Over the last decade, Lampedusa has frequently been represented in the EU media as the setting of a supposed migration emergency due to the unprecedented number of displaced individuals transiting through its harbour. However, in contrast with such discourses, a growing number of social and artistic interventions have emerged, advancing a counter-narrative of solidarity and cultural dialogue. This article examines the case of Lampedusa in Festival, a community event organized by the Askavusa collective, which took place each year between 2009 and 2015. Interpreting its nature, evolution and limits in the light of event studies, this article argues that the festival constituted a collective performance of resistance which combined local and transnational resources, with the potential to re-spectacularize migration as a political and social opportunity.
BrambillaC (2015a) Exploring the critical potential of the borderscapes concept. Geopolitics20(1): 14–34.
4.
BrambillaC (2015b) Navigating the Euro/African border and migration nexus through the borderscapes lens: insights from the Lampedusa in Festival. In: BrambillaCLaineJScottJ WBocchiG (eds) Borderscaping: Imaginations and Practices of Border Making. London: Ashgate, pp. 111–22.
ChouliarakiL (2012) Between pity and irony: paradigms of refugee representations in humanitarian discourse. In MooreKGrossBThreadgoldT (eds) Migrations and the Media: Global Crises and the Media. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 13–34.
11.
CuttittaP (2012) Lo spettacolo del confine: Lampedusa tra produzione e messa in scena della frontiera. Milan: Mimesis.
12.
CuttittaP (2014) ‘Borderizing’ the island setting and narratives of the Lampedusa ‘border play’. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies13(2): 196–219.
13.
De GenovaN (2002) Migrant ‘illegality’ and deportability in everyday life. Annual Review of Anthropology31(1): 419–47.
14.
De GenovaNTazzioliMÁlvarez-VelascoS (2016) Europe/crisis: new keywords of ‘the crisis’ in and of ‘Europe’. Near Futures Online1: 1–45.
15.
De ValckM (2013) Film festivals and migration. In: NessI (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Global Human Migration, vol. 3. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 1502–4.
16.
DebordG (2013 [1967]) The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Black & Red. London: Notting Hill Editions.
17.
DurkheimÉ (1995 [1912]) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
18.
FalassiA (ed.) (1987) Time Out of Time: Essays on the Festival. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
GetzD (2014) The forms and functions of planned events. In: YeomanIRobertsonMMcMahonBSmithKBackerE (eds) The Future of Events and Festivals. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 20–35.
22.
GiorgiLSassatelliMDelantyG (2011) Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere. Abingdon: Routledge.
MazzaraF (2015) Spaces of visibility for the migrants of Lampedusa: the counter narrative of the aesthetic discourse. Italian Studies70(4): 449–64.
31.
MazzaraF (2016) Subverting the narrative of the Lampedusa borderscape. Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture7(2): 135–47.
32.
MazzaraF (2018) Objects, debris and memory of the Mediterranean passage: Porto M in Lampedusa. In: ProglioGOdassoL (eds) Border Lampedusa: Subjectivity, Visibility and Memory in Stories of Sea and Land. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 153–73.
33.
MazzaraF (2019) Reframing Migration: Lampedusa, Border Spectacle and the Aesthetics of Subversion. Oxford: Peter Lang.
ProglioGOdassoL (eds) (2018) Border Lampedusa: Subjectivity, Visibility and Memory in Stories of Sea and Land. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
36.
PuglieseJ (2009) Crisis heterotopias and border zones of the dead. Continuum23(5): 663–79.
37.
RajaramPKGrundy-WarrC (ed.) (2007) Borderscapes: Hidden Geographies and Politics at Territory’s Edge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
38.
StierlM (2016) A sea of struggle: activist border interventions in the Mediterranean Sea. Citizenship Studies20(5): 561–78.
39.
TascónSM (2015) Human Rights Film Festivals: Activism in Context. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
40.
TurnerV (1982) Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
41.
VecchiI (2016) The experience of the Askavusa Association: migrant struggle with cultural activities. Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture7(2): 165–79.
