Ex-Centric Migrations examines cinematic, literary, and musical representations of migrants and migratory trends in the western Mediterranean. Focusing primarily on clandestine sea-crossings, Hakim Abderrezak shows that despite labor and linguistic ties with the colonizer, migrants from the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) no longer systematically target France as a destination, but instead aspire toward other European countries, notably Spain and Italy. In addition, the author investigates other migratory patterns that entail the repatriation of émigrés. His analysis reveals that the films, novels, and songs of Mediterranean artists run contrary to mass media coverage and conservative political discourse, bringing a nuanced vision and expert analysis to the sensationalism and biased reportage of such events as the Mediterranean maritime tragedies.
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Ex-Centric Migrations is crucial reading for scholars and students of contemporary Maghrebi, French, and Spanish literatures and cultures. It breaks new ground by encompassing the literature, film, and music of "return migration" and examining the trajectories of Maghrebi migration outside France.
" - H-France
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Ex-Centric Migrations plunges the reader into a tour de force across radically divergent artistic responses to Mediterranean migration. Indeed, the book offers the additional benefit of critically engaging the burgeoning transdisciplinarity of Mediterranean Studies . . . In its fresh, long view of Mediterranean cinema, literature, and music, the book conveys, much like the primary sources it examines, a sustained reflection on alternative, ex-centric migrations.
" - Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies
