient past, within diverse geo-chronological contexts and current world urgencies. In adopting an innovative dialogic structure, between practitioners on the ground—from architects and urban planners to artists—and academics working across subject areas, the volume is a proposition to: remap priorities for current research agendas; open up disciplines, critically analysing their approaches; address the socio-political responsibilities that we have as scholars and practitioners; and provide an alternative site of discourse for contemporary concerns about displacement. Ultimately, this volume aims to provoke future work and collaborations—hence, manifestos—not only in the historical and literary fields, but wider research concerned with human mobility and the challenges confronting people who are out of place of rights, protection and belonging.

The possibility of intersecting with people in the same physical space-to exchange goods, share knowledge, create together, and allow for chance encounters that lead to new ideas and innovation-relies on the ability to move. Yet, in our current moment in the 21 st century, chances for this kind of connectivity-as distinct from virtual connections through screens and other technological interfaces-have, all of a sudden, become a precious commodity. 1 It

To move towards an understanding of displacement from within, and the forms of its overcoming, the following chapter brings into dialogue the ancient experience of wandering and the 21st century condition of permanent temporariness. It explores whether these are the same or different phenomena, and whether the latter is a uniquely modern experience. In particular, it is interested in the turning points that lead to the defiance of the condition and its regime. It traces modes of existence that subvert the liminal state and allow for possibilities of living beyond the present moment through returns and futures that are part of everyday practices, even if they are splintered. Such actions, it is argued, allow for the repositioning of the self in relation to the world, and thus the exposition of cracks within the status quo. The investigation confronts experiences that appear to be uniquely those of the present day—such as non-arrival and forced immobility. In its exploration it engages current responses to de-placement by those who have experience of the condition first hand. It is a dialogue between the work of such creators as the architects Petti and Hillal, the poets Qasmiyeh and Husseini, and the community builders of Dandara, with ancient discourses of the outcast that are found in Euripides’ Medea, the experience of Xenophon and such philosophers as Diogenes the Cynic. In so doing, it seeks to expose the way seemingly exceptional forms of politics and existence, instead, reveal themselves as society’s ‘systemic edge’.

This article aims at positioning the agency of the displaced within the longue durée, as it is exposed in contexts of hospitality and asylum, by articulating its key modes: contingent, willed and compelled. Using the ancient world as its starting point, the article exposes the duplicity in conceiving of the current condition of displacement as transient or exceptional. As such, it argues for the urgent need of a shift in the perception of displaced persons from that of impotent victims to potent agents, and to engage with the new forms of exceptional politics which their circumstances engender.

This article provides a historical perspective to understand better whether hospitality persists as a measure of society across contexts. Focusing on Homer and later Tragedians, it charts ancient literature’s deep interest in the tensions of balancing obligations to provide hospitality and asylum, and the responsibilities of well-being owed to host-citizens by their leaders. Such discourse appears central at key transformative moments, such as the Greek polis democracy of the fifth century BCE, hospitality becoming the marker between civic society and the international community, confronting the space between civil and human rights. At its center was the question of: Who is the host? The article goes on to question whether the seventeenth-century advent of the nation state was such a moment, and whether in the twenty-first century we observe a shift towards states’ treatment of their own subjects as primary in measuring society, with hospitality becoming the exception to be explained.

Page 1. 1 De-Placement: Constructing and Mapping Place in Collaboration with Artists ElenaIsayev, University of Exeter, e.isayev@exeter.ac.uk Created: 30 April 2010. Word Count: 5500 (7400 including footnotes) (images included in separate document) ...

Emerging Diasporas? Oscan-speaking Mamertines, Romans and Italia. In Meller H. et al. (eds.), Migration and Integration from Prehistory to the Middle Ages. (9th Archaeological Conference of Central Germany, October 20-22, 2016), Halle (Saale) (in press 2017/18).

Migration, Mobility and Place in Ancient Italy challenges prevailing conceptions of a natural tie to the land and a demographically settled world. It argues that much human mobility in the last millennium BC was ongoing and cyclical. In particular, outside the military context ‘the foreigner in our midst’ was not regarded as a problem. Boundaries of status rather than of geopolitics were difficult to cross. The book discusses the stories of individuals and migrant groups, traders, refugees, expulsions, the founding and demolition of sites, and the political processes that could both encourage and discourage the transfer of people from one place to another. In so doing it highlights moments of change in the concepts of mobility and the definitions of those on the move. By providing the long view from history, it exposes how fleeting are the conventions that take shape here and now.

While interdisciplinarity may be an admirable goal many still doubt its benefits. The paper seeks to articulate the methods used to work across disciplines and considers the obstacles that stand in the way of inter-rather than Aww/ft'-disciplinarity. Sauer's volume is used as a starting ...

While interdisciplinarity may be an admirable goal many still doubt its benefits. The paper seeks to articulate the methods used to work across disciplines and considers the obstacles that stand in the way of inter-rather than Aww/ft'-disciplinarity. Sauer's volume is used as a starting ...

This collaborative project based in Glasgow engaged communities with complex contemporary issues through artistic and performative practices, drawing on findings from the ancient context. It has created alternative spaces in which to re-think attitudes to human mobility, otherness and identity. This along with the other two Future Memory projects, which positively exploit the volatility of the memory–place bond, drew out a shared understanding of belonging, and highlighted diversity of possible approaches. High rates of migration throughout history questioned the uniqueness of our ‘global’ condition and provided alternatives of being in the world, to that of the recent model of the nation state.
Abstract elements were combined with ancient and modern objects following an archaeological site survey at Red Road Flats, with school pupils of St. Martha’s Primary in collaboration with the Glasgow archaeologist Michael Given, Rebecca Kay and their team. Pupils collected objects that were dispersed when the high-rises were recently blown down, and having had a chance to work with ancient archaeological objects, were now being archaeologists themselves by creating object histories. These stories were then translated into colour, with the help of artist Catrin Webster, by associating colours with emotions. Finally these colours were sung by a choir, orchestrated by Marin Wood, and led to a public performance that projected these voices and sounds, along with many other stories by ex-residents of all ages and backgrounds, from one of the remaining towers, which were collected along with a photographic archive by Iseult TImmermans. The 25 storey tower which had been stripped down for demolition was equipped with 10 massive speakers on multiple floors, creating one of the largest musical instruments ever played, to a community gathering of some 500 people. Seeing/Hearing the multiplicity of stories that made Red Road Flats the place that it was, allowed the exposition of multiple narratives, and the questioning of the dominant negative and bleak narrative that had entered public consciousness of Red Road. This project particularly exposed the positive volatility of the place-memory bond.