Authors : Marie-Caro­line Saglio-Yatzi­mirsky, director of the IC Migra­tions and profesor at Inalco, and Alexandra Galit­zine-Loumpet, anthro­po­lo­gist and fellow at IC Migra­tions. Trans­lated by : Elisa­beth Hesel­tine and Melissa Thackway

Several of our fellows contri­buted to the writing of this book, inclu­ding Pauline Doyen, Naoual Mahroug, Marilou Sarrut, Léo Manac’h, Louise Tassin, Daniela Trucco,Yasmine Bouagga, and Michel Agier.

Summary. This book is the fruit of four years’ research by the Liminal team (Linguistic and Inter­cul­tural Media­tions in a context of Inter­na­tional Migra­tions – ANR, Inalco, 2017–2021) in camps and recep­tion centres for asylum seekers. Surveys were carried out in Pashto, Persian, Arabic(s), Urdu, Tigrinya, French, English, Italian, as close to the actors as possible, in the Paris region, the Calais and on the French- English and French-Italian borders. Using an original metho­do­logy and a multi-disci­pli­nary approach at the cross­roads of anthro­po­logy and socio­lin­guis­tics, the book draws up a migra­lect, the perfor­ma­tive language of the camps and borders, to deter­mine the power of language in the constrained situa­tions. The Talking Camps offers a new pers­pec­tive on language, high­ligh­ting what is at the core of migra­tion : a poli­tical expe­rience of violence and resis­tance. The migrant recep­tion crisis has rocked Europe since 2015 and remains a conten­tious issue in the current poli­tical scenario. The plunge into the linguistic universe of exile and asylum will be of unpre­ce­dented interest to migra­tion and refugee studies scho­lars, those working in the field, the media and to the general public.

Table of content.

Fore­word — Ranabir Samaddar
Intro­duc­tion — Babel Camps Marie-Caro­line Saglio-Yatzimirsky

Part 1 — Languages in Emergency

  • The Bubble of Babel : language prac­tices and spaces of unders­tan­ding in a recep­tion centre, Paris
    Maraudes. Emer­gency outreach on the Paris camps
  • The whis­pers and resis­tant voices of exiles in an emer­gency housing centre
  • Double exile in a village in the Var : Life forms and moral code of language
  • Can we be friends ? Naming the rela­tion­ship between volun­teers and refu­gees in a PRAHDA
    (Non)-use of trans­la­tion in deten­tion. Insti­tu­tional blockages and informal media­tions in deten­tion centres for foreigners

Part 2 — Migra­lect, languages of migration

  • The survival of languages : language prac­tices and linguistic land­scapes in centres for refu­gees in France
  • The words of asylum : expe­rien­cing the law through the of language
  • Trans­la­ting at the border : Profes­sional, socio­lin­guistic and poli­tical issues in media­tion in Venti­mi­glia, Italy
  • Inter­ac­tions in Calais and Dover. From a language of urgency to a border Language
  • “I write this souvenir so it may last a life­time.” From wall language to border-writing. Reflec­tions on graf­fiti in the migra­tory experience
  • “You speak Azil?” Conclu­sion on the emer­gence of a migralect
  • Metho­do­lo­gical Epilogue— Language and the Other. For an inter­ac­tional anthro­po­logy of migration

After­word — Since we have to talk about asylum, Michel Agier

Find more infor­ma­tion on the website of Setu Praka­shani.