Judith MISRAHI BARAK, EMMA-University of Montpellier 3 Paul Valery, France
Thomas LACROIX, CNRS CERI-Sciences Po, France
The notion of ecotone was first applied for the study of the contact zones between ecological systems. Over the last two decades, it has been used by scholars of postcolonial literature for the analysis of spaces of cultural interactions. Expanding from this strand of work, this paper outlines the concept of migratory ecotones understood as the outcome of the process of territorialisation of intersecting transnational circulations. Migratory ecotones are ambivalent spaces underlain by contradictory forces: an entropic principle of encounter and interaction, but also a negentropic principle of power, conflict, distribution, and hierarchy; a self-contained locus of social interactions and a crossroads where transborder flows and linkages converge. They combine three aspects: the cultural creativity induced by the co-presence of diverse populations; the visible and invisible presence of coercive powers; the human, economic and cultural connectivity within diasporic spaces. Global cities, migratory routes, camps hosting stranded asylum seekers are some of the contemporary ecotones produced by migration-induced flows of people, goods, money or ideas.
This approach has been developed within the context of a conference cycle ‘Ecotones: Encounters, Crossings, and Communities’[1] (2018-2022) gathering social scientists and researchers in humanities. Reflecting this interdisciplinary dialogue, the theoretical considerations developed in this paper will be supported by literary examples: a raft and a construction site as they appear in ‘Children of the Sea’ and ‘Without Inspection’, two short stories by Edwidge Danticat, and a shop which serves as a stage in Shani Mootoo’s short story ‘Out on Main Street’.
[1] https://emma.www.univ-montp3.fr/fr/valorisation-partenariats/programmes-européens-et-internationaux/ecotone
Mots clés : international migration|diaspora|ecotone
A103044TL