Condition Of Exile Research Articles

Political Repression, Refugee Crises and Labor Migration from Post-Colonial Mali

This article zooms in on the ways in which forced migration articulates with labor migration in urban West Africa. Precisely, it reflects on how the refugee crisis contributes to labor migration and, inversely, how labor migration is used as a strategy to respond to the predicament induced by the adverse and often deeply humiliating living conditions of exile. To this end, we situate the article within broader scholarly debates on migration categories. We use the notion “exile” to refer to the social conditions induced by political persecution-related relocations from Mali to Niger and Senegal. Our discussion draws on data collected from freeborn Tuareg from Mali in Niamey and former Malian students who fled the dictatorship of Moussa Traoré. The results prompt a reflection that prioritizes the empirical connections between forced and labor migrations over their differences, something that is often taken for granted in the academic literature and in political narratives.

РЕЛИГИОЗНЫЕ НОРМЫ И ХОЗЯЙСТВЕННАЯ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТЬ СЕКТЫ СКОПЦОВ В РОССИИ (ВТОРАЯ ПОЛОВИНА XIX-НАЧАЛО XX ВВ.)

The article discusses the features of the economic activity of the sect of the Scopians in the conditions of exile in the Yakut region of Siberia of the Russian Empire. It is noted that the religious norms of the faith of the Scopians provoked the peculiarities of their economic activity. Castration, especially the "royal seal", created conditions for the isolation of the Scopians from Russian society. The economic activity of the Scopians, on the contrary, allowed them to return to society. The Scopians could not count on full loyalty to themselves from society, since society rejected the rite of castration. Nevertheless, in the conditions of exile, the Scopians introduced capitalist relations, exploiting the local population (Yakuts) and their less well-off co-religionists. The working day of agricultural salaried workers at the Skoptsy lasted 19-20 hours a day. It should be borne in mind that the process of enrichment among the Scopians was significantly different from the similar process among European Protestants and Russian Old Believers. Protestants created religious norms, which then influenced the process of enrichment, forming a specific economic ethics of capitalist relations. The Old Believers, through enrichment, created conditions for achieving a righteous life. The Scopians sought to get out of isolation and return to society through the enrichment and development of capitalist relations.

Lisette Model: Another Frankfurt School Photographer in New York

Abstract This essay examines the portrait work of the Austrian-American photographer Lisette Model, with a special focus on her representation of the American lumpenproletariat in the Reflections series, Model's first after coming to New York in 1938 as an Austrian-French Jewish émigré, and in her Bowery portrait series. Within the history of American postwar photography, Model stands as a salient figure, a pioneer who located and defined the issues, options, and contradictions of photography as an artistic practice in the “New York School of photography.” Model's rendering of her subjects as eccentric, fantastic, and spectacular in their expressions and emotions propelled the émigré photographer with meager experience into a central position in the making of mid-century American photography, both social-documentary and commercial. Moving beyond the localized context of postwar American photography in which Model's work has been largely investigated, this essay argues for an understanding of Model's New York portraits as being shaped and informed by the photographer's consideration of the crisis of history and the violence enacted by fascism in Europe, as well as the historical condition of exile. One of the essay's claims is that Model revitalized a kind of pleasurable violence, one that enacts a sense of excessive bodily dynamism, often to the point of self-destruction, on the bodies of the American lumpenproletariat at leisure, in order both to come to terms with the role of the lumpenproletariat as the central subject of fascist politics and aesthetics in the Old World and to put pressure on the conditions of the mass subject and mass politics in the New World.

How to Resolve the Trauma of Exile?

The Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians who were forced to leave their respective homelands after World War II in the wake of Soviet occupation came to form exile communities across the world. These communities continued their cultural traditions and practices with the arts becoming a medium to reaffirm their identities in exile and narrate their experiences. But with a quarter of a century having passed since their migration, the 1970s became a period of re-evaluating this focus, often represented by topics of generational conflict or inability to change with the times. In North America, first generation Baltic exile playwrights Ilmar Külvet, Alfreds Straumanis, and Algirdas Landsbergis often scrutinized the condition of exile within their works. In this study, I will examine the Baltic narrative of exile as a cultural trauma and take into focus three works by these authors with representations reflecting on the changing times and crises of belonging and identity. The three plays also present a way out of these tensions and can be considered deliberate efforts by the authors to shift cultural discourse and explore other creative potentials of exile, best facilitated by negotiating between the old and the new, the traumatic past, and the ever-changing present.

On a Melting Ice Floe – Polish Jewish Wartime Refugees in Central Asia

ABSTRACT During World War II, tens of thousands of Polish Jewish refugees spent several years in Soviet Central Asia. Yet, little of the intriguing character of the Silk Road remains in their memories. Rather, these convey the years of exile as a desperate attempt to survive in conditions where refugees’ lives depended on the confusingly numerous and varied power actors in the region. Drawing on first-person narratives, the article describes how navigating between these actors affected the postwar identities of Polish Jews. Their refugee history ran the gamut from criminalization (by the Germans and Soviets) to discrimination (by the Polish state in exile). It turns out that the experience of Polish antisemitism and civic exclusion that caught up with them in this remote region was one of the strongest affects in their memory. By analyzing eastern destinations (Central Asia) as a space of refugee accommodation, we can appreciate the significance of this geography for the postwar disidentification of Jewish survivors with Poland. It was not only the attitude of fellow Poles in the German-occupied country during the war, but also their treatment of the citizenship of Polish Jewish refugees in Central Asia as significantly inferior that cast a lasting shadow over the emotions of surviving Jews toward their country of origin.

The Wanderer and the Legacy of Pathetic Fallacy

The Old English poem known as The Wanderer has long been said to rely on the device of ‘pathetic fallacy’ in its descriptions of stormy and frozen land- and seascapes. This piece of literary-critical terminology has strong ties to both Romantic and realist aesthetic ideals of the nineteenth century, and this paper outlines the assumptions which underpin the term and questions our continued use of it when discussing The Wanderer. By pointing us towards the external world as a projection of the interior psychological world of the ‘wanderer’ figure, the term obscures two key features of the text. Firstly, the label sweeps to the side the literal significance of the material world to which the poem’s central speaker responds, despite the fact that this landscape bears marks of divine anger and potency and seems to participate in the Augustinian tradition of the degraded Sixth Age of the World. Secondly, the term points us towards a dramatic characterisation of a single heroic-age nobleman in a manner that the text is itself relatively uninterested in pursuing, instead emphasising conditions of exile, isolation, and despair as universalised spiritual problems. Seeing this poem as governed by pathetic fallacy distracts us from such facets, when other interpretive frameworks have more to offer.

The Well of Confusion: On the Titles of the Maharal’s Books

Abstract R. Judah Leva ben Betzalel (the Maharal, c. 1525–1609), authored more than ten works, publishing most of them during his lifetime. Although the Maharal’s works were, since the mid-20th century, the subject of academic research, the title of the Maharal’s work ספר באר הגולה (Prague 1598) is still erroneously read as Beʾer ha-golah and understood as The Well of Exile. This article places the existing debate about this title into the context of the Maharal’s other books, resumes arguments formulated in existing scholarship and suggests yet another solution to the problem based on a detailed analysis of the Maharal’s own introduction, and on the typography of the editio princeps. We propose reading the title as Beʾer ha-goleh; while its meaning is probably intentionally ambivalent, this points both to the idea of a ‘well, which is being uncovered’ and hints at its author’s deep feeling on the condition of Exile.

Problems of researching the history of exile of Ukrainians and of the Baltic peoples in the USSR

This study investigated the conditions of exile and interaction between Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners in Soviet camps in the post-war period. The scientific relevance of the subject lies in the investigation of the cooperation of political prisoners of diverse national groups, which led to the camp uprisings of 1953-1954. The purpose of this study was to determine the nature of the conditions of exile and the opportunities for contacts between Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners in the context of protest formation using evidence from the camp departments of Vorkuta, specifically Rechlag. To fulfil this purpose, the methods of comparative and retrospective analysis, historical and psychological reconstruction were used. The study identified common and distinctive features inherent in the Vorkuta camps. It was found that the basis for interaction between Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners was their common situation and attempts to improve living conditions in the camp. Therewith, it was stated that the same cultural and educational level and participation in the anti-Soviet resistance improved the establishment of interethnic contacts. The socio-psychological characteristics of Ukrainian and Baltic prisoners of the postwar era distinguished them from others. It was found that the unification into national groups was facilitated by the self-identification of prisoners as captives with a national worldview and experience that opposed Soviet ideology. The main goal was to improve the conditions and release prisoners from places of captivity, and active attempts to achieve this came after Stalin’s death. It was proved that political uncertainty and chaotic actions of the camp administration became a catalyst for uprisings that accelerated the transformation of places of captivity. A key role in organising the protests belonged to strike committees representing groups of prisoners on ethnic grounds. Specifically, Ukrainian, and Baltic prisoners took an active part in them. This shows the place and role of these nations in the camp uprisings. The practical significance of this study lies in highlighting the little-studied issue of the ways in which Ukrainian and Baltic political prisoners interacted and the impact of these contacts on the fight against the Soviet repressive apparatus in prison

RESISTÊNCIA, CONTRACULTURA E SOBREVIVÊNCIA: ARTISTAS BRASILEIROS EXILADOS EM LONDRES NOS ANOS 1970

The article discusses aspects related to exile during the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship of the 1960s and 1970s, based on the analysis of testimonies, letters and short stories by artists and writers such as Antonio Bivar (Verdes vales do fim do mundo, 1984); Caetano Veloso (Tropical Truth, 1997); and Caio Fernando Abreu (Estranhos Estrangeiros, 1996; Cartas, 2002; and Ovelhas negras, 2009, among others), about their experiences as exiles in London. With the support of several theoretical and critical texts, such as MACIEL (1987); VIÑAR (1992); ROLLEMBERG (1999); PIZARRO (2006); SZNAJDER, RONIGER (2009); RIDENTI (2014); GASPARI (2014), and seeking to interrelate history, psychoanalysis, politics and memorial literature, the intention is to demonstrate how the condition of self-exile or forced exile led Brazilian artists to experience intense processes of depersonalization, identity crises and depression, that interfered with their personal lives and artistic careers.

More Human Than Human: The Exile in Blade Runner

More Human Than Human: The Exile in <i>Blade Runner</i>

Figures of the body in a situation of exile : the European case

The purpose of this article is to establish dialogue between psychoanalysis, social sciences (philosophy, anthropology, sociology) and politics to analyse the way in which current migratory policies, impact on the bodies exiled peoples who seek to establish themselves in safe territories. This article will look at the ways in which the body of the exiled person is affected by the political, and how they embody the place of a subjective suffering. Different figures of the migrant subject’s body will be discussed. The data comes from varied ethnographic research conducted in France (‘Calais Jungle’, accommodation centres and administrative detention centers). Our interpretations will demonstrate how this body in the process of transit, which swings between extremes of mobility and immobility, appears damaged, wounded, or even at risk of becoming ‘human-refuse’. We will also see that it can be instrumentalised, measured, evaluated, by the institutions that receive it. This body in a state of exile wavers continuously between fragility, vulnerability and destructivity; but it can also, on occasion, show itself to be powerful and life-saving. Indeed, it harbours a surprising strength, and is capable of crossing borders and territories to which it has been forbidden entrance. Thus, it bears witness to the intensity of the human drive to live, even when put to the test of segregational migratory policies.

Aaru

<i>Aaru</i>

A Pathologically Abnormal Situation: Le Cercle Gaston Crémieux and the [Im]Possibility of an Anti-National Jewishness

This paper examines the diasporist French Jewish political group, Le Cercle Gaston Crémieux, founded in 1967 “to promote a diasporic Jewish existence without subjugation to the synagogue or to Zionism”. In contrast to either an assimilationist model which demanded the acceptance of French national identity in the public sphere, or a Zionist model of Jewish nationalism, the Cercle offered a model in which the state of exile and diaspora becomes constitutive of Jewish identity, positioned as an alternate mode of being-in-the-world defined against white Christian European nationalism. Yet to expose the historically constructed, socially contingent nature of European nationalisms that claim the status of organic and natural, the Cercle had to imagine a particular narrative of the historical construction of Jewishness, and this social constructionism conflicted with the almost ontological, metaphysical status they wanted to accord to Jewish exile and otherness. Thus the Cercle failed to imagine an anti-national model of Jewishness, but this failure sheds light on larger fault lines in the possibility of a Jewish politics. The paper concludes that the Cercle’s imaginal diasporic Jewishness tries to enable the articulation of other forms of minority identity, suggesting that this failure may nonetheless prove politically productive.

Personality and legacy of Isma‘il Gasprinsky in the Tatar Emigrant Press of the 1930s

The article deals with the materials of the Tatar emigrant press of the 1930s dedicated to the memory about Isma‘il Gasprinsky (1851–1914). A series of publications addressed to the personality and creative heritage of the outstanding public figure appeared throughout 1933 in connection with the 50 th anniversary of the newspaper “Tеrjiman” (“Terzhiman” / “Translator”) and Gasprinsky’s 20 th death anniversary. The largest array of such papers was published in two Tatar-language periodicals: the journal “Yana Milli Yul” (Berlin) and the newspaper “Milli Bayraq” (Mukden). Part of those publications were probably initiated by the leader of Tatar political emigration Gayaz Ishaqy (1878–1954). In addition, anniversary celebrations and meetings were widely covered in emigrant media, as well as historiographic reviews. Covering anniversary events, publishing large printed materials and informing readers about current events, the emigrant press played an important ideological, organizational and coordinating role, connecting disparate communities and individuals, as well as relaying the most important meanings and values for the nation. Thus, the Tatar-speaking emigre press was an active participant in the discourse of national memory, developing and transforming in the difficult conditions of exile and separation from their homeland.

Severed heads in Iraqi diasporic visual production: Aleiby, Baldin and Alsoudani

ABSTRACT This essay examines the trope of the decapitated, severed head as it appears in a range of works produced by three emigrant Iraqi artists: Afifa Aleiby, Baldin Ahmad and Ahmed Alsoudani. Drawing on a range of cultural, political and philosophical readings of the severed head by figures such as Adriana Cavarero, Julia Kristeva and Francois Debrix, the essay seeks to map the diverse affects, meanings and contexts the severed head takes on in Aleiby, Baldin and Alsoudani’s paintings and sculptures from Saddam’s dictatorship to the present. What kind of affects – horror, disgust, pleasure, ecstasy – does the spectacle of the severed head generate? How does the figure of the head detached from the body become a metonymy or synechdoche for the political state of exile, displacement or alienation? Finally, what function does the representation of the severed head play in the production and articulation of loss, trauma and mourning.

Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical

Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical

The Catholic Priests Exiled to Western Siberia after the Suppression of the January Uprising (1863-1864): Some Research Issues

The history of the Siberian exile was and remains a complex topical problem that requires comprehensive study. Modern difficult interstate relations give particular relevance to the appeal to the existing historical experience of living together in conditions of exile of representatives of various nationalities. Article is devoted to the consideration of the stay in Western Siberia of Catholic priests expelled from the Mogilev, Minsk, Vitebsk, Grodno provinces after the suppression of the January uprising (1863-1864). On the basis of available archival sources, the work reflects the issues of numbers, places of accommodation, material situation, the activities of exiled Catholic priests, supplemented the biographical information. When possible, some exiled Catholic priests carried out religious services, engaged in education. Thanks to their selfless activities, moral support took place, the unification of the exiles in the conditions of Siberia. The exiled priests, acting as speakers of national culture and language, influenced the spiritual development of the local population, contributing to the enrichment and diversity of its life. In the process of communication in Siberian conditions, the formation of interethnic relations and contacts between the Slavonic peoples took place.

Quest for Identity and Search for Roots in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine

Bharati Mukherjee, the author of six novels, two collections of short stories, and a smattering of nonfiction works,reflects personal experience in crossing cultural boundaries in her almost all writings.The state of exile, a sense of loss, the pain of separation, anddisorientation makeBharati Mukherjee’s novel, Jasmine "a quest for identity and search for the roots” in an alien land. This paper discusses how the protagonist of the novel, undergoes several transformations during her life journey in America, which results in a fluid state of identity.

The Angrily Bored Condition of Exile in Caribbean Literature at the Turn of the Millennium

This essay discusses the relationship between anger, boredom, and exile in Caribbean literature published in the wake of the nineties, a decade profoundly marked by a change in sensibility, by analyzing Ena Lucía Portela's El pájaro: pincel y tinta china (1999) and Rafael Franco Steeves's El peor de mis amigos (2007). Specifically, in both texts, I detect a fluidity between the concepts of time, water, and a need to disappear. Disappearance as a heterotopic state seems to be connected to a need to destabilize single-authored discourses, functioning as mandates on how to live. This essay, then, argues that disappearance is the most radical effect of subjectivities that operate as, what I call, "angrily bored exiles," a political imagination that challenges the boundaries between subject and object as well as between body, space, and time. If neoliberalism imposes an anxiety about being bored, the exiled position inhabits boredom angrily to enunciate alternate ways of existing. The essay turns this literature into an evaluation of this emotional literary position within a broader context. I propose that the angrily bored mood from the nineties tempered the blind fervor of the sixties and has given contemporary Caribbean subjects a more complicated perspective on their options when imagining utopic representations.

Laura Marcus (7 March 1956–22 September 2021)

Laura Marcus (7 March 1956–22 September 2021)