Performing Statelessness in Europe

Book excerpt: This book examines performative strategies that contest nationalist prejudices in representing the conditions of refugees, the stateless and the dispossessed. In the light of the European Union failing to find a political solution to the current migration crisis, it considers a variety of artistic works that have challenged the deficiencies in governmental and transnational practices, as well as innovative efforts by migrants and their hosts to imagine and build a new future. It discusses a diverse range of performative strategies, moving from a consideration of recent adaptations of Greek tragedy, to performances employing fictive identification, documentary dramas, immersive theatre, over-identification and subversive identification, nomadism and political activism. This study will appeal to those interested in questions of statelessness, migration, and the problematic role of the nation-state.