'In the First Place, We Don't Like to Be Called "Refugees"': Dilemmas of Representation and Transversal Politics in the Participatory Art Project 100% FOREIGN?
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'In the First Place, We Don't Like to Be Called "Refugees"': Dilemmas of Representation and Transversal Politics in the Participatory Art Project 100% FOREIGN? / Petersen, Anne Ring.
I: Humanities, Bind 10, Nr. 126, 07.12.2021.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - 'In the First Place, We Don't Like to Be Called "Refugees"':
T2 - Dilemmas of Representation and Transversal Politics in the Participatory Art Project 100% FOREIGN?
AU - Petersen, Anne Ring
PY - 2021/12/7
Y1 - 2021/12/7
N2 - 100% FOREIGN? (100% FREMMED?) is an art project consisting of 250 life stories of individuals who were granted asylum in Denmark between 1956 and 2019. Thus, it can be said to form a collective portrait that inserts citizens of refugee backgrounds into the narrative of the nation, thereby expanding the idea of national identity and culture. 100% FOREIGN? allows us to think of participatory art as a privileged site for the exploration of intersubjective relations and the question of how to “represent” citizens with refugee experience as well as the history and practice of asylum. The conflicting aims and perceptions involved in such representations are many, as suggested by the opening sentence of Hannah Arendt’s 1943 essay “We, Refugees”: “In the first place, we don’t like to be called ‘refugees’”. Using 100% FOREIGN? as an analytical reference point, this article discusses some of the ethical and political implications of representing former refugees. It briefly considers recent Danish immigration and asylum policies to situate the project in its regional European context and argues that, similarly to its neighbouring countries, Denmark can be described as a “postmigrant society” (Foroutan). To frame 100% FOREIGN? theoretically, this article draws on Arendt’s essay, Trinh T. Minh-ha’s concept of speaking nearby, as well as the feminist concept of transversal politics (Meskimmon, Yuval-Davis). It is hoped that this approach will lead to a deeper understanding of what participatory art can bring to the ethical politics of representing refugee experience.
AB - 100% FOREIGN? (100% FREMMED?) is an art project consisting of 250 life stories of individuals who were granted asylum in Denmark between 1956 and 2019. Thus, it can be said to form a collective portrait that inserts citizens of refugee backgrounds into the narrative of the nation, thereby expanding the idea of national identity and culture. 100% FOREIGN? allows us to think of participatory art as a privileged site for the exploration of intersubjective relations and the question of how to “represent” citizens with refugee experience as well as the history and practice of asylum. The conflicting aims and perceptions involved in such representations are many, as suggested by the opening sentence of Hannah Arendt’s 1943 essay “We, Refugees”: “In the first place, we don’t like to be called ‘refugees’”. Using 100% FOREIGN? as an analytical reference point, this article discusses some of the ethical and political implications of representing former refugees. It briefly considers recent Danish immigration and asylum policies to situate the project in its regional European context and argues that, similarly to its neighbouring countries, Denmark can be described as a “postmigrant society” (Foroutan). To frame 100% FOREIGN? theoretically, this article draws on Arendt’s essay, Trinh T. Minh-ha’s concept of speaking nearby, as well as the feminist concept of transversal politics (Meskimmon, Yuval-Davis). It is hoped that this approach will lead to a deeper understanding of what participatory art can bring to the ethical politics of representing refugee experience.
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - flygtninge
KW - repræsentation
KW - etik
KW - transversal politik
KW - deltagelse
KW - medborgerskab
KW - national identitet
KW - tilhørsforhold
KW - postmigration
KW - samtidskunst
KW - feminisme
KW - refugees
KW - representation
KW - ethics
KW - transversal politics
KW - participation
KW - citizenship
KW - national idenitity
KW - belonging
KW - postmigration
KW - contemporary art
KW - feminism
U2 - 10.3390/h10040126
DO - 10.3390/h10040126
M3 - Journal article
VL - 10
JO - Humanities
JF - Humanities
SN - 2076-0787
IS - 126
ER -
ID: 286636821