Migration and Borders

BORDER – a collective poem

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Written by the participants at a series of creative writing workshops which took place in the Trampoline House during Spring 2016. Collected by Liv Nimand Duvå I live on the border between the I and…

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Lucky day

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by Liv Nimand Duvå • 2016 I’m standing in a room with my partner at the Swedish Migration Agency. We’re here to hand in our application for a Swedish residence permit, which should then allow…

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Keeping warm in cold country

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When you exit the metro at Christianshavn in Copenhagen you see a number of statues known as the Greenland Monument. They were made from red granite by the Danish sculptor Svend Rathsack after he had…

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A burning taste of exile

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Recommendation: Warsan Shire: Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth. Poems. flipped eye publishing 2011 By Lise Olivarius The first words of Warsan Shire’s collection of poems read: “I have my mother’s mouth and my…

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The border produces the violence that surrounds it

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Recommendation: Reece Jones: Violent Borders. Refugees and the Right to Move. Verso 2016 By Lise Olivarius • 2017 Why are states so obsessed with restricting the movements of people, and particularly poor people? This is…

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Burning the strait

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Can migration and literature be mutually generating ways of escaping reality? Is the paperlessness of undocumented migrants a liberation from constricting identity, or does it rather result in painful identity crises? How is the boat…

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Who is a refugee?

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By Ali Ali • 2016 Don’t panic. This text is not a legal document stating who is eligible for asylum. A refugee without paperwork When they ask me if I am a refugee, I say…

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Waiting for Asylum

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visAvis brings two poems by Reem Zakzouk, a stateless woman of Palestine, born in Saudi Arabia and currently living in Sweden. In her writing she explores questions of exile and belonging, registration versus recognition and…

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