The Garden of Refugees
Issue: Vol 3 No. 2 (2016)
Journal: Journal of Contemporary Archaeology
Subject Areas: Archaeology
DOI: 10.1558/jca.30805
Abstract:
Every garden needs to be tendered, and needs a caretaker who knows about the cycles and moods of nature. It is hard to conceive that refugees may have anything to do with gardens, as they are always on the move. In this essay I will examine gardens and refugees. Gardens are not only ecological phenomena but also the articulation of ideas, places and action. They can be places that express the power of humanity over natural circumstances, the projection of an idealized order, or a place of seclusion and escape. That is the reason why gardens are a powerful trope, and that is also why they are sites of entrapment in societies that simultaneously incite and estrange the refugee. I will show that gardens are places in which refugees define some control over their lives, but also where they are rejected. I argue that the conflictive encounters that take place in gardens are better understood when we see them as workplaces, sites in which people produce goods to provide for themselves and their families, and to supply the market. In the end I will defend that the ambiguity of the garden conjures an invitation to us archaeologists: an invitation to glance beyond the narratives of victimhood that reinforce the estrangement of the refugees, and to see the transitory materialities of their lives as mirrors of our own societies.
Author: Rui Gomes Coelho
References :
Agamben, G. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, CA: Meridian.
Agier, M. 2011. Managing the Undesirables: Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Government. Cambridge: Polity.
Alanen, A. R. 1990. “Immigrant Gardens on a Mining Frontier.” In The Meaning of Gardens: Idea, Place, and Action, edited by M. Francis and R. T. Hester Jr, 160–165. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Arendt, H. 1998 [1958]. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226924571.001.0001
Baer, S. 2015. “Migrants: les riverains de la ‘jungle’ de Calais traumatisés.” Franceinfo 11 November. Available online. http://www.franceinfo.fr/actu/societe/article/migrants-les-riverains-de-la-jungle-de-calais-traumatises-744865
Bauman, Z. 1989. Modernity and the Holocaust. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
____. 1991. Modernity and Ambivalence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
____. 2004. Wasted Lives: Modernity and its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity.
Betsky, A. 2001. “Dig We Must: An Argument for Revelatory Landscapes.” In Revelatory Landscapes / Aaron Betsky, Leah Levy, Dean MacCannell, edited by A. Betsky, 8–17. San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Bleiker, R. 2000. Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491245
Boitiaux, C. 2016. “La boue au ventre. Dans le premier camp humanitaire de France” France 24 15–16 March. Available online: Part 1: http://webdoc.france24.com/grande-synthe-migrants-camp-insalubrite-calais-dunkerque-humanitaire-msf-mdm/ Part 2: http://webdoc.france24.com/migrants-camp-humanitaire-grande-synthe/
Burckhardt, L. 2006. Why Is Landscape Beautiful? The Science of Strollology. Basel: Birkhäuser.
Dettmer, M., C. Katschak and G. Ruppert. 2015. “German Companies see Refugees as Opportunity.” Spiegel Online, 27 August. Available online: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/refugees-are-an-opportunity-for-the-german-economy-a-1050102.html
Dog˘an News Agency. 2014. “Syrian Refugees Attacked, Urged to Leave in Antalya.” Hürriyet Daily News, 24 December. Available online: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/syrian-refugees-attacked-urged-to-leave-in-antalya.aspx?pageID=238&nID=76056&NewsCatID=341
European Council. 2016. “EU-Turkey Statement, 18 March 2016”. Available online: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/03/18-eu-turkey-statement/
Fassin, D. 2008. “The Humanitarian Politics of Testimony: Subjectification Through Trauma in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”. Cultural Anthropology 23 (3): 531–558. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2008.00017.x
Faye, O. 2016. “Crise des migrants: le FN tient Angela Merkel pour responsible.” Le Monde, 24 September. Available online: http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2015/09/24/l-allemagne-nouveau-bouc-emissaire-de-marine-le-pen_4770239_823448.html#HDr2sBzMQA1BazKJ.99
Ferencz, B. B. 2002 [1979]. Less than Slaves: Jewish Forced Labor and the Quest for Compensation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Franceinfo. 2015. “Migrants à Calais: la jungle est devenue une véritable petite ville.” 7 August. Available online: http://www.francetvinfo.fr/france/nord-pas-de-calais/migrants-a-calais/migrants-a-calais-la-jungle-est-devenue-une-veritable-petite-ville_1033081.html
Francis, M. and R. T. Hester Jr. 1990. “The Garden as Idea, Place, and Action.” In The Meaning of Gardens. Idea, Place, and Action, edited by M. Francis and R. T. Hester Jr, 2–19. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Germain, B. 2016. “A Garden That Outgrows Its Fence.” The Lyceum, 14 August. Available online https://learninglyceum.org/2016/08/14/a-garden-that-outgrows-its-fence/
González-Ruibal, A. 2016. Volver a las Trincheras: Una Arqueología de la Guerra Civil Española. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
Hamilakis, Y. 2013. Archaeology and the Senses: Human Experience, Memory, and Affect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139024655
Hardach, S. 2015. “The Refugees Housed at Dachau: ‘Where Else Should I Live?’” The Guardian, 19 September. Available online: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/19/the-refugees-who-live-at-dachau
Irigaray, L. and M. Marder. 2016. Through Vegetal Being: Two Philosophical Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press.
Larsen, L. B. 2012. “Korbinian Aigner.” In Documenta (13): The Guidebook. Catalog 3/3, 34–35. Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz.
Leone, M. 2005. The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital: Excavations in Annapolis. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520244504.001.0001
McGuire, R. 2008. Archaeology as Political Action. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Meillassoux, C. 1986. Anthropologie de l’Esclavage. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Mésini, B. 2009. “Enjeux des mobilités circulaires de maind’œuvre: l’exemple des saisonniers étrangers dans l’agriculture méditerranéenne.” Méditerranée 113: 105–112. https://doi.org/10.4000/mediterranee.3753
Moshenska, G. 2013. “The Archaeological Gaze”. In Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity, edited by A. González-Ruibal, 211–219. London and New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203068632.ch16
Ouest-France. 2015 “Réfugiés. Nouveaux heurts aux abords de la ‘Jungle’ de Calais.” 11 November. Available online: http://www.ouest-france.fr/monde/refugies-nouveaux-heurts-aux-abords-de-la-jungle-de-calais-3832298
Puggioni, R. 2014. “Against Camps’ Violence: Some Voices on Italian Holding Centres.” Political Studies 62 (4): 945–960. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.12051
Pulsipher, L. M. 1994. “The Landscapes and Ideational Roles of Caribbean Slave Gardens”. In The Archaeology of Garden and Field, edited by N. F. Miller and K. L. Gleason, 202–222. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Sontag, S. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Starzmann, M. T. 2015a. “The Materiality of Forced Labor: An Archaeological Exploration of Punishment in Nazi Germany.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 19 (3): 647–663. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-015-0302-9
____. 2015b. “Zeitschichten/Bedeutungsschichten: Archäologische Untersuchungen zur NS-Zwangsarbeit in Berlin-Tempelhof.” Historische Archäologie 2015, Article 2. Available online: http://www.histarch.uni-kiel.de/2015_Starzmann_low.pdf
Sun Express. 2015. “130 Syrian Refugees in Seydikemer Sent to Antalya.” No date. Available online: http://www.sunexpressnews.com/130-syrian-refugees-in-seydikemer-sent-to-antalya/
Thomson, R. 2014. “When We Garden, We Feel Happy.” Al-Jazeera, 27 October. Available online: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2014/10/pictures-when-garden-feel-happ-2014102771959578411.html
Tilley, C. 2008. “From the English Cottage Garden to the Swedish Allotment: Banal Nationalism and the Concept of the Garden.” Home Cultures 5 (2): 219–250. https://doi.org/10.2752/174063108X333191
Volavková, Y., ed. 1993 [1959]. I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-1944. New York: Schocken Books.
Werneck, F. P. de L. 1985 [1847]. Memória Sobre a Fundação de uma Fazenda na Província do Rio de Janeiro. Brasília: Senado Federal.