Book Section
Anja Sunhyun Michaelsen
‘Locked out in nature’
Films on the European Asylum System, Latent Violence, and Ghosts
Following Hannah Arendt’s remarks on refugee camps as spaces of ‘worldlessness’, I examine how, in films on European asylum facilities, systemic violence ‘makes itself known’ in images of nature. Nature separates and isolates ( La Forteresse, Forst), it constitutes a sphere of domination and control ( View from Above), and it functions directly as a murder weapon ( Purple Sea). Nature, in these films, indicates the Outside within, haunted by the latent and ghostly presence of systemic violence.
Keywords: Nature images; European asylum system; refugees; Hannah Arendt; documentary; experimental video
| Title |
‘Locked out in nature’
|
| Subtitle |
Films on the European Asylum System, Latent Violence, and Ghosts
|
| Author(s) |
Anja Sunhyun Michaelsen
|
| Identifier | |
| Description |
Following Hannah Arendt’s remarks on refugee camps as spaces of ‘worldlessness’, I examine how, in films on European asylum facilities, systemic violence ‘makes itself known’ in images of nature. Nature separates and isolates ( La Forteresse, Forst), it constitutes a sphere of domination and control ( View from Above), and it functions directly as a murder weapon ( Purple Sea). Nature, in these films, indicates the Outside within, haunted by the latent and ghostly presence of systemic violence.
|
| Is Part Of | |
| Place |
Berlin
|
| Publisher |
ICI Berlin Press
|
| Date |
2020
|
| Subject |
Nature images
European asylum system
refugees
Hannah Arendt
documentary
experimental video
|
| Rights |
© by the author
Except for images or otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
|
| Language |
en-GB
|
| page start |
207
|
| page end |
225
|
| Source |
Weathering: Ecologies of Exposure, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Arnd Wedemeyer, Cultural Inquiry, 17 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020), pp. 207–25
|
References
- ‘Documenta 14-Arbeit “View from Above” von Hiwa K ist in das Stadtmuseum zurückgekehrt’, Kassel.de, 27 May 2019 <https://www.kassel.de/pressemitteilungen/2019/mai/view-from-above-von-hiwa-k-ist-in-das-stadtmuseum-kassel-zurueckgekehrt.php> [accessed 7 June 2020]
- Arendt, Hannah, Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft (Frankfurt a.M.: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1955)
- Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London: Hartcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973)
- BBC News, ‘Greece suspends asylum applications as migrants seek to leave Turkey’, 1 March 2020 <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51695468> [accessed 7 June 2020]
- Douglas, Elliot, ‘Germany: New Accusations of Police Violence in Death of Asylum-Seeker’, Deutsche Welle, 2 November 2019 <https://www.dw.com/en/germany-new-accusations-of-police-violence-in-death-of-asylum-seeker/a-51067499> [accessed 7 June 2020]
- Gordon, Avery, Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008)
- K, Hiwa, ‘A View from Above’ <http://www.hiwak.net/anecdotes/a-view-from-above/> [accessed 7 June 2020]
- Mbembe, Achille, ‘Necropolitics’, Public Culture, 15.1 (2003), pp. 11–40 <https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-15-1-11>
- Moulier Boutang, Yann, ‘No Longer Reserve Army: Theses on the Autonomy of Migration and the Necessary End of the Regime of Labour Migration’, Jungle World, 3 April 2002 <https://jungle.world/artikel/2002/14/nicht-laenger-reservearmee> [accessed 7 June 2020]
- Nayeri, Dina, The Ungrateful Refugee (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2019)
- Sanyal, Debarati, ‘Humanitarian Detention and Figures of Persistence at the Border’, Critical Times, 2.3 (December 2019), pp. 435–65 <https://doi.org/10.1215/26410478-7862552>
- Sharpe, Christina, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016) <https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822373452>
- Steinbach, Jörg, ‘Kassel in Schutt und Asche: Trümmermodell wieder zu sehen’, Hessische Niedersächsische Allgemeine, 2 March 2016 <https://www.hna.de/kassel/kassel-schutt-asche-6171148.html> [accessed 7 June 2020]
- Williams, Raymond, ‘Structure of Feeling’, in Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 128–35
- Die Entscheider, dir. by Susanne Ofteringer (1992)
- Forst, dir. by Ascan Breuer, Ursula Hansbauer, Wolfgang Konrad, in cooperation with The Voice Refugee Forum and others(2005) <http://www.forstfilm.com/> [accessed 7 June 2020]
- La Forteresse, dir. by Fernand Melgar (2008)
- View from Above, dir. by Hiwa K (2017)
- Island of Hungry Ghosts, dir. by Gabrielle Brady (2018) <http://www.christmasislandfilm.com/> [accessed 7 June 2020]
- Zentralflughafen THF, dir. by Karim Aïnouz (2018) <https://www.zentralflughafen-thf.de/> [accessed 7 June 2020]
- Purple Sea, dir. by Amel Alzakout and Khaled Abdulwahed (2020) <https://purplesea.pong-berlin.de/> [accessed 7 June 2020]
Cite as:
Anja Sunhyun Michaelsen, ‘“Locked out in nature”: Films on the European Asylum System, Latent Violence, and Ghosts’, in Weathering: Ecologies of Exposure, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Arnd Wedemeyer, Cultural Inquiry, 17 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020), pp. 207-25 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-17_10>