Geografier nummer 2

GEOGRAFIER

OKTOBER 2015

TEMA: RESA

NUMMER 2

2 GEOGRAFIER GEOGRAFIER

Tidskriften Geografier

www.geografier.se facebook.com/geografier Redaktionen Johanna Adolfsson Josh Levy Emma Creathorn Malin Almgren Hanna Roos af Hjelmsäter Miron Arljung Johanna Åstrand

Prenumerationer Årsprenumeration 3 nummer 390 kr. redaktionen@geografier.se.

Tryckeri Östertälje Tryckeri Grafisk form Isabel Fahlén

Omslagsfoto Emily Fahlén

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VÄL KOM MEN! et började för ett år sedan, med ett sommarprat i P1 av en känd journalist. Hon berättade mycket gripande om skräcken hon upplevt då hon befann sig ombord en lyxkryssare som plötsligt gick på grund och sjönk. Tragedin Costa Concordia gav media en glamourös såpopera i veckor, med en fåfäng kapten som i sin iver att visa upp sitt vackra skepp sänkte detsamma till havets botten utanför den italienska ön Giglio, för att sedan desertera från sitt ansvar och fly med passagerarna i en gummibåt. Journalisten berättade om lyckan över svenska statens handlande, hur väl omhändertagna hon och hennes man blev och hur de till slut kom hem till sin familj igen.

Och jag kunde inte låta bli att tänka, men när kommer jämförelsen?

Något måste väl sägas om flyktingarna? Det kom inget sådant och det var kanske precis som det skulle. Enskilda berättelser har naturligvis alltid ett värde. Men för mig som lyssnade stod det plötsligt klart att resan som erfarenhet är under förhandling. Ungefär samtidigt dök nyheten upp att charterbolag erbjöd sina resenärer möjlighet att ta med extra tunga baggage på resan ner till Medelhavet, med kläder och annat till de anländande flyktingarna som plötsligt sågs på stranden. Utan att röra för djupt i den lösningen, kan man nog ändå konstatera att nya frågor står på agendan. Det här är Geografiers andra nummer och den här gången är temat Resa.

Vi talar om migration; på sidan 23 berättar Fredrika Uggla om hur koloniala trådar väver samman drömmar om Europa med bilden av ett hemland man måste lämna, på sidan 29 visar Emma Eriksson Maggi hur ockuperade Västbanken styckas upp av murar och rädsla och hur motstånd kan se ut, Lisa Kron reflekterar över expatkultur på s. 15, Dries Stevens frågar sig om paradiset finns att få på landsbygden för nord-europeiska livsstilsmigranter på s. 17. Vi talar om resor som kulturellt uttryck; Tomoya Suzuki har undersökt fotografi och visar på s. 10 Kiruna genom turisternas lins, Carl Ritter lägger ut reseberättelsens historia framför oss från Odysséns mytologi till Julia Roberts sökande efter livets mening på s. 12 och Miron Arljung har tittat nära på platsförståelse genom datorspel och frågar sig på s. 33 vad den utvecklade grafiken gör med vår upplevelse av verklighet. På s. 7 undrar jag över vad uthyrningssajten Airbnb gör med städer och människor och på s. 20 berättar Lina Persson berättelsen om den kanadensiska staden Vulcan som genom semantik smalt ihop med rymdeposet Star Trek.

Dessutom presenterar vi en serie ögonblicksbilder från filmprojektet If I understand you right, you are on your way home, som ställer frågan hur kunskap skapas i mötet mellan två människor. Läs mer om det på s.

35. Hela projektet finns att se på geografier.se. Med detta andra nummer av Geografier har vi velat skapa en sfär av perspektiv och vinklar för att tillsammans närma oss frågan: vad är det att resa?

JOHANNA ADOLFSSON

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TEMA: RESA

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NUMMER 2

GEOGRAFIER

Innehåll Vykort från Svalbards forskningspark, Malin Almgren

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Vi kom över havet, Emy Widén

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Utan personligt ansvar om Airbnb och mänskliga relationer, Johanna Adolfsson

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A Cultural Gaze, Tomoya Suzuki

10.

Travel Narratives from Odysseus to Julia Roberts, Carl Ritter

12.

Third Culture Kids Hur mår expatsens barn?, Lisa Kron

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In between Travelling and Staying, Dries Stevens

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The Desert Planet, Lina Persson

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Europe and the Gambia narratives, dreams and colonial power, Fredrika Uggla

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The Westbank - Restrictions of Movement and Strategies of Resistance, Emma E Maggi

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Virtuella resor, Miron Arljung

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If I understand you right, you are on your way home, Johanna Adolfsson & Amna Maksumic

35.

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s d r a b l a v S n å r f t r o k y V ningspark k s r o f TEXT: MALIN ALMGREN

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Svalbards snötäckta berg reser sig ur den arktiska oceanen. Jag har flugit över öppet hav i flera timmar, och trots att det är juni månad syns inga andra nyanser än grått, vitt och blått så långt ögat når. I högtalarna ropar de ut att det är en solig dag i Longyearbyen och att vi ska göra oss redo för landning.

Passagerarna börjar varsamt ta på sig de extra lager av jackor, mössor och vantar som de har packat ner i handbagaget. När vi går av planet möts vi av en temperatur på 5°C och snöhögar som fortfarande ligger utströdda på marken. Jag konstaterar att den korta sommaren ännu inte har hunnit töa Arktis utdragna vinter.

Väl utanför flygplatsen - som snarare är en liten väntsal - tar jag bussen in mot byn. Under färden sitter jag klistrad mot fönsterrutan för att beskåda glittrande snötäckta toppar och vidsträckta glänsande glaciärer. Men jag möts inte bara av Svalbards mäktiga natur, utan även av kvarlevor från en gruvindustri som länge präglat det storslagna landskapet; något som turistbyråerna sällan nämner i deras stolta annonser om äventyrsresor till “en av världens sista vildmarker”. De som förväntat sig att renas av den friska arktiska luften blir snart besvikna när de får syn på den stora skorstenen i hjärtat av byn.

Kolkraftverket spottar ur sig mörka moln som skär sig mot det klarvita landskapet.

Kolbrytningen har alltid spelat en central roll i den lilla arktiska byn. Det är just på grund av gruvdriften som det finns kommunikationer som gjort min och andras resor hit möjliga. Men under senare år har industrin påbörjat en nedrustning. I början av året stängde ännu en gruva ner och ett hundratal människor blev utan arbete. Nedläggningen var främst ett resultat av att kolpriserna sjunkit på den globala marknaden. Det var helt enkelt inte längre lönsamt.

Något som däremot blomstrar i det karga arktiska landskapet är turismen. På dagar då de största kryssningsfartygen lägger till vid Longyearbyens hamn kan det vara upp till tusen människor som trängs tillsammans på gatorna i den lilla byn. Turistboomen blir desto mer tydlig när bussen stannar till för att släppa av gästerna vid de moderna hotellen som byggts sedan milleniumskiftet. Men mitt stopp är inte ett turisthotell, utan Svalbards forskningspark. Ett universitetscentrum som vid sidan om turismen kommit att få allt större betydelse för Longyearbyen. Här samlas människor från hela världen som studerar allt ifrån norrsken till mikrobiologi; och själva stationen utgör endast ett tillfälligt stopp mellan de många exkursionerna i det arktiska landskapet. På en plats som har fler isbjörnar än människor tvingas alla lära sig att avfyra ett gevär. Fumligt fattar vi för första gången tag om våra vapen på skyttebanan och övar på att sikta utan att rycka till när skottet avfyras. När kvällen kommer samlas turister, forskare och gruvarbetare från världens alla hörn på en av de förvånansvärt många barerna i Longyearbyen för att avnjuta en kall öl. Jag är här för att läsa en sommarkurs om permafrost, och det är svårt att motivera en mer passande miljö för mina studier än i en arktisk by som står på pelare för att skydda den sköra marken från att tina.

GEOGRAFIER

Att läsa Julie Otsukas ”Vi kom över havet” i Sverige hösten 2015 Det är fullsatt i Kulturhuset på Plattan, i Stockholm en måndagskväll i september.

På scenen sitter en författare och talar milt på solig kaliforniska. Hon berättar om sin skrivprocess. Och hon berättar om de många japaner i 1940-talets USA som efter kriget valde att stanna kvar i de arbetsläger de internerats i, av rädsla för vad som väntade där utanför. Journalisten som leder samtalet frågar vilken den vanligaste reaktionen är från läsare av hennes bok “Vi kom över havet”? Svaret kommer snabbt: ”I had no idea.” Jag visste inte.

Inom loppet av ett par år har ordet hav succesivt fått en ny laddning i svenskan.

I kombination med över och i bestämd form lämnar det oss hösten 2015 med magont. Skulden vi känner handlar om vad vi vet. Att varje ny natt på Medelhavet innebär någons gränslösa skräck; föräldrar; jag höll i henne men jag tappade henne, jag såg henne i några sekunder men sen såg jag henne inte mer, jag såg henne aldrig mer. Skulden vi känner handlar lika mycket om vad vi inte vet. Vi vet ingenting om hur den skräcken känns. Vi är de som vet ingenting om den. Några hundra meter bort, utanför hörsalens värme och samtalets upphöjdhet, ligger Centralstationen. Där har många valt att befinna sig för att försöka hjälpa människor som stiger ner på perrongen.

Julie Otsukas senaste roman ”Vi kom över havet” utkom 2011. Översättningen av originaltiteln ”The Buddha in the Attic” kom således långt innan de som av myndigheter kallats volymer började komma över vårt semesterhav. Innan pjäser med liknande namn börjat prioriteras i kulturinstitutionernas bidragsgivning och innan de största morgontidningarna gjort specialnummer på temat. Havet Julie Otsukas bokinvånare korsar är Stilla havet. Berättelsens vi är de japanska kvinnor som mellan 1908 och 1921 lämnade sina hem för att gifta sig med japanska män bosatta i USA. Kvinnorna kallades postorderfruar, majoriteten var mellan 13 och 16 år. Migration är en historisk konstant. Skälen och omständigheterna tidsbundna. ”Vi kom över havet” är en liten bok och ett stort verk. Genom att låta otaligas upplevelser skildras genom ett kollektivt berättarjag, lockar Otsuka med poetisk precision in läsaren i det individuella lidandets brutala enkelhet. På sätt och vis har den, om än inverterat, ett släktskap med bilden på pojken på stranden, ja vi vet vilken vi menar. Fotot som fick insikten om det enskilda ödet att förmänskliga massan. Vi förstod att vi inte förstått. Ett fotografi av en absolut verklighet som utifrån en medial logik kunde bli ett exempel på berättandets styrka kontra problematiken med information. Och andra trygga debatter.

Varför ska vi läsa ”Vi kom över havet” i Sverige hösten 2015? För att få kunskap om hur den japanska befolkningen i USA behandlades under första hälften av 1900-talet - det har utelämnats i den allmänna historieskrivningen. Men också för att människor återigen kommer över havet och precis som de japanska flickorna lämnat för att aldrig återvända. Något om dettas natur behöver vi förstå och något om detta berättar boken.

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TEXT: EMY WIDÉN

NUMMER 2

TEMA: RESA

Utan personligt ansvar - om Airbnb och m채nskliga relationer

TEXT: JOHANNA ADOLFSSON ILLUSTRATION: JENNIFER BERGKVIST

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edan ett par år tillbaka dominerar San Fransiscofödda sajten Airbnb marknaden för korttidsuthyrning. Att ordna sitt boende genom Airbnb är ett sätt att uppleva en friare och geniunare semester. Att undvika hotell för att istället hyra en privat bostad är dessutom en livsstilsmarkör. Men i takt med att sajten växt till en miljardindustri växer frågorna: hur stor inverkan har Airbnb på den lokala bostadsmarknaden egentligen och vad gör det människor emellan när det egna hemmet blir en handelsvara? Är Airbnb en fysisk manifestering av den globala människan, hipstern som känner mer samhörighet med en främling i San Francisco än med sin granne en våning ner och i så fall, hur känns det?

Det är indiansommar i Stockholm och konflikt i bostadsrättsföreningen Bastukatten på Mariaberget. Stockholms hyresnämnd har kopplats in och dömer i augusti till föreningens fördel. Beslutet är inte prejudicerande, men sänder en signal att något håller på att hända.

Och det är inte bara i Sverige. Flera stora europeiska städer har nyligen ändrat i sin lagstiftning kring vad som är tillåten korttidsuthyrning. Sedan ett par år tillbaka dominerar uthyrningssajten Airbnb marknaden. Svenska Dagbladet var tidiga med att publicera nyheten om hyresnämndens beslut och sjösatte därefter en lång artikelserie på tema Airbnb. Det är relevant! Mycket lite har skrivits i svensk press om det växande fenomenet som väcker så många frågor. Det nya sättet att enkelt hyra ut sitt boende per natt till turister har inte bara radikalt ändrat storstadsturismen – åtminstone för vissa grupper! - utan också skapat nya demografiska mekanismer i de lokala bostadsmarknaderna.

Barcelona, Paris och Berlin har på kort tid lagstiftat (SvD 15.09.21) mot tillfällig uthyrning med det uttryckliga argumentet att lokal befolkning trängs ut då centrala lägenheter kan generera månadshyror på ett par dagar. Det är naturligtvis ingen nyhet att hyra ut sitt hem.

Stugor, rum och lägenheter har förmedlats genom olika sajter så länge internet funnits och i papperstidning före det. Det som skiljer ut Airbnb är omfattningen. Airbnb omsätter 300 miljoner kronor per år på att sälja små värdefulla paket av hem och mänskliga möten, där gränsen mellan det privata och det professionella är svårdragen. Nå, det konstgjorda hemmet är lika lite en nyhet. Hemtrivsel och gemenskap är hotell-, och kanske ännu mer hostel-, industrins fundament. Det som skiljer ut fenomenet Airbnb är industrialisering av hemmet. För vad utgör ett hem?

Ett par veckor efter hyresnämndens beslut publicerar Svenska Dagbladet en text med rubriken ”Till Airbnbs försvar”, där SvD-journalisten Andreas Bergh (SvD 15.09.13) raljerar över futtigheten i kritikernas klagomål: “Med tanke på dessa tjänsters popularitet gissar jag att en tillåtande hållning mot korttidsuthyrningar kommer att öka lägenhetspriset på samma sätt som ett avklarat stambyte eller en snabb internetuppkoppling. Det är en gissning, inte en prognos. Jag kanske underskattar människors betalningsvilja för att slippa okända som inte hälsar i trappuppgången.”

Han har förmodligen rätt i att lägenhetens multipla funktion som både hem och guldgruva skulle kunna generera en brant stigande värdekurva, varför inte? Bostaden har ju som genom ett trollslag placerats i både den lokala bostadsmarknaden och den globala. Men grannarna klagar, enligt Bergh, på felsorterade sopor, fester och gäster om inte hälsar i trappupp-gången. De verkar inte värdesätta den väntade värdeökningen. Bergh ger uttryck för ett maskinellt och statiskt förhållningssätt till bostaden, där väggar och trösklar utgör hemmet snarare än levd erfarenhet, minnen och relationer. Och jag förstår honom!

Vi har blivit vana att se allt från boende till relationer i marknadsvärde1. Men ändå. Det är paradoxalt. För är det inte just relationella värden den söker som hyr en lägenhet genom Airbnb? En stor del av värdskapet går ut på att skriva personliga brev till sina gäster med tips på små hippa barer och andra smultronställen i grannskapet. Värden ska vara tillgänglig och behjälplig för sina gäster. Den som önskar hyra ska spela in en film på sig själv!

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En bit av mig kan sympatisera med Berghs uppgivenhet inför det tysta, töntiga folket som går i taket över läckande ljud och pizzakartonger. Ska normen i staden verkligen vara tyst och rent? Men vinklingen missar målet. Airbnb lever på rena, vackra innerstadslägenheter med ett nära på, eller helt igenom, regisserade ”hem”. Lång ifrån alla lägenheter är bostäder, de är bara inredda som sådana. Det sajten säljer är äkthet och relationella värden och det förutsätter ett maskinellt synsätt. Häri ligger paradoxen. Men äkthet är ett falskt begrepp som skiftar nyans när vi sträcker ut armarna och försöker känna på dess yta. Vad händer när lokalbefolkningen inte längre har råd att bo kvar, som i Berlin, Paris, Barcelona?

Det som återstår är väggar och trösklar.

Några som tagit fasta på det glokaliserade elementet av Airbnb är sajten rentingyourplace. com, en onlinetjänst för den som vill optimera sin lägenhetsuthyrning. Sidan erbjuder bland annat en lång rad inredningstips på hur en värd kan maximera efterfrågan på sitt boende, genom att ”create an authentic, local getaway by integrating aspects of the surrounding city into your rental property”. Bor du vid en strand? Häng en surfbräda på väggen och lägg snäckskal i en skål. Uppe i bergen? Fårskinn, furu och inramade fotografier på en avlägsen vildmark. För stadsbon rekommenderas Bachelor Pad, Global Traveler, Mad Men eller Zen Urban Retreat (Buddhist yoga hangout). Det är som hipsterkulturens fysiska inkarnation. Grundarna, Scott Shatford och Will Jardine har också startat den statistik- och analysbaserade systern Airdna – en sajt som erbjuder detaljerad data för alla stora städer, Stockholm också. Genomsnittspriset för en lägenhet landar på 120 dollar per natt. Dubbelt upp om det är en stor lägenhet. Uthyrning av enskilda rum är relativt jämnt spridd över staden medan hela lägenheter är koncentrerat till innerstaden, framförallt Södermalm.

1 Läs till exempel Lyckliga i Alla sina dagar av Nina Björk 2 Läs http://www.theguardian. com/technology/2015/jul/28/ uber-lawlessness-sharingeconomy-corporates-airbnbgoogle

Det finns naturligtvis en mängd fantastiska saker med att hyra en lägenhet istället för att bo på hotell! Det kan tillföra resan helt nya dimensioner! Och det finns lika många goda anledningar att hyra ut sitt hem. Men visst är det konstigt att vi knappt pratar om det? Vilka krafter är jag en del av – politiskt, demografiskt och mänskligt? Vad sätter jag i rörelse med min lägenhet eller min resa? Och har jag ansvar för det?

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Äkthet må vara falskt, men människor är förhoppningsvis på riktigt. Därför uppstår konflikter. Airbnb är en ”delningsekonomi”, precis som taxitjänsten Uber. Det är en komplicerad term2. Speciellt komplicerad när den appliceras på tjänster om Uber och Airbnb. Vad är det som delas i sammanhanget? Ordet har konnotationer till någon typ av diffus frihet från systemet men i händerna på jättarna Uber och Airbnb utgör det snarare en dimmridå för laglöst kapital. Gemensamt är skiftet från professionell kontakt till personlig. Därigenom skiftar även konflikten form. Taxifacket är vansinniga på Uber och menar att deras verksamhet underminerar taxichaufförernas villkor.

Airbnb erbjuder konfliktlösning och fungerar som en typ av förmedlande domare där båda parter förbinder sig att följa beslutet som fattas. Men på ett mellanmänskligt plan är en konflikt mellan värd och gäst något annat än mellan hotell och gäst, helt enkelt därför att hem är något annat än hotellrum. Relationer kan inte vara en facilitet - Airbnb:s PR-avdelnings försök att skapa en global vänskapsrörelse till trots. Det vore för nedslående. Det som är så spännande med Airbnb är hur gränserna mellan det privata och det professionella mötet i en lägenhet går som svallvågor upp och ner, och skapar nya mönster i staden omkring. Fenomenet rör sig transcendentalt mellan det globala och det lokala, ekonomiskt och socialt – faktum är att begreppet glokalisering sällan varit mer passande.

GEOGRAFIER

TEXT & FOTO: TOMOYA SUZUKI

Photography and tourism have been developing in parallel with each other, and leaving memories of the trip in photographs still remains a significant part of travelling today. Tourist photograph is an effective tool to display the way each tourist perceives the destination they visited. Tomoya Suzuki investigates images of Kiruna, Sweden, utilized in the citys promotion as a tourist destination to understand how it is expected to be perceived by tourists. The images are compared with tourist photographs to understand how they actually respond to the expectation.

The thesis A cultural gaze? by Tomoya Suzuki was published by Ume책 University in spring 2015. The study aims to add a new perspective to the concept of hermeneutic circle proposed by John Urry (1990).

It takes particular note of nationality and culture, and focuses on two specific tourist groups in Kiruna: Japanese and German tourists. The study investigates differences between these nationality groups in the way they perceive Kiruna as a tourist destination. In order to fulfil the aim, Volunteer Employed Photography (VEP) was applied and photographs taken in Kiruna were collected. In order to enrich the photographic data, semistructured interviews were conducted with each study participant. The results revealed that the study participants photographed subjects that both appeared and not appeared in the promotional images of Kiruna. The study also revealed that there were certain differences between Japanese and German tourists in the way they perceived Kiruna and each nationality group has its own hermeneutic circle.

While there were subjects that attracted both German and Japanese participants such as the northern lights and the ICEHOTEL, there were also certain subjects that intrigued only one of the nationality groups.

For instance, German participants (right) showed their strong interest in wilderness, untouched nature and the snow; however, Japanese participants (left) were highly interested in hotel facilities and local cuisines.

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NUMMER 2

A CULTURAL GAZE?

TEMA: RESA

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GEOGRAFIER

TEXT: CARL RITTER ILLUSTRATION: SANDRA BJÖRN

Travel Narratives: From Odysseus to Julia Roberts 12

NUMMER 2

Since the beginning of recorded history, human beings have told tales of travelling.

Homer’s Odyssey and Cervantes’ Don Quixote are famous examples, as is a modern cult classic such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy. An examination of these and other travel narratives provides an opportunity to explore the ideological assumptions surrounding travelling – and, as we shall see, such assumptions are rife. In this essay I shall first briefly outline the formal structure of the travel narrative – this structure has remained remarkably stable over time. Next, however, it will be argued that the content of the travel narrative is highly sensitive to changing historical circumstances. Through a comparison of old and new travel representations, it will be argued that the genre has undergone a process of thematic diversification. Whereas historically the predominant theme has been heroic pursuit of adventurous “quests”, many of today’s travel narratives are of a more “spiritual” character, chronicling the transformation of the travelling subject in a “cosmopolitan” direction.

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TEMA: RESA

Travel narratives old and new Following Vladimir Propp’s (1928) seminal study of Russian folktales, narrative structure is often conceptualized as the unfolding of a series of interconnected “functions”. Applying this schema to travel narratives, Jasmine Goodnow and Edward Ruddell (2009) have conceptualized these as “quest narratives” comprising four distinct functions: “Call to Journey”, “Preparation”, “The Journey”, and “Returning Home” (ibid.: 244ff). Already from these labels we can see that the structure of the travel narrative mirrors that of touristic, and indeed most other forms of travelling – the tale begins with the protagonist for some reason being propelled to leave home, continues with the voyage itself, and ends with the protagonist returning home.

If we now turn to a consideration of the content of these narratives, the classic travel-quest is the type of adventure story we encountered in the introduction. Carl Thompson (2011: 69) has labeled these “heroic” quests, chronicling as they do the protagonist slaying a dragon, liberating a princess, or, as is often the case, saving the world from wholesale destruction.

We may take the Odyssey as an example of this type of heroic quest narrative; Arthur Asa Berger has gone so far as to label Odysseus “the paradigmatic exemplar of the traveller”, while arguing that “the Odyssey also can be seen as a model for novels of adventure and perhaps for all novels, for most stories involve some kind of movement or travel” (2013: 114).

In a discussion of early travel accounts, Casey Blanton (2002) situates these historically.

She argues that the purpose of much pre-modern travelling consisted in “political exploration” or “mercantile errands” (ibid.: 5), and that therefore Marco Polo and other writers of nonfictional travel accounts from this period saw it as their mission to describe newly-explored parts of the world. The travelling subject occupied a subordinate role in these accounts. Fast forward a few centuries and the globe had been fully explored, or even conquered, by Western travellers. What is more, in modernity’s wake followed mass affluence, and mass affluence made it possible for broader layers to travel. We now enter the age of tourism. As Blanton notes, this implied travelling “for its own sake” (ibid.: 3), rather than for the sake of exploration or conquest. As a result, the genre underwent a profound transformation, as “spiritual” travelquests (Goodnow and Ruddell 2009: 242) became more common.

A characteristic trait of these spiritual travel narratives is that they imagine the voyage as simultaneously a literal and a metaphorical one; the former “outer” and the latter “inner” (ibid.).

Although self-transformation had long been a narrative thread in fictional travel stories, with the voyage imagined as a rite of passage of sorts, it now came to be thought of as the main purpose of the journey rather than as its by-effect. In spiritual travel narratives the journey is typically motivated by spiritual dissatisfaction; the journey itself is seen as a “mind-broadening” sequence of events; and the “returning home” stage is marked by the traveler’s attainment of a new and improved self. In other words, these narratives retain the quest-structure but they dispense with the dragon-slaying in favor of envisioning the voyage as a form of identity-work.

GEOGRAFIER

The 2010 travel film Eat Pray Love can be taken as a paradigmatic case of this kind of travel story. In that movie, which is based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 memoir of the same name, Gilbert – played by Julia Roberts – goes through a divorce, is displeased with her urban middle-class lifestyle and as result decides to travel the world. Visiting Italy, India, and Bali, Gilbert undergoes transformation as a result of the encounter with cultural otherness. Notably, this transformation is in a cosmopolitan direction – exemplifying, as it does, Ulrich Beck’s definition of the cosmopolitan as someone who constructs his or her identity “by dipping freely into a Lego set of globally available identities” (2006: 4f).

And arguably, the attempt to attain a “cosmopolitan self” is a mainstay in many contemporary travel representations. It features prominently in an endless array of televisual travel shows, and it has been parodied by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant in An Idiot Abroad (2010-2012), wherein “idiocy” is equated with a failure to undergo cosmopolitan self-transformation as a result of travelling. The juxtaposition of Eat Pray Love and An Idiot Abroad also underlines the classed and gendered nature of many spiritual travel narratives – in these, self-transformatory travelling is more likely to be the business of middle-class women than of working-class men like Karl Pilkington, the eponymous idiot of An Idiot Abroad. The prominent place occupied by gender ideals in travel narratives is of course not a novelty – most heroic travel-quests have been, and are still today, tales of male heroism.

Mind-broadening or cultural capital?

What does the conjunction of travelling, self-transformatory discourses, and cosmopolitan selfhood in recent travel narratives tell us about the status of travelling in today’s society?

First, on a general level, it exemplifies the widespread view of travelling as a learning experience, as expressed in the popular saying “travel broadens the mind”. This notion is so entrenched in contemporary culture that it may seem a truism, but in its more euphoric manifestations it tends to obscure a consideration of broader issues related to travel and tourism, for instance the considerable stress placed on the environment by our desire to broaden the mind by travelling, rather than, say, by reading books or watching television.

Second, it testifies to the status of travelling as a highly valued form of cultural capital. To be “well traveled” is in today’s society a symbol of social status, but it is easy to forget that travelling remains a costly activity and as such is not available in equal measure to all layers of society. Combined with a celebration of the mind-broadening effects of travel this tends toward a conflation of social privilege and supposedly enlightened states of mind. This can also be seen in the widely held view of affordable “mass tourism” as vulgar and as unlikely to result in any significant intellectual advances, unlike forms of vacationing associated with better-off social groups.

Third, and relatedly, contemporary travel narratives are testament to cosmopolitan selfhood having achieved the status of hegemonic ideal in today’s Western society, and to the role of travelling as a privileged site for the construction of such selfhood. In many cases, however, it is questionable whether the type of cosmopolitanism featured in contemporary travel narratives offers a constructive response to the cultural challenges posed by globalization. Behind the celebration of difference lurks exoticism and relativism; rather than pointing the way toward a shared culture dynamically constituted through critical debate, such cosmopolitanism tends to romanticize backwardness, essentialize culture, and thereby block the development of a more rational unity of humankind.

These reservations notwithstanding, travel representations have throughout the ages offered an environmentally-friendly way to learn about distant cultures, an aesthetic vehicle with which to fruitfully explore identity-related issues, and, not to be forgotten, the genre has provided us with some of the greatest stories ever told. If we wish to understand travelling as a social, cultural, and economic phenomenon, then a consideration of the genre’s characteristic association of travelling with heroism and enlightenment is indispensable.

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TEXT: LISA KRON

M

an uppskattar att det bara i EU finns mer än 33 miljoner så kallade expats (Eurostats 2012). I länder som Luxemburg och Lichtenstein utgör de mer än en tredjedel av befolkningen. Antalet expat i världen har ökat årligen med 2,4 % sedan 2009 (Finaccord). För de som vill åka ut i världen med sin familj finns det många lockande erbjudanden och jobb att välja mellan. Det är lätt att se fördelar för hela familjen. Utmaningar i karriären och möten med nya människor och miljöer är några. Barnen möter nya kulturer och får vänner runt om i världen. Förutom glädjen att dela spännande upplevelser och fina minnen tillsammans, har ofta föräldrarna förhoppningar om att barnen ska få erfarenheter som ska göra de mer toleranta och fördomsfria. Vissa föräldrar hoppas också att barnens erfarenheter ska förbereda dem för framtida arbetsliv. Forskning visar att barn som spenderar en stor del av sin uppväxt i olika kulturer utvecklar en större kulturell tolerans och ett större intresse av språk och kulturer i allmänhet än de som bott i samma land hela sin uppväxt; de skaffar i större utsträckning än genomsnittet, höga utbildningar. (Gerner et al 1992). De tre största grupperna internationella familjer är militärfamiljer, missionärfamiljer och familjer där föräldrarna jobbar i multinationella företag. Barnen går i internationella skolor. Migration har förekommit i alla tider men det utmärkande med denna snabbt växande grupp är att familjerna behåller medborgarskap och pass i sitt ursprungsland. Deras tid i landet är dessutom uttalat tillfällig och familjerna flyttar runt mellan olika länder och kontinenter.

Third Culture Kid eller TCK är en person som har spenderat en betydande del av sin uppväxt i kulturer andra än sina föräldrars. Föräldrarnas jobb har skapat en uppväxt med ständiga flyttar mellan olika kulturer. Däremot har de sällan bott i passlandet – ­ det land som en TCK har sitt pass utfärdat till och formellt tillhör. Många TCK återvänder av olika skäl till sitt passland när de börjar universitetet. Ett skäl är att när ett barn blir myndigt ingår de inte automatiskt längre i föräldrarnas visum. Ett annat är universitetskostnader. Grundskola och gymnasium för barnen i familjen ingår ofta i föräldrarnas anställningskontrakt. Det gör däremot inte universitet. Det kan också vara så att föräldrarna arbetar i ett land som inte har universitet på den nivå de vill att deras barn ska studera.

Begreppet TCK myntades i början av 1960-talet, av Ruth Hill Useem professor i psykologi och sociologi vid University of Wisconsin. Ruth bedrev tillsammans med sin man forskning i bland annat Indien och tillbringade långa perioder utomlands. Det som familjen och främst barnen upplevde både när de levde i en kultur så olik deras egen och det de upplevde när de kom hem och skulle hitta tillbaka till sin gamla värld var det som fick Useem att intressera sig för dessa barn. Första kulturen menade Useem var den kultur föräldrarna tillhörde och det landet familjens pass var utfärdade till. Andra kulturen var den nya kultur familjen flyttade till och vistades i. Med uttrycket Third Culture, menade hon den kultur uppstår i den tillvaro som familjer som bor utomlands delar och som faktiskt har blivit en kultur i sig.

Denna tredje kultur som Useem intresserade sig för skapas i så kallade expat compounds, bostadområden arbetsgivare ordnar till sina anställda utomlands. Där finns, förutom bostäder, olika faciliteter för de boende; barnpassning, affärer, skola och sociala aktiviteter av olika slag.

Det gemensamma språket, ofta engelska, är oberoende av vilket land detta bostadsområde ligger i. Det blir en egen värld där familjerna kan få allt de behöver. Barnen kan växa upp här utan direkt kontakt med lokalbefolkningen ­de går ofta inte i samma skola som landets barn.

Barnen blir ofta bättre på språket som talas i bostadsområdet än på sitt eget modersmål och nästan alltid är det språket starkare hos TCK barnen än landets språk, även efter många år.

Familjernas sociala nätverk består till största del av andra internationella familjer. Dessa barn möter en annan värld och en annan kultur, men det är inte landets kultur utan en expatkultur.

Så vilka kulturella utmaningar möter en TCK? En individs kultur är en mental ram för hur individen motiverar och väljer sina handlingar och beteende. Samma mentala ramar avgör också hur individen bedömer och utvärderar andras handlingar och beteende. I dagliga livet när man lever i det kulturella sammanhang man känner samhörighet med, märker man inte sin kulturella identitet särskilt mycket. Det är i möte med andra kulturer som den egna kulturen framträder och blir ifrågasatt. Man kan dela in den kulturella identiteten i tre delar. Hur jag själv ser på

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Third Culture Kids - hur mår expatsens barn?

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GEOGRAFIER

min kulturella tillhörighet, hur omvärlden ser på min kulturella identitet och hur den kulturella grupp jag själv anser mig tillhöra, definierar mig (Sussman 2009).

Många studier visar att återvändandet till hemlandet är det jobbigaste och det som utmanar den kulturella identiteten mest. Barnen har förväntningar om att äntligen komma hem efter åren utomlands. För vissa TCK blir återvändandet ett omskakande möte med hemlandet och den tillhörighet som de förväntade känna uteblir. Vissa återvändare, om än toleranta mot alla andra kulturer, är väldigt kritiska och negativa när det gäller deras eget hemland. Många har orimliga förväntningar på sitt hemland och får en chock när de upptäcker att landet inte lever upp till dessa förväntningar. Forskare kallar det reverse culture shock, omvänd kulturchock. Om de inte är väl förberedda när de återvänder till sitt hemland för universitetsstudier kan de råka ut för en allvarlig identitetskris. Vissa blir deprimerade och drar sig undan.

Upptäckten att de inte känner sig som hemma ens ”hemma” kan bli en allvarlig och livshotande situation (Pollock & Van Reken 2006). Andra återvändare har berättat att de kände en stor press att anpassa sig på ytan men behöll sin individualitet inom sig. Detta leder till inre konflikt mellan det yttre och det inre jaget. (Yoshida et al 2002). Många TCK känner sig som dolda invandrare (Walters 2006). De ser ut som alla andra och låter som alla andra men på grund av sin unika erfarenhet känner de sig mycket annorlunda.

TCK fortsätter ofta som vuxna att flytta runt och jobba i flera olika länder. Men denna drift kan också vara tecken på rotlöshet. Begreppet kulturell hemlöshet återkommer ofta i litteratur som berör TCK. Många TCK har en känsla av att höra hemma överallt och samtidigt ingenstans. De känner en känsla av utanförskap och har svårigheter att knyta an (Lewis, TCKWorld. com). Många upplever ett djupt trauma och blir deprimerade. Studier talar om en känslomässig, existentiell och själslig kris (Peter Linnett 2005) samt upplevelse av stark längtan att åka hem och en sorg över att det faktiskt inte finns ett hem att åka till. Man har funnit ett samband mellan denna så kallade kulturella hemlöshet och låg självkänsla (Hoersting 2009). Forskningen visar också att personer som benämner sig själva som TCK, generellt har lägre självkänsla och upplever mer kulturell hemlöshet än andra.

Det är viktigt att komma ihåg att även om många upplever återvändandet som något väldigt jobbigt så gör inte alla det och varje individ har sin egen upplevelse. Skillnaden kan t.ex. bestå i om de som återvände “hem” kom till en skola med många andra återvändare eller inte (Yoshida et al 2009).

Många TCK har det utåt sett mycket bra. De får resa runt i världen och har ofta möjlighet att gå i mycket ansedda skolor. Med denna text har jag velat uppmärksamma de kulturella utmaningar barn möter när de växer upp i expatområden. Jag har försökt att visa vilka problem dessa barn kan ha med att hitta sin kulturella identitet och hur det påverkar dem som unga vuxna. Att bo i ett expatområde kan verka bekvämt och enkelt när familjen vistas tillfälligt i ett främmande land men förstår familjerna vilka nackdelar som det också kan föra med sig? Hade det varit bättre att bo bland lokalbefolkningen även om det var mindre bekvämt? Min förhoppning är att med mer kunskap och medvetenhet om både fördelar och utmaningar kan föräldrar, skola och företag stötta dessa barn i deras utveckling och på så sätt öka deras chanser att växa upp till harmoniska och välfungerande individer.

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In Between Travelling and Staying: Exploring the Phenomenon of Lifestyle Migration TEMA: RESA

TEXT: DRIES STEVENS FOTO: ANNA SUNDVALL

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GEOGRAFIER

I

n August 2015 I embarked on a six-week ethnographic fieldwork period in the small rural locality of Grönbo (pseudonym), a countryside village in central-eastern Sweden. A few weeks earlier I came into contact with a Belgian couple who were living there and who were willing to host me for that period. When I arrived at the local train station they were waiting for me and during the scenic drive to their property, the place where I would be living for the next six weeks, I could immediately sense the features that drew them to this place initially. The quaint little red houses, the meadows, the lakes, the forests and the fields all looked as if they could be scripted right out of a tourist brochure or even a Pippi Långstrump novel. Listening to them talk about the region and how moving to Sweden had always been one of their dreams, made me feel enthusiastic about the place. To me, it seemed as if my hosts were ‘living the dream’.

Together with some other Belgian, Dutch and German migrants, my hosts constituted the local community of lifestyle migrants. For them, the prospect of acquiring a better lifestyle constituted the prime motivator for the move abroad. Hence, one can say that lifestyle migration is a very aspirational form of migration, characterised by a pursuit of dreams, self-realisation and individual happiness. Most commonly, writings on the subject of lifestyle migration refer to the following definition, first posed by Benson & O’Reilly (2009): “Lifestyle Migration is the spatial mobility of relatively affluent individuals of all ages, moving either part-time or full-time to places that are meaningful because, for various reasons, they offer the potential of a better quality of life” (Benson & O’Reilly 2009: pp.621 emphasis added).

Lifestyle migration refers to a broad phenomenon taking different forms and shapes; from the migration of retirees to sea-side resorts in Spain, to those who migrate in pursuit of spirituality in India or perhaps in pursuit of a better life in rural Sweden. Despite the fact that these mobilities and the people involved in the process geographically and demographically differ, there are some common characteristics that unite them as a group. Lifestyle migrants are characterised by their relative affluence in the form of economic wealth and citizenship of certain powerful nation states. To put it a bit more bluntly, lifestyle migrants are mostly white individuals belonging to the middle classes.

Lifestyle migration is also a very fluid form of migration inspired by tourism and is therefore often put between the poles of tourism and migration. Prospective migrants often visit their new home regions extensively and in their postmigration lives the country of origin is often visited. One can therefore even say that tourist experiences and tourist imaginaries play an important part in the lifestyle migration experience. The potential of a better quality of life that is ascribed to rural areas can be rooted in the cultural imagination of the rural idyll or in other words the idea that rural areas are defined by peace, quiet and solidarity among its inhabitants. Through conversations with lifestyle migrants in Grönbo it became clear that appropriating a lifestyle promised by the rural idyll underscored the decision to move to rural Sweden. Some municipalities in rural Sweden, especially those suffering from economic deprivation and depopulation, see the arrival of lifestyle migrants as a welcome event. They have the economic means to buy properties, generate employment by starting their own businesses and aid in rejuvenating the area. In the last decade there

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even have been some municipalities, such as Hällefors and Ockelbo, that have actively tried to attract these migrants by establishing migration projects.

In addition, Swedish municipalities often have an outspoken presence on emigration fairs in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. These dynamics, among other things, translate into the slow but steady rise of a Western-European presence in the Swedish countryside.

Whether or not these people are successful in attaining this desired idyllic lifestyle in rural Sweden is of course a different question and through my research I found out that the answer can be rather ambiguous. On the one hand, these people are living in very aesthetically pleasing environments and they are actively working to make their new lifestyles work through investing a lot of time and money in the refurbishment of their properties, finding employment, learning the language, tending to a garden etc. On the other hand, some people found out that their initial “move-in join-philosophy”, i.e. the idea that they could easily participate in the social life of the community directly after their migration, was maybe a bit naïve, as things such as finding employment easily and getting acquainted with locals seems to be out of the migrants’ control. People like to frame their migration as a success, but for many lifestyle migrants the reality has to be much more nuanced. Some even feel excluded and isolated. And since lifestyle migrants move voluntary - they can also leave easily. Hence, can dreams become a part of reality? Or do they stay what they are, just dreams, and disappear when you wake up?

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----Lifestyle migration as a field of scientific enquiry is merely in its infancy but already denotes a bourgeoning field of research. In case you are interested in this phenomenon yourself, the book Understanding Lifestyle Migration, edited

by Michaela Benson and Nick Osbaldiston (2014) offers a good place to start.

GEOGRAFIER

The Desert Planet

Vulcan’s hallmark used to be nine high grain elevators in a row, used by the farmers to store their crops and referred to as The nine in line. They could be seen from far distances on the otherwise flat prairies of Alberta, Canada. When you look at the many organizations working with documenting, preserving and writing the history of the grain elevators it is clear that they also had a symbolical value for the farming identity and the rural prairie life.

Today they are gone and a model of the space ship Enterprise from the TV-series Star Trek stands in their place.

This new monument refers to its location on semiotic basis.

In the fictitious Star Trek universe there exists a planet and a species with the same name; Vulcan(s). When the Star Trek series became popular in the late 60´s the town was associated with the planet Vulcan. Star Trek fans that were excited about this semiotic connection travelled to Vulcan as a way to practice their fanship. The Star Trek fan movement is one of the strongest and most active in expressing their favourite fiction, and today Vulcan, Alberta is actively working to be associated with Star Trek in order to boost its tourism industry.

TEXT & FOTO LINA PERSSON

In the year of 1910 the railway was expanding in all directions and along it, dots of beginning towns. In a distant territory a fertile area was surveyed. The staff at the railway chose to name the place Vulcan, after the roman god of fire, volcanoes and the manufacturer of art, arms, iron and armour. After a year the greatest grain elevator of the prairie was built in Vulcan, and fourteen prosperous agricultural businesses had already been established. By 1921 Vulcan was considered a town. It became famous for its great utilitarian monuments; The nine in line. But in the late 60´s things started to change; the harvest wasn’t as rich as before, a steady temperature rise and sudden heat waves made farming difficult. In 1971 an inexplicable fire burnt all nine elevators to the ground.[1]

Technological fix Star Trek presents a version of the future where humans have developed technologies that supply unlimited energy.

The ecological balance of earth is restored without restricting the comfort of humans (Costanza 2000). Vulcan, Alberta too put hope in technology to limit the effects of global warming. Cloud seeding, the method of spraying clouds with silver iodine in order to make it rain has been

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project, a sort of fan fiction. The myth construction tying Vulcan, Alberta, and Star Trek together was in the beginning a project for the ST fans who projected their fantasies and desires onto this Canadian town. But when realizing the possibilities the citizens also started taking part in it. As the community organizer Greg Dietz expresses it; “A lot of people asked us where our pointed ears are or if everybody in Vulcan has green blood and so on, and finally we decided maybe it wasn’t such a joke, we could do something with it” (CBS News 1990). Having both landmarks and themes, Vulcan, Alberta have every possibility to pull off a successful city branding campaign, making the town into a coherent product that can be recognized and marketed.

Fanfiction, Narration and City branding Some fictions become so popular that they continue to be written and expanded by others than its original authors and producers. Some fans take an active part in expanding their favourite fiction by writing continuations and alterations that builds upon it. This writing of fan fiction is often a collective effort where exchange of texts and dialogue is the base of a community that shares an interest in a specific fiction. The citizens in Vulcan, Alberta creates a fan fiction in a constant performance[2]. They arrange festivals, masquerades, and conventions where Star Trek storylines are acted out, construct monuments and buildings and offer food and drinks from the Star Trek cookbook[3]. Thanks to Vulcan, Alberta’s identity construct, they can claim the right to host the premiere of the next ST feature film, which would definitely improve their economical situation.

The city Vulcan’s capitalization on Star Trek is a narrative

Seemingly separate things: the fan-film fanmo jimte Star Trek is a fiction spun out of the North American consciousness continuously for more than fifty years, and it has constantly been revisited and reworked by fan communities.

Fan fiction is a process of on the one hand internalizing a fiction and on the other adjusting that fiction according to current conditions, very similar to my own working process.

Geographies become fictions that we write with our technologies. The geographical place Vulcan, Alberta and the StarTrek fan fiction are intertwined and they recreate each other in a dialogue.

The connection between Vulcan, Alberta and Vulcan the planet went much further than just the name. In Vulcan, Alberta an imitation of the planet was being performed, but also the actual geology seemed to take part in this imitation. The droughts made the fields look like deserts. My fan-

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used occasionally in Vulcan, Alberta since the middle of the 60´s (CBS 2002). For desperate farmers facing bankruptcy, it has been a last desperate attempt to save their crops.

Also in other parts of the world this method has been used and it has caused conflicts when different regions fight for ownership of the rain. The quest to control weather results in countless innovations. For example at the US government’s National Centre for Atmospheric Research a project on cloud producing machines floating on the sea surface is being developed. The hope is to reduce global warming through making fluffy white clouds that will reflect more sunrays back into space.

GEOGRAFIER

film fanmo jimte expanded the already existing fictions to embrace how a certain narrative about technology drives a certain ecological development. The cloud-seeding project and Vulcan, Alberta’s approach to the earth was fulfilling Star Trek’s prophecy on “nature thanks to technology” The attempt to use technology to stop the effects of climate change only made it more similar to planet Vulcan and a desert. During my own process I came to the conclusion that became the film’s premise; the association between Vulcan, Alberta and Vulcan the planet wasn’t that farfetched after all. Vulcan, Alberta is the planet Vulcan.

The opening words of this essay is the introductory voiceover of my film & degree project fanmo jimte.

I became interested in this town ten years ago and was following its development for many years. This farming community, that seemed to be in the middle of a transformation, both economically and culturally, inspired me to get involved in its project and build upon it to include my perspective on it. My fan-film starts as a documentary and ends as a science-fiction, the main character transforms from a farmer to an extraterrestrial and tells the story in the synthetic language Lojban. One of the aims with Lojban was to enable humans to talk to computers, but it is also an attempt to enable new ways of thinking by removing limits in the language. The title fanmo jimte is Lojban for final frontier, the Star Trek slogan.

The process behind the film was organic and improvised. In my research about Vulcan I accumulated an archive. As a way for me to figure out what all this meant I continuously worked with interpreting, processing and organizing this collected material.

I made mind maps and tried to find the common denominators. I kept a “video sketch book” to reveal narrative connections. By inserting the fragments into a video editing project I forced the material into linear order and stories took shape. Every day brings more material, new connections and narratives emerge. I see the material in the light of what happened during the day, and I see what happens during the day through the material I constantly revisit. I keep my eyes open for what seems to be missing parts in the emerging narratives. In Hungary I found agricultural environments from the Canadian 70’ies, in Denmark I found sci-fi desert landscapes and in Turkey close up railway shots. Sometimes I reconstructed a farmer’s home in my living room, asked an actress to stage a situation, recorded scenes with the local Star Trek fan club or animated a weather shift. In the process I also performed cloud experiments and used weather and climate as my tools; reflecting over the technological engulfment of nature.

[1] This is the story of the Canadian town Vulcan, Alberta (AB) and the introductory voiceover of my film & degree project fanmo jimte. I became interested in this town ten years ago and was following its development for many years. This farming community, that seemed to be in the middle of a transformation, both economically and culturally, inspired me to get involved in its project and build upon it to include my perspective on it.

[2] On the ST fan history wiki# fan fictions from 1967 to present time is shared. I added the story about Vulcan, Alberta to this archive and the story about the city as the birthplace of Spock, is now officially a Star Trek fan fiction. According to Henry Jenkins, fan fiction is about stretching its [the original texts] boundaries to incorporate their concerns, remoulding its characters to better suit their desires# (p. 156).

[3] Phillips, Ethan, (1999)The Star Trek Cookbook, Paramount pictures

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What dreams, ideas and stories makes young men leave their home for a deadly journey to another continent? Fredrika Uggla met with clandestine migrants and found narratives of Europe, the Gambia and masculinity - produced by colonial structures of power and the gendered idea of ‘a successful son’.

TEXT: FREDRIKA UGGLA

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Europe and the Gambia narratives, dreams and colonial power.

GEOGRAFIER

April 2015. A boat carrying about 550 clandestine miportant in peoples lives, the frames through which people grants capsized on its way from Libya to Lampedusa. The understand them, as well as the discourses of which they Italian coast guard rescued 144 people of whom most are part (Datta et al. 2009: 858). A narrative approach were believed to be from Sub-Saharan Africa, many were acknowledges agency as well as structure. This is imporvery young and some probably under-aged children. tant because it stresses the individual experience, but also Over 400 people drowned in the Mediterranean Sea how stories build on discursive practice, and are connect(BBC 2015-04-15, DN 2015-04-14). This is far from ed to a broader social context (Riessman 2008: 10). The the only terrible accident in the stories of the young men What dreams have people left I met were different from Mediterranean. Clandestine [1] migration from Sub-Saharan each other and unique as on the shore?

Africa to Europe is not a recent all our stories are, but they phenomenon but an increasing trend where people risk were also woven together in their many similarities that their lives in order to reach Europe (e.g. Mbaye 2014). provide a common narrative of clandestine migration.

In 2014 at least 3500 people died in the Sea, many refugees in search for asylum, but also others who are not In The Gambia, many young men see life in Europe as fleeing war but poverty (UNHCR 2015). The number the “ultimate dream” (Nyanzi & Bah 2010: 115). Since it of migrants dying at sea has increased every year since is very difficult to get a visa to travel to Europe from The the early 2000s (Amnesty International 2014:14). The Gambia (Giabazzi 2014), the issue of clandestine migrarepeated tragedies in the Mediterranean are powerful and tion, or “back way migration”, as it is locally known, is telling examples of global stratification, and the very difa growing problem. The Gambia is an interesting counferent realities people from different parts of the world try in terms of clandestine migration since it is relatively face in terms of being able to control their own movepeaceful and stable compared to other countries in the ments (Thörn 2002: 111). region, thus most clandestine migrants are not refugees but “economic migrants” (Samers 2010: 11). Also inClandestine migration through the desert and over the teresting is that, in the Gambian context it is primarily sea raises many questions about different routes, quesyoung men who become clandestine migrants. This in tions about trafficking, false passports and international contrast to other countries where also women migrate networks, questions about politics, borders, transit counthrough these routes (Doctors Without Borders 2010). tries, about economy and remittances. Just to mention This raises the question about what drives young men a few of the many different entry points to the field of into the dangerous route through the desert? migration (Dünnwald 2011: 105). As Dünnwald points out clandestine migration also raises the question about With the aim to explore the stories of Gambian clan“dreams to earn more money, and eventually make midestine migrants in order to investigate the expectations gration a success”, and ”as migration is not always a and ideas about Europe, as well as the gendered aspects success, talking about the failure of migration should of this type of migration, I carried out interviews with be included, too” (Dünnwald 2011: 105). In February these clandestine migrants called Amadou, Buba, Ous2015 I went to The Gambia man, Musa, Alhaji, Modou, many young men see life in to collect stories of clandestine Bubacarr and Omar (pseudomigration for my master thesis. Europe as the “ultimate dream” nyms). I was interested in how I was interested in the dreams they construct their narratives of Europe, the dreams that drive so many young people about clandestine migration and Europe and what ideas into small boats with no good expectations of making it about Europe, The Gambia and masculinity that are proto Europe. What dreams have people left on the shore? duced in these narratives.

In Serrekunda, The Gambia, I met eight young men who had all tried to migrate to Europe as clandestines. None of them had succeeded in their attempts and thus they were back in The Gambia again. I was interested in the way individual stories build a bigger one, and how individual choices build on discursive practise and broader social structures. All human beings are storytellers, and by analysing narratives we can explore events that are im-

What I found from the interview material was that the willingness to risk one’s life in the desert and in small boats is the result of primarily two discursive practices.

First the ideas of Europe and The Gambia represented as binary oppositions building on colonial power structures, and second the local, gendered idea of ‘a successful son’ [2]. Narratives about Europe build on social remittances (Suksomboon 2008: 474), i.e. on stories told by family 24

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In the quote above “Bubacarr” tell me about when he arrived in Agadez and called his mother to let her know that he decided to go “the back way”. His mother told him to come back and that she did not want him to go because it is dangerous, but his answer was that he had “to “It is not easy in The Gambia”, Modou tells me. While enter Europe and make everything easy”. This idea about reading the statement above, from the interview with “making everything easy” in Europe is repeated in some Buba, we can almost hear him sigh that “Gambia is way in all the interviews. Bubacarr also comes back to it too eh”, the statement that “you will not get anything and says: [here]”, exemplifies the hopelessness that the interviewees “Yeah it was my main intention to enter Europe and make expressed when talking about The Gambia. A frequent it. Because when you are here they tell you if you enter Eutheme in the stories about life in The Gambia is poverty. rope it is more easier there” (Bubacarr).

Most of the interviewees talked about themselves and When I asked about what is going to be easy none of their families as “poor”. Alhaji the interviewees gave me a No matter how it it, it´s more concrete answer. Thus, the said that if he would invite me better. Life in Europe will be stories about Europe could be home I would not be “able to sit even”, this implies that he described as un-clear. It is not more better [than] here” feels like his home would not clear what life in Europe is go(Modou). be good enough to show me. ing to be like, on my repeated The idea of being poor is clearly part of all the interquestions about the interviewees’ imaginations about viewee’s identities. Being poor is linked to the difficullife in Europe I got only fragmented and blurry answers. ties of finding a job. There is a general feeling that life However, the bottom line of the stories is always that in The Gambia “I want to go to struggle, you know, for my life, you know, because if you are here you know you will not get anything, you know, Gambia here no Gambia is too eh ...“(Buba).

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and friends who are already abroad, as well as on the is “not easy” in The Gambia (e.g. Modou), and that if representations of economic remittances, returnmisomeone works for one year in Europe he/she will earn a grants and tourist appearance more than they would do in “I tell ‘mum I can’t come back lot and behaviour. These stories The Gambia in the same time home. I have to enter Europe period. and representations build on colonial discourse and power and make everything easy’ “ As illustrated by the quote structures. It became clear from Alhaji’s story there are (Bubacarr). during the research process also repeated statements from that a postcolonial perspective is an essential tool if we the interviewees that they would never go to Europe if want to understand clandestine migration from The they had opportunities to improve their situation in The Gambia to Europe.

Gambia. Ousman expressed this more than once during the interview: Initially, I was interested in the dreams about Europe.

“I, if I’m living good in Gambia here, I could drive a nice How do these young men see Europe if they are willcar, you understand, and I could get an earning like a 500 ing to risk their lives in order to get there? But, while ... 500 euros only 500 euros in a month, sister I’m not gonstarting to ask the clandestine migrants about Europe, it na travel to Europe ... I’m telling you” (Ousman). became clear to me that it is impossible to separate the Thus, what the narratives reveal is a representation of The ideas about Europe from the ideas about The Gambia.

Gambia as a place of poverty, hard work for little money, These two places are constructed as binary oppositions no work at all, corruption, and nepotism. In sum, The that are interesting from a postcolonial perspective. This Gambia is represented as a place where there are no opcould be understood as representational work producportunities at all to change one’s situation of life. ing stereotype images of ‘the other’ (e.g. Hall 2013a and Hall 2013b). Here I will first present the representations Europe about The Gambia that can be found in the stories told If things are “not easy” in The Gambia they will be so by the clandestine migrants, then I will move on to the in Europe. In the narratives of the clandestine migrants, ideas about Europe. I like to let the interviewees speak Europe is represented as the solution to all the problems for themselves as much as possible and therefore I use they see in The Gambia. direct quotes from the individual interviews to illustrate “I tell ‘mum I can’t come back home. I have to enter Europe the bigger story. and make everything easy’ “(Bubacarr).

GEOGRAFIER

Europe everything will be “easy”.

“No matter how it is, it’s more better. Life in Europe will be more better [than] here” (Modou).

This blurry idea about life in Europe is also illustrated by the fact that the interviewees most often talk about “Europe” as one entity. This shows that the idea about Europe is in many ways dreamlike and unclear. In The Gambia, Europe is often referred to as “Babylon” (e.g.

Ousman). However, the biblical reference is somewhat different from the common idea about Babylon as representing materialism and a corrupt society. In the Gambian context Babylon “is a dream destination flowing with milk, honey, prosperity and wealth” (Nyanzi et al. 2005: 567). The idea about “Europe/Babylon” illustrates that most of the interviewees have little or no idea about the Geography of Europe and they have often not thought about where in Europe they would prefer to settle and why.

ily. This image of The Gambia is produced, mainly in contrast to the idea about Europe. In the narratives, Europe is represented as a place where everything is “easy”, where you can earn a lot of money fast, in order to solve your problems back home in The Gambia. Migration to Europe is represented as a life-changing event that will improve the situations of themselves and their families.

The Postcolonial story about place A central concept in postcolonial theory is “the other” introduced by Edward Said (1967) and Frantz Fanon (1978). In their work they have discussed in what way a western ’white’ eye looks upon the ’blacks’ or ’the orient’ as ’the other’, i.e. a stereotype different. Said argued that the European identity has been created in contrast to ‘the orient’. Compared to the image of the exotic Orient, Europe was described as a superior civilization (Thörn et al. 1999: 20).

a western ’white’ eye looks upon the ’blacks’ or ’the orient’ as ’the other’

However, some also heard From this perspective, identity things about specific countries is understood as relational and or prefer to go to certain places as a result of ‘representation’. because they have family members or friends who are Identity is constantly created in interaction with othliving there. Bubacarr for example says that for him Italy ers and by noting the difference to others. In this way is just a transit point, he wants to continue to Germany the colonized and the colonizer’s identities are defined, which is a “rich nation compared to Italy” (Bubacarr). reproduced and modified by one another, in an asymThis shows the importance of social networks in the mimetric relation, where the colonized will understand hergration decision process. If the back way migrants have self as ‘the other’, seen through the gaze of the colonizer friends or relatives in a specific country it is more likely (Thörn et al. 1999: 34-35, Hall 1999: 232). Thus, from that they prefer to go there. At the same time the sudthis perspective the identities of the colonialists and the den change to America shows how little they know about colonized were constructed, and defined by each other, their intended destinations, it is basically just “the West”, “reproduced, modified and changed” in relation to one “Europe” or “Babylon” represented as one prosperous another (Thörn et al. 1999: 34). The identity of the entity with many opportunities. In addition, it is inter“modern western project” (Thörn et al. 1999: 29) was esting to note how unclear the constituted by a basic distincThe identity of the “modern ideas about what life in Eution between Europeans and rope is going to be like. This western project” was constituted the others. In this story there is illustrated by the following by a basic distinction between was a stereotype classification quote from Bubacarr: of people, where ‘the other’ Europeans and the others.

“Where to stay [in Europe] was was defined by “barbarism” not in my mind it was just: let me enter Europe, there I can and a close relation to “nature”, this in contrast to ‘the start thinking what to do, Yeah if I have the opportunity to European’ that was defined in terms of “culture” and go to school and start with the language, then fine, yeah” “civilisation”. In this story the Europeans were carrying (Bubacarr). the weight of a universal development process on their As Bubacarr says here he did not even think about where shoulders, while the others were seen as “happy natives” to live, instead he thought that all practical things could (Hall 2013b: 234) and left outside this process (Thörn et wait until he reached Europe, because the very idea of al. 1999: 29). “entering Europe” is seen as the solution to all problems.

To sum up, The Gambia is represented as a place where These dichotomies are not limited to stereotyping human people are “poor”, it is very hard to find a job unless you beings but are also creating stereotype difference between know the right people, and even if it was possible to find places. The concept of ‘Africa’ and the geopolitical reality a job the salary would not be enough to support a famit represents is a colonial construction that was forced 26

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In the Gambian context this colonial history throws light on how places are constructed as binary oppositions. The story about The Gambia is mainly about what it is not, and what the young men cannot do if they stay in The Gambia. This story and the images in it build on colonial discourse and stereotype ideas about others, and the production of meaning in terms of identifying what things, people or places are not (Hall 2013b: 224). Just as ‘Africa’ was constructed in contrast to the colonial powers during the colonial period (Thörn et al 1999: 20), The Gambia is today constructed in contrast to the idea about Europe.

In the following quote from the interview with Omar we can see how The Gambia is defined in terms of negations.

“Yeah [unclear] I was in Gambia here I’m seeing many boys many countries. They are telling me, boy just try by the all means when you have a little money you just take [unclear].

When the money is finished you work on the way. You go to Europe because Gambia here, if you are here not working not strong after all you cannot help your father you cannot help your parents until you dead” (Omar).

1 Clandestine: Kept secret or done secretively, especially because illicit. Oxford Dictionary definition.

2 The gendered aspects of migration have been dealt with before many times (e.g. Datta et al. 2009, Pessar & Mahler 2003) and this is an important theme that is discussed in the full master thesis. In this text however, I will instead focus on the ideas about Europe and The Gambia seen from a postcolonial perspective.

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upon the people already living there. They were forced From a postcolonial perspective, we are not free from the to accept this story with all its contradictions and its colonial power structures. The stories about Europe and impossible national borders. Mudimbe has shown how The Gambia build on the European storytelling about ‘the idea of Africa’ as primitive Europeans and Europe as the “at the heart of our image is a social construction created obvious subject of world hisof Africa lies a negative during the colonial era in ortory (Jonsson 2005: 51). As der to justify economic and Jonsson writes: “at the heart presumption” territorial colonialism. A biof our image of Africa lies a nary way of thinking resulted in a sharp division between negative presumption”, Africa and Africans is defined in Africa and Europe, and in art and anthropology, Africa terms of “what they are not and do not have”, and the was defined in opposition to Europe (1994, referred to in lack of Africa could only be solved with aid from Europe Thörn et al. 1999: 20).

(Jonsson 2005: 349, my translation). Thus, The Gambia Jonsson (2005) has described this process as a kind of is constructed as a binary opposition to Europe, and vice ‘storytelling’. He points to the function of stories as a way versa (Thörn et al 1999: 20). The Gambia is representfor people to find their place, and to create boundaries ed as ‘the other’, constantly compared to the dreamlike between what we call ‘home’ and other places (Jonsson ideas about what life is going to be like in Europe. This 2005: 50). The boundaries between African countries aspect of clandestine migration has too often been forwere drawn with a ruler at a desk. Thus, they were not gotten in the discussions on how to prevent people from describing some absolute reality, but instead telling a stogoing the back way. Social structures is not something ry about the world that the Europeans wanted to create. that we can change from one day to another, but if we Jonsson (2005: 49) writes that this was something new: are aware of these structures we can at least start to chall“No other people had before seen themselves as the obvienge and change them. ous subjects of world history. Never before had a people constructed their stories claiming universal truth. Outside Europe there were no other people with the wish or the resources to describe and represent themselves with the same precision as the Europeans were using to represent them.

Thus, all other peoples were given subordinate parts in the universal history whose heroine was called Europe” (Jonsson 2005: 49, my translation).

GEOGRAFIER

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The West Bank - Restrictions of Movement and Strategies of Resistance

The full range of impacts and effects of the restriction of movement in the West Bank are difficult to quantify of describe, as they touch upon nearly all aspects of the life of the Paletstinian population. In my research, by using an intersectional analysis of gender and age, I uncovered some of the differentiated effects of the restrictions of movement, but perhaps more importantly, through a postcolonial feminist analysis I wanted to emphasize the agency of the people I was interviewing, highlighting their different strategies of resistance.

In Qalqilya, a town in the northern parts of the West Bank, completely encircled by the Wall, I met with farmers who have been separated from their lands due to the construction of the Wall.

Hudna, an elderly woman, explained how reaching her 29

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The West Bank. A small territory, but one where any attempt to travel across it can last for an indefinite amount of time. The land is fragmented by settlements, by checkpoints and by the massive Wall that winds its way through the West Bank, dividing communities, separating farmers from their lands and water wells, and restricting the possibilities of movement of the Palestinians. But it is not only walls and checkpoints that make movement difficult. Fear of abuse and violence from soldiers or settlers, and strategies to avoid being detained or arrested also influence the possibility to move around freely. These latter obstacles may not be as immediately obvious as the striking images of walls and checkpoints that you see almost anywhere you travel in Palestine, but they are nonetheless very evident in people’s descriptions of their everyday lives.

TEXT & FOTO: EMMA E MAGGI

GEOGRAFIER

farm lands has become a daily struggle due to the limited opening hours of the only gate in the Wall available for the farmers, and the restrictive policies in granting permits to cross the Wall. In Hudna’s case, only she and her husband, who is unable to work, have a permit to access the land, while their children and grandchildren only are allowed in on rare occasions. This means that Hudna is forced to do a lot of the heavy physical work on her own, which is getting increasingly difficult due to her age, and entails large economic losses for the family who can no longer rely on the income from the farm lands to survive.

Hussein, a man in his 60’s, who is a farmer and plant nursery owner, also explained the devastating economic effect the restrictions of movement have had on his business, since he has lost clients because of the long waiting hours at the gate in the Wall: “Before, trade men would come from al-Khaleel, a long drive away. Now when we want to bring trees from outside the Wall, they [the Israeli guards] say that the gate is closed and make us wait for 5-6 hours. How can we deal with this?”

It is clear, in the case of Qalqilya, that the presence of the Wall is extremely disruptive to the lives of the people who live and work there, in particular in the case of the farmers who cannot reach their lands without having to cross the Wall. But what about the psychological aspects of restrictions of movement? I found that one of the places where the combination of physical barriers and psychological barriers of fear of attacks and abuse from settlers and soldiers is most visible is in Hebron.

ties, while H2, which comprises the Old City, is under Israeli Military control. H2 is home to approximately 30 000 Palestinians and 500 Israeli settlers.

I met Umm Zahera, an elderly woman, in her home on Shuhada Street, in the H2 area, where she lives by herself. Sitting in her living room, she pointed to a staircase leading down toward the street, explaining how that was where she used to enter her house. When Shuhada Street was closed down for Palestinian pedestrian transit, her front door, together with many others, was welded shut. Now, the only way to access her home is through a tiny door on the roof, crossing over from the neighbouring building. Umm Zahera has trouble walking, so she rarely leaves the house anymore and is dependent on assistance from neighbours, volunteer organisations and family. “My children don’t come by very often anymore”, she said, explaining that a reason for this are the frequent attacks by settlers who walk by on Shuhada Street and throw stones against her windows. A metal gate now protects her little balcony and the windows, but these episodes are still frightening.

Not far away from Shuhada Street, I interviewed Fatema, a woman living with her husband and four children in a house located right next to an Israeli settlement. The settlers have blocked the main road leading to the family’s house, leaving it accessible only by narrow footpaths. The house is in need of a lot of maintenance work and reparations but the difficulties in reaching it and bringing the needed materials make any such work difficult. Fatema, like Umm Zahera, also mentioned that they hardly ever get visitors anymore, given that the house is hard to reach and people are scared of the settlers, who often throw stones toward their house. They have put up a metal net over the entrance to the house to protect themselves from the stones, but these episodes of violence are frightening and limit their possibilities of moving around freely. When I asked whether this affects their possibilities to go to work or their children’s possibilities to go to school, Fatema answered affirmatively: “Yes. My daughter has been attacked by settlers on her way to school, it is very bad”.

The stories of attacks and abuse by settlers were echoed also by Umm Abed, a middle-aged woman who has been living on Shuhada Street for 25 years with her family. Like the others, she has had to cover the courtyard of her house with a metal net to protect from stones and rubbish that settlers throw toward the house. Umm Abed also brought up another issue – the difficulty of accessing medical emergency care. The road blockages make any vehicular access near impossible, and ambulances can only enter Shuhada Street after coordination with the military. However, the

Hebron, or al-Khaleel, is situated in the central southern part of the West Bank. It is one of the areas in the West Bank where movement has been most heavily restricted, even though the infamous Wall that divides so many other places does not directly affect the city. Instead, there are numerous minor walls, barriers and checkpoints present throughout the city. The restrictions on movement in this area started after a massacre in 1994, when an American-Israeli settler, Baruch Goldstein, entered the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron’s city centre with a gun, killing 29 Palestinians and injuring hundreds. Following the attack, measures introduced by Israel were put in place, in a claimed attempt to protect the Palestinian population from settler violence. The main commercial street, Shuhada Street, was closed first to Palestinian vehicular traffic and later also for pedestrians – forcing well over a thousand shops to close down and more than a thousand homes in the affected area to be abandoned.

Hebron city has been divided into two areas, H1 and H2, following the approval of the Hebron Protocol in 1997. H1 is under the control of the Palestinian Authori30

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problems don’t end there, as Umm Abed explained: “The military stops ambulances that have already passed the checkpoint and ask them to show their permit again.

Settlers sometimes lay down on the street, blocking access for the ambulances.”

Listening to people’s stories, both in Qalqilya and Hebron, it was clear that while the effects of the Wall, barriers and other restrictions of movement affect all parts of the population, it appeared that the actual physical barriers have a stronger impact on those who are old, such as Umm Zahera or Hudna, pregnant or sick and in need of emergency medical care, or those who suffer from physical disability. Also, while men and boys seem to be more subject to physical abuse and violence, nearly all of the women I met emphasized the psychological weight of not feeling safe in their own home – all of the women in Hebron have had to put up some kind of protection on their house to avoid settler attacks, but still suffer from fear even if the stones that are being thrown might not be able to reach them anymore.

Strategies of resistance “I will not go anywhere, I will not leave this house to the settlers. I am staying here with my children.”

These were the words of Umm Abed, in response to my question on why she continues to endure all the difficulties and had not chosen to leave the house on Shuhada Street. And her reply to this question echoes many of the other answers I received to similar questions during my research. All of my informants seemed to agree on one thing; that the final purpose of all these Walls, barriers and accompanying psychological restrictions of movement is to make the Palestinian people leave their homes and land for the Israelis to take over, and that they will not let this happen. As Hussein, in Qalqilya, put it: “Their purpose is to make us leave our land. The people understand this purpose, so they insist, to remain in their land, more than before. There is challenge, a challenge between the Palestinians, the simple farmers, and the Israelis.

Even though they have a lot of problems they insist and remain in their lands.”

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forms of strategies of resistance or coping into their lives.

This was also an attempt on my behalf to avoid speaking in the place of, or “for” them, which, as highlighted by postcolonial feminists, cannot be disregarded when studying these issues from the perspective of a Western scholar. I find, above all, that it is important that these voices are heard, and that their struggle for freedom and resistance is acknowledged.

In a time where so many people in the world, and among them also many Palestinians, choose to leave their homes in search for a safer place to stay, it is interesting to note how staying put, refusing to move, seems to be a common strategy of resistance in the West Bank. However, I found that this strategy does not always stem from an active choice. While in some cases, such as the case of Umm Abed, or the case of Zleikha. She is a teacher and human rights activist, who chose to move into an empty house on Shuhada Street in Hebron with her family after the restrictions of movement were put in place, precisely in order to prevent settlers from taking over the empty building. This strategy is a conscious choice and an open challenge to the Israeli settlers and military. For some of the other people I interviewed this is not the case. In those cases, the fact of staying in their home, notwithstanding the difficult situation they find themselves in, seems to be more of a necessity or a consequence of a lack of other options, rather than a choice to resist. Even though the final result might be the same as if it would have been an active choice.

I found that the determination to stay put, to not leave one’s land and one’s home, was most clearly expressed by the women I interviewed. While the men that I interviewed did mention this way of resisting, they spent most of the time discussing the economic impact of the restrictions of movement on their lives and families. This may reflect the fact that in the Palestinian society the man would generally be the main breadwinner of the household, but also that men generally have more opportunities than women to explore other ways of resisting, in locations other than the household. In fact, most of the women I interviewed spend a large part of their time at home, so it would only seem logical that their preferred choice of location for developing their own way of resisting is precisely there.

The determination and strength of the women I interviewed was always clear, almost tangible, during our meetings, and it is one of the things that I remember most clearly from my time in Palestine. This strength is clearly visible in Umm Abed’s words, referring to the harassments of the Israeli military and settlers that she suffers on a regular basis: “They try to provoke me and make me angry, but they can’t.

They arrest me and I still smile and laugh. The settlers, their life isn’t easy either, always doing bad things. What kind of life is that?”

Throughout my study I kept the focus on highlighting my informant’s own accounts of their lived reality. Leaving space for their voices was not only key in identifying the differences in experience, but also in emphasizing the agency of my informants and how they all negotiate some 32

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Virtuella resor vad är spelets regler?

TEXT: MIRON ARLJUNG FOTO: MALIN NORBERG

Hur långt är avståndet mellan Sverige och Nepal? Det vanligaste sättet att svara på en sådan fråga är i relativa termer (ca åtta timmars flygresa) eller i absoluta termer (828 mil).

Om jag däremot ber dig att föreställa dig Nepal så kan du ta dig dit i tanken på ett ögonblick. Denna typ av mentala resa sker varje dag; du läser en nyhetsartikel eller en skönlitterär bok. Genom att se på film eller resereportage fyller du i dina mentala kartor och utforskar en del av världen du troligtvis inte skulle ha haft tillgång till annars. Oavsett hur engagerande boken eller filmen är förblir denna typ av mentala resa alltid passiv. För även om du kan vara kritisk till vad som beskrivs och reflektera över vad som utlämnats, har du ingen möjlighet att ändra på vilken bild författaren eller regissören ämnar för dig att se.

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För trettio år sedan dök ett nytt medium upp i bilden som till viss del förändrade den passiva mediakonsumtionen: tv- och datorspel. På 80-talet var spelens möjligheter att förmedla ett narrativ begränsade, främst på grund av tekniska faktorer. Bristen på högupplösta modeller gjorde det mer lockande att skapa fantasimiljöer i stället för platser tagna från verkligheten. Sedan tredimensionella spel blev norm under 90-talet har spelen haft allt större möjligheter att visa mer realistiska miljöer. Flera spel har i takt med att 90-talets barn växt upp försökt avspegla mer realistiska scenarier.

Ett av de mest populära spelen heter Far Cry 3 och släpptes 2012 av Ubisoft Montreal. Här åker du med en grupp (andra) vita, rika, amerikanska ungdomar till en fiktiv ögrupp i södra Stilla havet för att festa. Paradiset förbyts dock snabbt i helvete när ni blir offer för pirater som kidnappar hela resesällskapet. Du ensam lyckas fly och möter en lokal “stam”, Rakyat, som lär dig slåss mot pirater och befria dina vänner. Uppföljaren Far Cry 4 har en liknande om än något annorlunda premiss. Den här gången är du på väg tillbaka till landet Kyrat någonstans i Himalaya för att sprida din moders aska, när du blir anfallen av den kungliga armén och räddas av en gerillagrupp vid namn Gyllene Stigen! Du dras snabbt in i maktkamp mellan gruppens olika medlemmar och armén.

Det finns en hel del som kan och bör kritiseras i dessa spel; den ofta sexistiska porträtteringen av kvinnor, hur du måste döda och flå det lokala djurlivet för att upp-gradera dina redskap, narrativet om den ensamme amerikanen som kommer från ingenstans och ska leda lokalbefolkningen till deras räddning och så vidare och så vidare - men låt oss för tillfället fokusera på geografin. I spelmagasinet Game Informer (18/06/14) framkommer hur spelutvecklarna åkt på en två veckor lång resa till Nepal för att få en bättre förståelse för miljön de byggde upp. De pratade med f.d. Maoist-gerilla och försökte besöka de platser som “National Geographic utlämnar i sina reseguider”. Den intressantaste biten av artikeln är dock en reflektion över hur arbetet ändrades efter att de kommit hem. De upplevde plötsligt det Nepal de tidigare skapat med hjälp av dokumentärer och fotografier, som en karikatyr och en “1600-talsversion”.

Samtidigt som spelutvecklarna uttrycker en explicit önskan om realism inställer sig frågan hur väl de faktiskt lyckats, när deras avslutande ord är att spelet är “all about having a dirty experience”. För när det kommer till kritan så är de verktyg vi har tillgängliga för att utforska världen minst lika viktiga som den verklighet vi faktiskt utforskar, vare sig dessa verktyg är dina sinnen eller teoretiska modeller. I spel som Far Cry integrerar du med omvärlden framför allt med vapen. Visst finns det dialoger, men majoriteten av tiden skjuter du dig fram. Reklamannonserna visar tydligt hur du ska bete dig: köra vårdslöst runt med kapade bilar, kasta dig huvudstupa över klippkanter, rida elefanter in i fiendeläger och åka jetmotor på sjöarna.

Far Cry tar ett trettiotal timmar att klara, förutsatt att du ägnar dig främst åt huvuduppdragen. Om du därtill är intresserad av alla kortare, frivilliga uppdrag kan tiden ofta förlängas med nästan det dubbla. Jämför denna tid med den du skulle ha lagt ned om du tittat på en dokumentär om Nepals inbördeskrig eller läst en bok. Lägg därtill att du aktiv interagerar med världen och själv bestämmer vart du ska gå härnäst och hur. Tillsammans blir allt detta av vikt när vi ska försöka förstå hur spel påverkar platsuppfattning. Det är svårt att missa att målgruppen är unga, västerländska män.

De flesta av dessa har troligtvis inte varit i Nepal och det är knappast långsökt att anta att få av dem kommer att besöka landet i framtiden heller. Samtidigt som man ska vara försiktig med att dra alla spelare över en kam (diskussionen om hur spel fördärvar ungdomen och gör dem våldsbenägna och antisociala vilar ofta på mycket bristfälliga data) påverkas vi onekligen av de intryck som medier har på oss.

Det är i detta sammanhang skiljelinjen mellan fantasi och verklighet blir viktigt. När du som spelare lägger ifrån dig kontrollen kommer du att ha levande bilder av en plats som både är fiktiv och samtidigt högst verklig.

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If I understand you right, you are on your way home

JOHANNA ADOLFSSON & AMNA MAKSUMIC

TEMA: RESA

If I understand you right, you are on your way home is a fictive Hollywood movie in three parts, created in the crossing of two women.

The written story is told by a woman whose husband got a good job. The moving images is told by another woman, who listened to the story and remembered things about empty space, coming home and the fear of losing it.

The movie series is an attempt to try the boundaries of how a story is created in the interview situation and how research can be presented.

By: Johanna Adolfsson Film by: Amna Maksumic Written story by: anonymous The project is published online at geografier.se

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GEOGRAFIER

Europe and the Gambia - narratives, dreams and colonial power. av Fredrika Uggla Amnesty International (2014). Lives Adrift Refugees and Migrants in peril in the central Mediterranean, Amnesty International September 2014. [Electronic]. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR05/006/2014/ en/c5180000-296c-4587- 8308-56c7bfb83894/eur050062014en.pdf. Downloaded 2014-12-15.

BBC (2015-04-15). “Hundreds of Migrants Feared Drowned off Libya”. [Online] http://www.bbc.com/news/ world-africa-32311358. Accessed 2015-04-15.

Datta, Kavita, McIlwaine, Cathy, Herbert, Joanna ,Evans, Yara, May Jon & Wills Jane (2009). ”Men on the Move: Narratives of Migration and Work among Low-paid Migrant Men in London”, Social & Cultural Geography, 10 (8): 853-873.

DN (2015-04-14). “400 migranter befaras döda I medelhavet”. [Online] http://www.dn.se/nyheter/ varlden/400-migranter-befaras-doda-i-medelhavet/. Accessed 2015-04-15.

Doctors Without Borders (2010). ”Sexual Violence and Migration: The hidden reality of Sub-Saharan women trapped in Morocco en route to Europe”. [Online] http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/sites/usa/files/MSFsexual-violence.pdf. Accessed 2015-05-03.

Dünnwald, Stephan (2011). ”On Migration and Security: Europe Managing Migration from Sub-Saharan Africa”, Cadernos de Estudos Africanos, 22: 103-128.

Giabazzi, Paolo (2014). “Visa Problem: Certification, Kinship, and the Production of ‘Ineligibility’ in the Gambia”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 20: 38- 55.

Hall, Stuart (1999). “När inträffade ‘det postkoloniala’? Tänkande vid gränsen”, Thörn, Håkan, Eriksson, Catharina & Eriksson Baaz, Maria (red.) Globaliseringens kulturer: den postkoloniala paradoxen, rasismen och det mångkulturella samhället. Nora: Nya Doxa.

Hall, Stuart (2013a). ”The Work of Representation”, Hall, Stuart, Evans, Jessica & Nixon, Sean (red.) Representation. 2. ed. London: SAGE. Hall, Stuart (2013b). ”The Spectacle of the Other”, Hall, Stuart, Evans, Jessica & Nixon, Sean (red.) Representation. 2. ed. London: SAGE. Jonsson, Stefan (2005). Världen i vitögat: tre essäer om västerländsk kultur. Stockholm: Norstedt.

Mbaye, Linguère Mously (2014). “’Barcelona or die’: Understanding Illegal Migration from Senegal”, IZA Journal of Migration, 3 (21): 1-19.

Nyanzi, Stella, Rosenberg-Jallow, Ousman Bah, Ousman & Nyanzi, Susan (2005). “Bumsters, Big Black Organs and Old White Gold: Embodied Racial Myths in Sexual Relationships of Gambian Beach Boys”, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 7 (6): 557–569.

Nyanzi, Stella & Bah, Ousman (2010). “Rice, Rams and Remittances: Bumsters and Female Tourists in The Pessar, Patricia R. and Mahler, Sarah J. (2003). ”Transnational Migration: Bringing Gender in ”, International Migration Review, 37 (3): 812-846.

Said, Edward W. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Suksomboon, Panitee (2008). ”Remittances and ‘Social Remittances’: Their Impact on Livelihoods of Thai Women in the Netherlands and Non-migrants in Thailand”, Gender, Technology and Development, 12 (3): 461–482.

Thörn, Håkan, Eriksson, Catharina & Eriksson Baaz, Maria (1999). ”Den postkoloniala paradoxen, rasismen och ’det mångkulturella samhället’ en introduktion till postkolonial teori”, Thörn, Håkan, Eriksson, Catharina & Eriksson Baaz, Maria (red.) Globaliseringens kulturer: den postkoloniala paradoxen, rasismen och det mångkulturella samhället. Nora: Nya Doxa.

Thörn, Håkan (2002). Globaliseringens dimensioner: nationalstat, världssamhälle, demokrati och sociala rörelser. Stockholm: Atlas.

UNHCR (2015-02-12). “UNHCR calls for more robust search-and-rescue operation on Mediterranean”, http://www.unhcr.org/54dc8dc59.html. Accessed 2015-03-05.

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Referenser

A cultural gaze av Tomoya Suzuki Urry J (1990) The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. London:Sage This is a short version of the Master Thesis A cultural gaze? Understanding Japanese and German Perceptions of Kiruna as a Tourist Destination (Applying Volunteer-Employed Photography) Umeå University, Author: Tomoya Suzuki Supervisor: Doris Carson

NUMMER 2

Riessman, Catherine Kohler (2008). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. London: SAGE. Samers, Michael (2010). Migration. London: Routledge.

Interviews with Amadou, Buba, Ousman, Musa, Alhaji, Modou, Bubacarr and Omar (all men between 20 and 30 years old) were carried out during field work in Serrekunda, The Gambia in January-February 2015. No specific dates or places for the interviews are published because of confidentiality.

This is a short version of the Master Thesis Looking for a Greener Pasture: Exploring the Narratives of Gambian Clandestine Migrants, Stockholm University. Author: Fredrika Uggla. Supervisor: Karen Haandrikman och Natasha Webster.

In Between Travelling and Staying: Exploring the Phenomenon of Lifestyle Migration av Dries Stevens Benson, M. & Osbaldiston, N. eds., 2014. Understanding lifestyle migration : theoretical approaches to migration and the quest for a better way of life, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

This is a short vesrion of the Master Thesis Negotiating Authenticity. Author: Dries Stevens; supervisor: Karen Haandrikman

The Desert Planet av Lina Persson Costanza, R. (2000) Visions of alternative (unpredictable) futures and their use in policy analysis. Conservation Ecology CBC news, Can cloud-seeding beat the drought? July 25, 2002 CBC news, A Vulcan enterprise, Aug 3, 1990 The West Bank - Restrictions of Movement and Strategies of Resistance, Emma Eriksson Maggi This is a short version of the Master Thesis Restrictions of Movement in Palestine. Intersectional Impacts and Strategies of Resistance. Author: Emma E Maggi. Linköpings Universitet, handledare Pia Laskar, 2015.

Travel Narratives - From Odysseus to Julia Roberts av Carl Ritter Beck, Ulrich (2006) The Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Berger, Arthur Asa (2013) Media, Myth, and Society. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Utan personligt ansvar - om Airbnb och mänskliga relationer, Johanna Adolfsson SvD 15.09.13 Till Airbnb:s försvar. http://www.svd.se/till-airbnbs-forsvar SvD 15.09.21 Storstäder tar strid mot succésajten Airbnb http://www.svd.se/storstader-tar-strid-mot-succesajten-airbnb/i/utvalt/om/striden-kring-airbnb Texten är skriven med inspiration från läsecirkeln #2 - AIRBNB arrangerad av Konsthall C och Emily Fahlén.

Virtuella resor - vad är spelets regler? av Miron Arljung Ben Reeves (2014): To Nepal And Back: How Ubisoft Montreal Created A New Country, Gameinformer, 18.06.14. http://www.gameinformer.com/games/far_cry_4/b/playstation4/archive/2014/06/18/to-nepal-andback-how-ubisoft-montreal-created-a-new-country-for-far-cry-4.aspx (besökt 09.09.15)

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Referenser

Third Culture Kids - hur mår expatsens barn? av Lisa Kron Gerner, M. E., Perry F., Moselle, M. A & Archbold, M. (1992). Characteristics of international mobile adolescents. Journal of School Psychology, 30, 197-214.

Sussman, Nan M (2000). The dynamic nature of cultural identity throughout cultural transistions: Why home is not so sweet. Personality and Social Review2000; Vol. 4, no 4, 355-373.

Useem, J, Useem R (1967). The interfaces of a Binational Third Culture: Astudy of the Amercian community in India. Journal of Social Issues. Vol 23, Issue 1, pages 130 – 143.

Yoshida, T, Matsumoto, D., Akiyama T, Moriyoshi, N., Atsushi, F., Ishii, C. & Akashi, S. (2009). Contrasting experience in Japanese retirnee adjustment: Those who adjust easily and those who do not. . International Journal of intercultural relations. Vol 33, 265-276.

This is a short version of the Bachelor Thesis Kulturell identitetsutveckling i ett globalt perspektiv - några adult third culture kids berättar. Author: Lisa Kron.

GEOGRAFIER

Skribenter & illustratörer: Emma Eriksson Maggi

Dries Stevens

Emma är doktorand i Sociology and Social Research på

Dries är masterstudent på Stockholms universitet. Han

Doctoral School of Social Sciences, University of Trento,

har skrivit texten In Between Travelling and Staying:

Italien. Hon har skrivit texten The West Bank - Restric-

Exploring the Phenomenon of Lifestyle Migration.

tions of Movement and Strategies of Resistance Malin Almgren Miron Arljung

Malin är en del av Geografiers redaktion. Hon har

Miron är masterstudent på Stockholms universitet och

skrivit texten Vykort från Svalbards forskningspark.

har skrivit texten Virituella resor - vad är spelets regler?

Amna Maksumic Tomoya Suzuki

Amna är student på STDH (Filmproduktion). Hon har

Tomoya har en mastersexamen i turism från Umeå uni-

varit en del av projektet If I understand you right, you

versitet. Han har skrivit texten A Cultural Gaze.

are on your way home.

Fredrika Uggla

Jennifer Bergkvist

Fredrika har en masterexamen i geografi och jobbar

Jennifer är student på Konstfack (GDI). Hon har illustre-

nu med kompetensnätverket Yennenga Progress. Hon

rat Utan personligt ansvar - Om Airbnb och mänskliga

har skrivit texten Europe and the Gambia - narratives,

relationer. Se mer av Jennifer på

dreams and colonial power.

www.cargocollective.com/annjennifer.

Lisa Kron

Sandra Björn

Lisa är svensklärare och arbetar på Internationella

Sandra är konstutövande drömmare. Hon har illustrerat

skolan i Helsingborg. Hon har skrivit texten Third Cul-

Travel Narratives - From Odysseus to Julia Roberts. Se

tural Kids - Hur mår expatsens barn?

mer av Sandra på sandrabjoern.tumblr.com

Emy Widén

Anna Sundvall

Emy har kandidatexamen i idéhistoria och arbetar på

Anna är illustratör och konstnär. Hennes fotografi finns

Kulturdepartementet. Hon har skrivit texten Att läsa

ihop med texten In Between Travelling and Staying: Ex-

Julie Otsukas ”Vi kom över havet” i Sverige hösten 2015.

ploring the Phenomenon of Lifestyle Migration. Se mer av Anna på http://www.annasundvall.se/.

Johanna Adolfsson Johanna är chefredaktör för Geografier och masterstud-

Malin Norberg

ent på Stockholms universitet. Hon har skrivit texten

Malin har gått på Biksops-Arnö och Nyckelviksskolan.

Utan personligt ansvar - om Airbnb och mänskliga

Hennes fotografi finns ihop med texten Virtuella resor.

relationer.

Se mer av Malin på www.poppyjari.tumblr.com/

Carl Ritter

Isabel Fahlén

Carl Ritter är doktorand i medie- och kommunikations-

Isabel är student på Konstfack (GDI). Hon har gjort den

vetenskap vid Stockholms universitet. Han har skrivit

grafiska formen för det här numret av Geografier. Se

texten Travel Narratives - from Odyseeus to Julia Roberts.

mer av Isabel på www.cargocollective.com/isabelfahlen

Lina Persson Lina är lektor i berättande animerad film på STDH. Hon har skrivit texten the Desert Planet.

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NÄSTA NUMMER: HAVET