Figures of the body in a situation of exile : the European case

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to establish dialogue between psychoanalysis, social sciences (philosophy, anthropology, sociology) and politics to analyse the way in which current migratory policies, impact on the bodies exiled peoples who seek to establish themselves in safe territories. This article will look at the ways in which the body of the exiled person is affected by the political, and how they embody the place of a subjective suffering. Different figures of the migrant subject’s body will be discussed. The data comes from varied ethnographic research conducted in France (‘Calais Jungle’, accommodation centres and administrative detention centers). Our interpretations will demonstrate how this body in the process of transit, which swings between extremes of mobility and immobility, appears damaged, wounded, or even at risk of becoming ‘human-refuse’. We will also see that it can be instrumentalised, measured, evaluated, by the institutions that receive it. This body in a state of exile wavers continuously between fragility, vulnerability and destructivity; but it can also, on occasion, show itself to be powerful and life-saving. Indeed, it harbours a surprising strength, and is capable of crossing borders and territories to which it has been forbidden entrance. Thus, it bears witness to the intensity of the human drive to live, even when put to the test of segregational migratory policies.

Keywords:

• Exile
• body
• migrant
• globalisation
• migration policy
• trauma

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. To describe the subject in a situation of exile we will use three terms: the term ‘migrant’ will be used in the manner in which the anthropologist Michel Agier uses it, that is to say ‘a priori a descriptive, neutral and generic descriptive term: it concerns persons who are on the move, without prejudging where they are from or going to’ (Agier et al., 2018:30) [our translation]. We will use the term ‘exile’ to demonstrate the subjective dimension of exile in the sensible and singular dimension that the subject experiences from his/her ‘exiled experience’ (Nouss, 0000). Finally, the term ‘refugee’ will be understood in its legal sense, in that it is attributed to the subject in exile by the institutions that hold the authority to confer or not this legal and administrative status. All these selected terminologies demonstrate how the body of the subject in a ‘state of migration’ (Pestre, 2020:274) is in the first instance assigned by the political, and will have to battle to arrive safely in a foreign land and survive there.

2. Alexandra Galitzine-Loumpet used this term during her conference ‘Traduire le camp: Ambiguïtés sémantiques et contextuelles’ which was given at the INALCO during a study day entitled Etats,igratoires et espaces-camps held on the 31^st May 2016 as part of the USPC doctoral training.

3. The wish to live in the United Kingdom or other European territories is primarily founded on self-evident reasons (language, community based systems in the UK which would potentially facilitate settling/integration, friends and relatives already settled in the country, low unemployment and undeclared work that is easily to be found). But these rational motives are also underpinned by other motivations, of an unconscious kind. This dreamt of land represents the promised land and resonates with the eponymous Utopia of Thomas Moore, so idealised is this island and the desire to live there that we found in the exiles we encountered.

4. 62% according to a study done by Comede. (Arnaud et al., 2017).

5. The results of a study into dysmenorrhoea, that is to say the stomach cramps occurring during menstruation among migrant women, where, in the case of severe dysmenorrhea the overall health of the migrant women is impacted; evidence of a state of depression that correlates with the experience of exile (Poncet et al., 2020) which thus impacts the body and the cycles of the woman.

6. The term ‘retainee’ [‘retenu’ in French] is used in the world of private sector associations and NGOs as well as that of academia. We use it here to illustrate the proximity between the status of ‘detainee’, as in prison, with that of ‘retained’ in the administrative detention centres.