Transit

Abstract

The end of the 20th century has witnessed an influx of displacements with refugee population transiting through different European countries and continents in search of a better life, complete with regulatory papers and permits. With the fall of borders and walls, a result of the Schengen agreement (1985), and the fall of the Berlin wall (1989), the circulation of refugees has increased, although as anticipated ‘nationalism, ethnic absolutism, religious bigotry and economic backwardness threaten to descend’ (Hall 46). This issue is a part of national and European electoral platforms and politicized debates. Stuart Hall denounces the way Western Europeans perceive Eastern Europeans ‘in the same language they used to reserve for North Africans, Arabs and Turks. No sooner have the barriers collapsed but Europe is busy constructing a new set of margins for itself’ (Hall 46). A new ‘ethnoscape’ has risen, which involves the diverse groups discussed in the project, from tourists to immigrants, and workers. Arjun Appadurai’s terminology fits this particular scenario as ‘the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guestworkers, and other moving groups and persons’ (Appadurai 295).