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Abstract
This article’s starting point is a sensory, reflexive walk taken on Brighton seafront and beach, by fourteen migrant women and some of their children. It goes on to open up a wider discussion about the cultural politics and affective resonances, for refugees and migrants, of beaches. By discussing their sensory experiences of the beach, we begin to understand their ‘ostranenie’, or defamiliarisation, of making the familiar strange. We also see how evocative such sense-making can be, as the women compare their past lives to this, perceiving their lifeworld through a filter of migrancy.
The article goes onto discuss the broader cultural symbolism of beaches, which are a site of contestation over national values, boundaries and belonging. As well as discussing sensory methodology in this article, and explaining the locale of Brighton Beach itself, it concludes with some wider thinking of the cultural politics of beach spaces and migrant perceptions.
Resumen
El punto de partida de este artículo es una caminata sensorial y reflexiva sobre la costanera y playa de Brighton por parte de catorce mujeres migrantes y algunxs de sus hijxs. Continúa abriendo una discusión más amplia sobre la política cultural y las resonancias afectivas, para lxs refugiadxs y migrantes, de las playas. Al discutir sus experiencias sensoriales de la playa, comenzamos a comprender sus “ostranénie”, o desfamiliarización, del hacer extraño lo familiar. También observamos lo evocativo que dicha fabricación de sentido puede ser, a medida que las mujeres comparan sus vidas pasadas con ésta, al percibir su mundo de vida a través de una óptica de migración.
El artículo continúa discutiendo el simbolismo cultural más amplio de las playas, las que son un sitio de contestación de los valores nacionales, los límites, y la pertenencia. Además de discurrir sobre la metodología sensorial en este artículo, y explicar la localidad de Brighton Beach en sí, concluye con algunas ideas más amplias sobre la política cultural de los espacios de playa y de las percepciones inmigrantes.
摘要
本文的起始点，是由十四位移民女性及几位她们的孩子，在布莱顿滨海地区与海滩所进行的感官的反身性漫步。本文接着开啓一个有关难民与移民对海滩的文化政治与情绪共鸣的广泛讨论。透过探讨她们对海滩的感官经验，我们开始理解她们将熟悉的事物变陌生的”使陌生化”，抑或是去熟悉化。我们同时看到，随着女性将其过去的生命与此般场景进行比较、并透过移民的滤镜感知她们的生活世界时，此般感官製造如何能够唤起记忆。
本文接着讨论海滩作为国族价值、疆界与归属感相互斗争的场域之广泛文化象徵意涵。本文同时探讨感官方法，并解释布莱顿海滩本身的区位，于结论中提出若干有关海滩空间的文化政治与移民感知的广泛思考。
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Linda Morrice, Elizabeth McDonnell, Tim Jordan and Nigel Jarvis for their help in the completion of this article. I give my heartfelt thanks to the women on the Life in the UK course who contributed their time, comments and photographs.
Notes
1. A series of reflective photographs taken by the women themselves on the beach walk accompanies this article and can be found online at http://www.lifeintheukproject.co.uk/a-day-on-brighton-beach/.
2. Although some migrants do come from former British colonies, where a version of postcolonial Britishness exists.
3. I was the Principal Investigator of this project, which was run with Linda Morrice. Project partners included the UK Refugee Council, and Refugee Action.
4. Prior to the Act of 2002 (Home Office 2002), a spouse obtaining British citizenship automatically made a citizen of the other. The law now requires individual applications for citizenship.
5. Thank you to Linda Morrice for this summary.
6. See Morrice ‘Anxious spaces of belonging: Lifelong learning and precariousness in British citizenship’, forthcoming in British Journal of Sociology of Education 2016.
7. Thanks to Elizabeth McDonnell for these observations.
8. Not to be confused with the UK Government ‘Living in the UK’ citizenship test.
9. http://www.visitbrighton.com/things-to-do/beach-life (accessed 21 November 2014).
10. Figures have been taken from the council’s own information sources supplied by the Beach Office, Brighton and Hove City Council, personal communication.
11. The Economic Impact of Tourism in Brighton & Hove 2012. Council report prepared by: Tourism South East Research Unit, 40 Chamberlayne Road Eastleigh, Hampshire SO50 5JH, 6.
12. Brighton Visitor Satisfaction and Growth Potential. Visit Brighton/Visit England report. TNS 6 August 2013.
13. Equalities Data from Visitor Survey 2014. Courtesy of Brighton and Hove City Council.
14. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/coastal-communities/rpt-coastal-communities.html (accessed 24 November 2014).
15. See McNay (Citation1992, Citation1994) for works which study Foucault’s late aesthetics of the self from the feminist perspective. This is the idea that the self is a ‘work of art’ that is aestheticised through continual ‘improvement’.
16. Lebenswelt (German) or ‘lifeworld’ is a concept from philosophy, specifically phenomenology, meaning ‘the world as experienced’ (Husserl, Edmund The Crisis of the European Sciences 1936/1970). Husserl was influenced by Martin Heidegger’s concept of ‘being in the world’ and the concept has also been used by other philosophers of the senses such as Merleau-Ponty.
17. Dean Mahomet also opened the first curry house in the UK, the Hindoostanee Coffee House in George Street, London.
18. See Morrice and Munt (Citationforthcoming).
19. The Naked Bike Ride is a global protest/creative performance, begun in 2003 by Artists for Peace, in which people decorate their bodies and ride through city centres, see https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brighton-Naked-Bike-Ride/116674705198 and http://www.pbase.com/brianmicky/london_world_naked_bike_ride
20. The Journeys of Resilience project, funded by HEFCE, South East Coastal Communities Project, and the University of Brighton Community & University Partnerships, ran for 6 months during 2009. This research was later published in Munt (Citation2012).
21. The actual figure is 4.3%.