La migration et le déplacement comme manifestations de la violence dans la littérature et le cinéma méditerranéens et sub-sahariens francophones (1990 – 2010)

Abstract

The first part of the work examines the starting point of the various authors and filmmakers of our corpus, as well as that of the migrant’s journey. The reasons that inspire the artists to take up the subject of migration in their works are many and they provide insight as to why literature and cinema dealing with the figure of the migrant are so essential. The aims of the authors and filmmakers influence the artistic choices employed to transmit the experience of migration to the reader/spectator. They rely on a variety of literary and cinematic strategies to reveal the complex reality of the migrant, which in Western collective consciousness is usually truncated, simplified and/or dismissed completely. One element which is often left out of public discourses, but which finds a voice and a vision in certain works of our corpus, has to do with the conditions of the home country and the reasons that motivate the individual to leave. The place of origin becomes a space of alienation and despair and this is poignantly expressed in the texts and films.

The second part of the work deals with the theme of voyage and the status of the migrant. Different forms of migration are encoded by the type of journey the migrant undertakes which also defines his status. In the host countries, the Other’s identity is reduced to one of two labels; either refugee or illegal immigrant. The study of the ways in which the status of migrant is approached in the works is followed by the analysis of the first voyage that the migrant embarks on, a mental one. The texts and films depict an imaginary but crucial space constructed of dreams and illusions regarding the host country. The only reprieve that the subject is afforded to alleviate his bleak life at the place of origin is this mental journey. It is the only way to endure the present. Relentlessly, the physical voyage, the intermediary and unavoidable stage of the migratory process, becomes a necessity. Certain authors and filmmakers evoke the logistics of the voyage, leading to a reflection about the deeper meanings behind recurring motifs. The inevitability of the geographical displacement in the migrant’s life also renders the lack of the voyage in the works a remarkable and eloquent absence, worth looking into.

The third and final part provides an insight into the different forms of violence endured by the migrant at the point of arrival. The majority of the works are pre-eminently focused on the body, on physical injury and corporal violence. This ploy has multiple levels of significance. Immersed in abject misery, the immigrant’s only residue is his body. However, as indicated in the works, it is also limiting and oppressive, since the body is what makes alterity visible. This leads to an evaluation of the psychological violence that overwhelms the subject and the ways in which this kind of trauma is brought out by the authors and filmmakers. Psychological suffering is harder to identify. Its various manifestations are even more difficult to grasp when the subject is the Other. In this sense, the works depicting the daily life of the immigrant are eye-opening. The latter’s is a painful existence on more than one plane. It is therefore not surprising that the idea of return to the homeland features in some of the texts and films. However, this move back to the country of origin does not constitute a smooth transition to life as it was before the first migration. The implications of the returnee’s reinsertion into the community he left behind are far-reaching and, in most cases, troubling and distressing.