Migrant Subjectivity and Territory Rethought
This chapter is a prelude to the next as it provides some of the more interesting theoretical work when it comes to thinking through identity politics. What is of special interest is to rethink the immigrant in terms of Deleuzian nomadology, attributed to
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Migrant Subjectivity and Territory Rethought
Migrant EU Identity To say that European migration in the twenty-first century is an issue is certainly an understatement given the extraordinary border conflicts that have ensued. Yet the European Union as an idea of heterogeneous unification was an anti-fascist project, a project that still insists as it haunts the ‘migration’ question; identity is surely one overriding issue that will continue to form its problematic as an entity that is trying to maintain itself as a heterogeneous assemblage. As an immigrant to Canada (my parents of Polish descent first made their home in Britain after the Second World War and then came to Canada) I can vaguely recall, as a nine-year-old, being called a DP—a deported person—ridiculed by classmates for wearing shorts and having a funny accent. I still recall singing ‘God save the Queen.’ Of course, this experience is certainly not unique, but part of the post-Second World War migrations in the 1950s that happened around the world as soldiers came home as many lives had been displaced. There has been a tenfold increase of immigrants entering the EU in recent decades and with it a proliferation of migrant films that tell many stories within the paradoxical understanding of Europe as both a ‘family of nations’ that tries to get along, as well as a ‘Fortress’ that defends its borders from the migratory invading hoards: The question of race becomes overshadowed by the immigrant issue. This has © The Author(s) 2019 j. jagodzinski, Schizoanalytic Ventures at the End of the World, Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12367-3_4
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been clearly demonstrated in the political elections in Steiermark and Burgenland, Austria in 2015 where the Freedom Party (FPÖ), the most right-wing party in this country, playing on the paranoia and fear of asylum seekers, was given a clear mandate by the populace to keep a check on this issue as it won an unprecedented number of seats, making them a powerful voice of opposition to the Social Democratic Part of Austria (SPÖ) and Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), the traditional socialist and centerist parties. The right-wing FPÖ party, once again, proved that it could survive by preying on populist, anti-immigrationalist and xenophobic narratives in the name of ‘the people.’ What happened in these provinces in Austria has been repeated all over Europe. There are, as we all know, many People’s Parties throughout Europe, virtually in every country: Denmark, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Poland, and of course Greek’s Golden Dawn Party, and so on. Hybridity has been the usual way that identity has been thought within much of postcolonial and migration studies: to quickly recap some of the most obvious arguments in this literature. The territories occupied by the ethnic or racial Other are tolerated, enjoyed, and consumed as long as the boundaries are in place: The so-called ‘native inhabitants,’ according to Zygmunt Bauman (2003), do appreciate the aesth
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