Books published by Verlag Peter Lang

This volume presents a selection of essays in English and French initially delivered at the interdisciplinary conference of the Association of Modern and Contemporary France held in Leicester in September 2000. Frontiers are defined broadly in terms of material and symbolic inter- and transnational spaces where French and Francophone artists, communities and nations face their own selves and each other. Contributors reflect on the relationships between various cross-boundary contacts and perceptions of identity, power and marginality.

Refugee research and debate have focused on international agreements, border controls and the legal status of asylum seekers. The lived, daily life of refugees in different phases of their flight has thus been unduly neglected. How have refugees experienced policies of reception and resettlement, and how have they individually and collectively built up their own cultures of exile? To answer these questions the author of this study has undertaken long-term fieldwork as a community worker in a Norwegian municipality. Refugees from Chile, Iran, Somalia, Bosnia and Vietnam were on occasions subjected to exclusionary and discriminatory practices. Nevertheless, restistance was seen in the form of a Somali women¿s sewing circle, the organisation of a multi-cultural youth club, running refugee associations and printing their own language newspapers. Moreover, in activities such as these, refugees addressed and came to terms with a limited number of shared existential concerns: morality, violence, sexuality, family reunion, belonging and not belonging to a second generation. Drawing upon these experiences a general theory of refugeeness is proposed. It states that the cultures refugees create in exile are the necessary prerequisite for self-recognition and survival.