This book explores the border-transcending dimensions of public remembering by focussing on the triangular relationship between memory, monuments and migration. Framed by an introduction and conclusion, nine case studies located in diverse social and geo-political settings feature topical debates and contestation around monuments, statues and memorials erected by migrants or in memory of migrants, refugees and diasporas in host country societies. Written from different disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, art history, cultural studies and political science, the chapters consider displaced people as new, originally unintended audiences who bring transnational and transcultural perspectives to old monuments in host cities. In addition, migrants and diasporic communities are explored as ‘agents of memory’, who produce collective memory in tense environments of intra- and inter-group negotiation or outright hostility at the national and transnational level. The research is conceptually anchored in memory studies, notably transnational memory, multidirectional memory and other concepts emerging from memory studies’ recent ‘transcultural turn’.

Memory plays an integral part in how individuals and societies construct their identity. While memory is usually considered in the context of a stable, unchanging environment, this collection of essays explores the effects of immigration, forced expulsions, exile, banishment, and war on individual and collective memory. The ways in which memory affects cultural representation and historical understanding across generations is examined through case studies and theoretical approaches that underscore its mutability. Memory and Migration is a truly interdisciplinary book featuring the work of leading scholars from a variety of fields across the globe. The essays are collaborative, successfully responding to the central theme and expanding upon the findings of individual authors. A groundbreaking contribution to an emerging field of study, Memory and Migration provides valuable insight into the connections between memory, place, and displacement.

This volume explores ideas of home, belonging and memory in migration through the social realities of leaving and living. It discusses themes and issues such as locating migrant subjectivities and belonging; sociability and wellbeing; the making of a village; bondage and seasonality; dislocation and domestic labour; women and work; gender and religion; Bhojpuri folksongs; folk music; experience; and the city to analyse the social and cultural dynamics of internal migration in India in historical perspectives. Departing from the dominant understanding of migration as an aberration impelled by economic factors, the book focuses on the centrality of migration in the making of society. Based on case studies from an array of geo-cultural regions from across India, the volume views migrants as active agents with their own determinations of selfhood and location. Part of the series Migrations in South Asia, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of migration studies, refugee studies, gender studies, development studies, social work, political economy, social history, political studies, social and cultural anthropology, exclusion studies, sociology, and South Asian Studies.

Corridos in Migrant Memory examines the role of ballads in shaping the cultural memories and identities of transnational Mexican groups.

Memories establish a connection between a collective and individual past, between origins, heritage, and history. Those who have left their places of birth to make homes elsewhere are familiar with the question, "Where do you come from?" and respond in innumerable well-rehearsed ways. Diasporas construct racialized, sexualized, gendered, and oppositional subjectivities and shape the cosmopolitan intellectual commitment of scholars. The diasporic individual often has a double consciousness, a privileged knowledge and perspective that is consonant with postmodernity and globalization. The essays in this volume reflect on the movements of people and cultures in the present day, when physical, social, and mental borders and boundaries are being challenged and sometimes successfully dismantled. The contributors - from a variety of disciplinary perspectives - discuss the diasporic experiences of ethnic and racial groups living in Canada from their perspective, including the experiences of South Asians, Iranians, West Indians, Chinese, and Eritreans. Diaspora, Memory, and Identity is an exciting and innovative collection of essays that examines the nuanced development of theories of Diaspora, subjectivity, double-consciousness, gender and class experiences, and the nature of home.

Remembering Italian America: Memory, Migration, Identity examines the life of Italians in the United States and the role of migration and collective memory in the history of the construction of Italian American identity. Employing the concept of communicative memory, the authors explain the processes that gave shape to Italian identity in America and the ways in which a symbolic identity became concretized in Italian American oral histories. The text explores the Italy migrants left behind, transatlantic networks, the welcome received by the Italian newcomers, the socioeconomic fabric of Italian America, and the singular worldview that grew out of the immigrant experience. In exploring the role of memory in the construction of Italian American identity, the book analyzes the commonalities in the lives of immigrants, allowing the Italian American experience to speak to the circumstances of newer immigrant communities and allowing these new immigrant communities to speak to the Italian migrant history. Looking at Italian American culture from a multidisciplinary perspective, this volume brings various theoretical perspectives to bear on "what, why, and how" questions concerning the Italian American experience. This book will be of interest to students of ethnic studies, immigration studies, and American/transnational studies, as well as American history. Winner of the 2022 Italian American Studies Association Book Award

Memories are not static or frozen, remaining in particular sites or places, within and belonging to particular groups, cultures or nations; rather, memory travels. Broadly speaking, memory has travelled because of the demographic displacements brought about by modernity’s extremes – slavery, colonialism, ethnic cleansing and genocide – and also because of the trade, travel and migration made possible by globalisation. Whether social movement is violent, exilic, migratory, emancipatory or oppressive, it is accompanied by memory. With the movement of people, memories of modernity’s histories and postmodern legacies meet, correspond and often become mutually constitutive. Even where memories compete with each other for cultural dominance, mutual dialogue and recognition is implicit if not explicit. Memories travel through and across cultures and national boundaries, a process increasingly facilitated by mass media technologies. This collection explores a range of case studies of transcultural memory as well as theorising the mobility of memory as it travels. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal parallax.

Increasingly, the European Union and its member states have exhibited a lack of commitment to protecting the human rights of non-citizens. Thinking beyond the oppressive bordering taking place in Europe requires new forms of scholarship. This book provides such examples, offering the analytical lenses of memory and temporality. It also identifies ways of collaborating with people who experience the violence of borders. Established scholars in fields such as history, anthropology, literary studies, media studies, migration and border studies, arts, and cultural studies offer important contributions to the so-called “European refugee crisis”.

Within Germany, policies and cultural attitudes toward migrants have been profoundly shaped by the difficult legacies of the Second World War and its aftermath. This wide-ranging volume explores the complex history of migration and diversity in Germany from 1945 to today, showing how conceptions of “otherness” developed while memories of the Nazi era were still fresh, and identifying the continuities and transformations they exhibited through the Cold War and reunification. It provides invaluable context for understanding contemporary Germany’s unique role within regional politics at a time when an unprecedented influx of immigrants and refugees present the European community with a significant challenge.

This book investigates ‘home’ and ‘homeland’ as destinations of touristic journeys and adds to recent scholarly interest in the intersection between tourism and migration. It covers the temporary visits and journeys in search of home and homelands by migrants, displaced people, exiles and diasporic communities in a wide range of different geographical and historical contexts. Personal and collective forms of memory are shown to play a key role in the motivation for, and experience of, such journeys. The volume contributes to the investigation of the tourism–memory nexus as it conceptualizes memory as underpinning touristic mobility, experience and performativity. Based on ethnographic case studies and other types of qualitative empirical research, the chapters of this book foreground individual touristic experiences, emotions, memories, perceptions, the search for identity and a sense of belonging. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of tourism, heritage, anthropology, identity studies, memory studies and migration/diaspora studies.