Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List

Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until May 13, 2026

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Witnessing Emergency: Testimonial Narratives of Precarious Migration to Italy

Paynter, Eleanor
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7384-1906
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1582996945730084

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Comparative Studies.
As the number of forcibly displaced people increases globally, border crossing into Global North countries is often discussed as a crisis or emergency. Europe's recent "refugee crisis" illustrates the range of circumstances to which these discourses refer: humanitarian issues requiring urgent response; institutional crises, given the insufficiency of extant systems and structures to accommodate arriving migrants; or dangers for local and national communities who perceive the arrival of outsiders as a threat to their security and cultural identity. In Witnessing Emergency: Testimonial Narratives of Precarious Migration to Italy, I argue that in Italy, a key port of entry for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, the "emergency imaginary" that has shaped public and political responses to migrant arrivals perpetuates the idea that Africa-Europe migration via the Mediterranean Sea is sudden, unforeseen, and detached from historical mobilities. In fact, the recent crisis bears echoes of longer histories of transit, in particular between former African colonies and former European colonizing powers. To map the stakes and contours of "emergency," and to understand its limits and omissions, this dissertation examines how media and political framings of irregular Mediterranean migration as a crisis or emergency enable the racialization of migrants and obscure the colonial relations that continue to shape notions of identity and otherness in Italy and across Europe. I interrogate these framings through testimonial transactions that contextualize and challenge emergency discourses. The testimonies I put in conversation include published life writing (memoir and documentary film) that centers migrant experiences; oral history interviews I conducted with migrants, staff, and volunteers at multiple reception sites in Italy in 2017, 2018, and 2019; and a set of encounters in urban spaces and art installations. The transactions reflected in or mobilized through these testimonies mark critical acts of witnessing, potentially positioning their audiences as witnesses to experiences beyond those represented in popular and political discourses of emergency. This interdisciplinary project thus applies literary and discourse analysis, as well as oral history and ethnographic methods, to present a more complex picture of the meanings and limits of "emergency." Ultimately, Witnessing Emergency illustrates how "emergency," as an assemblage of overlapping, often contradictory discourses and lived experiences of urgent need, enacts the biopolitics of border regimes and enables systems of migrant reception and detention to further marginalize already marginalized subjects. Attending to the specificity of the Italian context while addressing the consequences of emergency imaginaries as a global phenomenon, this project contributes to discussions of asylum and migrant rights, postcolonial mobilities, scholarship on Italian identity and race in Europe, and the role of testimony in shaping public and political responses to these issues.
Dana Renga (Advisor)
Amy Shuman (Advisor)
Ashley Pérez (Committee Member)
Julia Watson (Committee Member)
391 p.
Comparative Literature; Cultural Anthropology; Ethnic Studies; European Studies; Film Studies
migration; migrant; refugee; asylum; displacement; emergency; crisis; colonialism; postcolonialism; memory; borders; Italy; Europe; Africa; Mediterranean; oral history; testimony; witness; memoir; representation; reception

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Paynter, E. (2020). Witnessing Emergency: Testimonial Narratives of Precarious Migration to Italy [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1582996945730084

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Paynter, Eleanor. Witnessing Emergency: Testimonial Narratives of Precarious Migration to Italy. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1582996945730084.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Paynter, Eleanor. "Witnessing Emergency: Testimonial Narratives of Precarious Migration to Italy." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1582996945730084

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1582996945730084
© 2020, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.