VISUAL COMMUNICATION, BORDER POLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
JOHN BERGER: published ways of seeing, questioning the way we see the
world, because when we watch the temporal, social and historical contest
influence what we watch
In 1972 he used money to follow some migrants from the south of Europe
moving to Northern Europe, in order to understand what they were leaving and
what they were expecting. Then he publishe a book about it in 1975, which
starts with a poem. First of all this book is very innovative, bcs of its
anthropological and sociological contest. The poem’s Titol is the seventh. When
we are talking about visuals and communication, we are referring to imaginary
and imagination, but also an expression of absence, of what there is not in a
photograph: all photographs are a form of transport and an expression of
absence. The meaning is in the relationship between the image and the
spectator, nothing is already established (Foucault).
Berger in his book writes in a sociological but very poetical way.
There are also a denotative and connotative levels: ex a divided photo into a
page, means maybe a separation between his past and his present-future.
Especially in case of asylum seekers or refugees, which is forced to leave its
country; maybe a migrant decides to leave its country, for many reasons, even
if in many cases who escapes has the necessity to do it.
Sayad call it the double absence, bcs the migrants don’t belong to the
homeland they leave anymore and they will never belong to their new country.
Also Bruno Catalano represents this absence in his statues.
Emigrations of Italians to other places, the money they sent home was the real
advantage of becoming a developed country. Not really the Marshall plan
promoted by usa after 2WW. In terms of migrants, with remittances, they really
helped the country to develop. This also helped the migrants to become richer
and able to buy their own land, and this also lead to the abolition of Mezzadria
in Italy in 1982.
There are also the illegal migrants, invisible, without identity. But there is a
differtence: the act is illegal but the person is not, the person is irregular. Only
the 10% of the irregular are arrived by boat, but the rest are overstayers.
There is also a differential inclusion.
Berger’s book is divided into three part: departure, work and return.
The return is usually divided in voluntary return and forced return (10000£), but
in several cases they are not different.
There is a company in Italy, the assisted voluntary return, which offers to
migrants an economic support in order to go back home, costs 2000-3000£.
This in Italian is called: rimpatrio volontario assistito, which is different from
