CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Tatic, Alesandra |
|---|---|
| Title | Affective Migration: Smartphones as Memory Repositories of the Balkan Route |
| Summary | This thesis focuses on the various ways smartphones are shaping the phenomenon of exile in contemporary societies. Taking the phone as an object of material culture reveals its power and presence in personal narratives of exile. Sharing textual and visual data implies, according to my findings, a strive for what I call in this thesis the normalization of life, reinforced by a highly aestheticized engagement in photography and the construction of affective narratives that create an emotional bond with the material and immaterial aspect of camera-phones as visual memory repositories. This research is based on intensive fieldwork done in Belgrade, Serbia, taken as the ending point of the “Balkan route” and the final “gate” to the European Union. Interviews and empirical observations occurred in Miksalište, a civil society’s welcome center for refugees, on two occasions - in June 2016 and April 2017. The thesis combines ethnographic data and theory on visual memory and affect. [Affect, exilic imaginary, visual memory, object, material culture, smartphone, photography, migration, refugeehood, exile] |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar; Rabinowitz, Dan |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/tatic_alesandra.pdf |
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