Borders kill. Tania Bruguera’s Referendum as an artistic strategy of political participation
Keywords:
Border, Imaginary, Citizenship, Art, Political partecipation
Abstract
Since the rise of modern nation-states, borders have played the important role to order society because they have the power to define territories, not only on the ground, but also on the level of the imaginary by shaping national identities and perceptions of the world. Borders can be intended not as places, rather as processes, as socially constructed and shifting structures of practices and discourses that produce norms of difference and exclusion. Within this context, arts, and particularly performing arts, can play a role in challenging these forms of representation, overturning the spectacle of the border into collective performances. Drawing upon these conceptual premises, the article presents the empirical insights related to Tania Bruguera’s ‘Referendum’. Referendum was intended both as a performance and as a form of political activism, inviting people to vote on the following question: “Borders kill. Should we abolish borders?”. After analysing the collaborative procedure that led to the final results of the performance, we reflect upon the role of arts as pedagogical and political tool capable of changing the existing imagery on borders - and specifically on the Mediterranean Sea - and human mobility, stimulating new forms of debate and responsabilization in terms of co-citizenship.
References
Abrahamian, A. A. (2015). The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen. New York: Columbia Global Reports.
Abruzzese, A. & Borrelli, D. (2000). L’industria culturale. Tracce e immagini di un privilegio. Roma: Carocci.
Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Agier, M. (2016). Borderlands: Towards an Anthropology of the Cosmopolitan Condition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Ahmed, S. (2014).Willful Subjects. Durham: Duke University Press Books.
Albahari, M. (2015). Crimes of Peace: Mediterranean Migrations at the World's Deadliest Border. Philadelphia: PENN.
Amoore, L. (2013). The politics of possibility: Risk and security beyond probability. Durham: Duke University Press.
Andersson, R. (2014). Illegality, Inc. Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe. Oakland: University of California Press.
Balibar, E. (2003). We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Belfiore, E. & Bennett, O. (2007). Rethinking the social impacts of the arts. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 13 (2), 135-151.
Bigo, D. (2002). Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 27 (1), 63-92.
Braudel, F. (1986). Civiltà e imperi del Mediterraneo nell’età di Filippo II. Torino: Einaudi.
Casas-Cortes, M., Cobarrubias, S. & Pickles, J. (2010).Stretching Borders beyond Sovereign Territories? Mapping EU and Spain's Border Externalization Policies. Geopolitica(s), 2 (1), 71-90.
Collyer, M. &King, R. (2016). Narrating Europe’s migration and refugee ‘crisis'. Human Geography: a new radical journal, 9(2), 1-12.
Chouliaraki, L. (2012). The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Chouliaraki, L. &Georgiou, M. (2017). Hospitability: The communicative architecture of humanitarian securitization at Europe’s borders.Journal of Communication, 67 (2), 159-180.
Chouliaraki, L. & Musarò, P. (2017). The mediatized border: technologies and affects of migrant reception in the Greek and Italian borders. Feminist Media Studies, 17(4), 535-549.
Colombo, F., Murru, M. F. & Tosoni, S. (2017). The post-intermediation of truth. Newsmaking from media companies to platform. Comunicazioni Sociali, 3, 448-461.
Cuttitta, P. (2014). Borderizing the Island. Setting and Narratives of the Lampedusa Border Play. Acme 13(2), 196-219.
Dezeuze, A. (2012). The 'do-it-yourself' artwork: Participation from Fluxus to new media. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Fekete, L. (2018). Migrants, borders and the criminalisation of solidarity in the EU. Race & Class, 59 (4), 65-83.
Feldman, I. (2010). In the name of humanity: The government of threat and care. Durham: Duke University Press.
Georgiou, M. & Zaborowski, R. (2018). Media coverage of the “refugee crisis”: A cross-European perspective, Council of Europe report, Council of Europe. Available at: https://rm.coe.int/1680706b00.
Giordana, E. (Ed.) (2018). Sconfinate. Terre di confine e storie di frontiera. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.
Giudice, C.&Giubilaro, C. (2014).Re-Imagining the Border: Border Art as a Space of Critical Imagination and Creative Resistance. Geopolitics, 0, 1-16.
Hjarvard, S. P. (2013). The mediatization of culture and society. New York & London: Routledge.
Holzer, B.& Sørensen, M. P. (2003). Rethinking Subpolitics. Beyond the ‘Iron Cage’ of Modern Politics?Theory, Culture and Society, 20 (2), 79-102.
Isin, E. & Nielson, G. M. (2008). Acts of Citizenship. London: Zed Books.
Jedlowski, P. (2005). Un giorno dopo l’altro. La vita quotidiana fra esperienza e routine. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Lefebvre, H. (1968). Le droit à la ville. Paris: Anthropos.
Levy, P. (2017). Handbook of Arts-Based Research. New York: Guilford Press.
Martiniello, M. (Ed.) (2016). Multiculturalism and the Arts in European Cities. New York &London: Routledge.
Massey, D. & Jess, P. (Eds.) (1996). A Place in the World?: Places, Cultures and Globalization. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mazzara, F. (2019). Reframing Migration: Lampedusa, Border Spectacle and the Aesthetics of Subversion. Bern: Peter Lang Pub Inc.
Mbembé, J.-A.&Meintjes, L. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15 (1),11-40.
McNiff, S. (1998). Art-based research. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Mezzadra, S. (2018). “Prefazione”. In E. Giordana (Ed.), Sconfinate. Terre di confine e storie di frontiera (pp. 5 – 8). Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.
Mezzadra, S. & Neilson B. (2013). Border as Method or The Multiplication of Labor. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mirzoeff, N. (2011). The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Durham: Duke University Press.
Moralli, M. (2016). Fostering Interculturality in Urban Ethnic Neighbourhoods: Opportunities and Limits of the Responsible Tourism Approach. Journal of Mediterranean Knowledge, 1, 165 – 183.
Moralli, M. (2019). Innovazione sociale. Pratiche e processi per ripensare le comunità. Milano: Franco Angeli.
Mouffe, C. (2007). Art and Democracy. Art as an Agonistic Intervention in Public Space. Art as a Public Issue, 1-7.
Mountz, A. (2011). Where asylum-seekers wait: feminist counter-topographies of sites between states. Gender, Place & Culture, 18 (3), 381-399.
Musarò, P. (2017). Mare Nostrum: the visual politics of a military-humanitarian operation in the Mediterranean Sea. Media, Culture & Society, 39(1), 11–28.
Musarò, P. & Parmiggiani, P. (2018). Taxi o ambulanze del mare? Politiche dell’immagine nella crisi dei migranti nel Mediterraneo. In F. Colombo & M. F. Murru (Eds.), Iconismo e potere. Politiche dell’immagine nell’era digitale. Problemi dell'Informazione, 1, 87-113.
Musarò, P. &Moralli, M. (2019). De-Bordering Narratives on Tourism and Migration. A ParticipatoryAction- Research on Two Innovative Italian Practices. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education,11(2), 147-173.
Omae, K. (1991). Il mondo senza confini. Lezioni di management nella nuova logica del mercato globale, trad. it. Milano: Il Sole 24.
Paasi, A. (1996). Inclusion, exclusion and territorial identities. The meanings of boundaries in the globalizing geopolitical landscape. Nordisk samhällsgeografisk tidskrift, 23, 3-17.
Papastergiadis, N. (2012). Cosmopolitanism and Culture. London: Polity Press.
Sheller, M. (2018). Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes. New York: Verso.
Smithner, N. (2019). Editorial. ArtsPraxis, 5 (2), iii-viii.
Squire, V. (2014). Desert «Trash». Posthumanism, Border Struggles and Humanitarian Politics. Political Geography, 39, 11–21.
Vaughan-Williams, N. (2015). Europe’s Border Crisis: Biopolitical Security and Beyond. New York: Oxford University Press.
Walters, W. (2011). Foucault and Frontiers: Notes on the Birth of the Humanitarian Border. In U. Bröckling, S. Krasmann & T. Lemke (Eds.), Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges (pp. 138-164). New York &London: Routledge.
Wihtol de Wenden, C. (2013). Le droit d'émigrer. Paris:CNRS EDITIONS.
Abruzzese, A. & Borrelli, D. (2000). L’industria culturale. Tracce e immagini di un privilegio. Roma: Carocci.
Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Agier, M. (2016). Borderlands: Towards an Anthropology of the Cosmopolitan Condition. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Ahmed, S. (2014).Willful Subjects. Durham: Duke University Press Books.
Albahari, M. (2015). Crimes of Peace: Mediterranean Migrations at the World's Deadliest Border. Philadelphia: PENN.
Amoore, L. (2013). The politics of possibility: Risk and security beyond probability. Durham: Duke University Press.
Andersson, R. (2014). Illegality, Inc. Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe. Oakland: University of California Press.
Balibar, E. (2003). We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Belfiore, E. & Bennett, O. (2007). Rethinking the social impacts of the arts. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 13 (2), 135-151.
Bigo, D. (2002). Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 27 (1), 63-92.
Braudel, F. (1986). Civiltà e imperi del Mediterraneo nell’età di Filippo II. Torino: Einaudi.
Casas-Cortes, M., Cobarrubias, S. & Pickles, J. (2010).Stretching Borders beyond Sovereign Territories? Mapping EU and Spain's Border Externalization Policies. Geopolitica(s), 2 (1), 71-90.
Collyer, M. &King, R. (2016). Narrating Europe’s migration and refugee ‘crisis'. Human Geography: a new radical journal, 9(2), 1-12.
Chouliaraki, L. (2012). The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Chouliaraki, L. &Georgiou, M. (2017). Hospitability: The communicative architecture of humanitarian securitization at Europe’s borders.Journal of Communication, 67 (2), 159-180.
Chouliaraki, L. & Musarò, P. (2017). The mediatized border: technologies and affects of migrant reception in the Greek and Italian borders. Feminist Media Studies, 17(4), 535-549.
Colombo, F., Murru, M. F. & Tosoni, S. (2017). The post-intermediation of truth. Newsmaking from media companies to platform. Comunicazioni Sociali, 3, 448-461.
Cuttitta, P. (2014). Borderizing the Island. Setting and Narratives of the Lampedusa Border Play. Acme 13(2), 196-219.
Dezeuze, A. (2012). The 'do-it-yourself' artwork: Participation from Fluxus to new media. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Fekete, L. (2018). Migrants, borders and the criminalisation of solidarity in the EU. Race & Class, 59 (4), 65-83.
Feldman, I. (2010). In the name of humanity: The government of threat and care. Durham: Duke University Press.
Georgiou, M. & Zaborowski, R. (2018). Media coverage of the “refugee crisis”: A cross-European perspective, Council of Europe report, Council of Europe. Available at: https://rm.coe.int/1680706b00.
Giordana, E. (Ed.) (2018). Sconfinate. Terre di confine e storie di frontiera. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.
Giudice, C.&Giubilaro, C. (2014).Re-Imagining the Border: Border Art as a Space of Critical Imagination and Creative Resistance. Geopolitics, 0, 1-16.
Hjarvard, S. P. (2013). The mediatization of culture and society. New York & London: Routledge.
Holzer, B.& Sørensen, M. P. (2003). Rethinking Subpolitics. Beyond the ‘Iron Cage’ of Modern Politics?Theory, Culture and Society, 20 (2), 79-102.
Isin, E. & Nielson, G. M. (2008). Acts of Citizenship. London: Zed Books.
Jedlowski, P. (2005). Un giorno dopo l’altro. La vita quotidiana fra esperienza e routine. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Lefebvre, H. (1968). Le droit à la ville. Paris: Anthropos.
Levy, P. (2017). Handbook of Arts-Based Research. New York: Guilford Press.
Martiniello, M. (Ed.) (2016). Multiculturalism and the Arts in European Cities. New York &London: Routledge.
Massey, D. & Jess, P. (Eds.) (1996). A Place in the World?: Places, Cultures and Globalization. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mazzara, F. (2019). Reframing Migration: Lampedusa, Border Spectacle and the Aesthetics of Subversion. Bern: Peter Lang Pub Inc.
Mbembé, J.-A.&Meintjes, L. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15 (1),11-40.
McNiff, S. (1998). Art-based research. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Mezzadra, S. (2018). “Prefazione”. In E. Giordana (Ed.), Sconfinate. Terre di confine e storie di frontiera (pp. 5 – 8). Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.
Mezzadra, S. & Neilson B. (2013). Border as Method or The Multiplication of Labor. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mirzoeff, N. (2011). The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Durham: Duke University Press.
Moralli, M. (2016). Fostering Interculturality in Urban Ethnic Neighbourhoods: Opportunities and Limits of the Responsible Tourism Approach. Journal of Mediterranean Knowledge, 1, 165 – 183.
Moralli, M. (2019). Innovazione sociale. Pratiche e processi per ripensare le comunità. Milano: Franco Angeli.
Mouffe, C. (2007). Art and Democracy. Art as an Agonistic Intervention in Public Space. Art as a Public Issue, 1-7.
Mountz, A. (2011). Where asylum-seekers wait: feminist counter-topographies of sites between states. Gender, Place & Culture, 18 (3), 381-399.
Musarò, P. (2017). Mare Nostrum: the visual politics of a military-humanitarian operation in the Mediterranean Sea. Media, Culture & Society, 39(1), 11–28.
Musarò, P. & Parmiggiani, P. (2018). Taxi o ambulanze del mare? Politiche dell’immagine nella crisi dei migranti nel Mediterraneo. In F. Colombo & M. F. Murru (Eds.), Iconismo e potere. Politiche dell’immagine nell’era digitale. Problemi dell'Informazione, 1, 87-113.
Musarò, P. &Moralli, M. (2019). De-Bordering Narratives on Tourism and Migration. A ParticipatoryAction- Research on Two Innovative Italian Practices. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education,11(2), 147-173.
Omae, K. (1991). Il mondo senza confini. Lezioni di management nella nuova logica del mercato globale, trad. it. Milano: Il Sole 24.
Paasi, A. (1996). Inclusion, exclusion and territorial identities. The meanings of boundaries in the globalizing geopolitical landscape. Nordisk samhällsgeografisk tidskrift, 23, 3-17.
Papastergiadis, N. (2012). Cosmopolitanism and Culture. London: Polity Press.
Sheller, M. (2018). Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes. New York: Verso.
Smithner, N. (2019). Editorial. ArtsPraxis, 5 (2), iii-viii.
Squire, V. (2014). Desert «Trash». Posthumanism, Border Struggles and Humanitarian Politics. Political Geography, 39, 11–21.
Vaughan-Williams, N. (2015). Europe’s Border Crisis: Biopolitical Security and Beyond. New York: Oxford University Press.
Walters, W. (2011). Foucault and Frontiers: Notes on the Birth of the Humanitarian Border. In U. Bröckling, S. Krasmann & T. Lemke (Eds.), Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges (pp. 138-164). New York &London: Routledge.
Wihtol de Wenden, C. (2013). Le droit d'émigrer. Paris:CNRS EDITIONS.
Published
2019-12-07
Section
Themes and perspectives
Authors who publish in this journal agree with the following points:
- The author(s) guarantee(s) that the article is original and that it has not previously published nor sent to other journals for consideration.
- The author(s) declare(s) that the article does not violate the copyright of third parties and assume(s) the full personal and financial responsibility for any legal action which may be brought by third parties against the ICSR Mediterranean Knowledge
- The author(s) retain(s) the rights of the article. The ICSR Mediterranean Knowledge is allowed to publish it in digital edition with licence Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) or in any other form that the publisher considers opportune. The licence allows others to share the article, provided that the authorship and the initial publication in this journal are reported.
- The author(s) can establish arrangements with non-exclusive license to distribute the published version of the article (eg. deposit it in an institutional archive or publish it in a monograph), indicating that it was first published in the Journal of Mediterranean Knoweldge.
- The author(s) can distribute the work online (eg. on their website) only after that it is published by the Journal of Mediterranean Knoweldge (see The Effect of Open Access).
