Transnational Lampedusa

Book excerpt: This book examines how Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island, has become a transnational symbol representing migration to Europe from the Global South. It analyses how three very different associations have used the name “Lampedusa” as a means of restoring a sense of subjectivity or agency to migrants themselves. Jacopo Colombini argues that the work of the Archivio delle Memorie Migranti (Rome), the self-organised refugee group Lampedusa in Hamburg, and the Lampedusa-based Collettivo Askavusa offers an alternative to the stereotypical, often racially connoted, public discussion of migrant presence in Italy and Europe. He also demonstrates, however, that the marginalisation of migrant and refugee voices in the public discourse is also partially and unavoidably reproduced in the cultural projects that wish to restore their agency.