Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Border Poetics of Migration: Five Mappings of Migration Literature in Norwegian and Swedish

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of European Migration in Literature and Culture

  • 126 Accesses

Abstract

Borders and border-crossings of different kinds are central to narratives of migration. This chapter uses examples from Norwegian and Swedish language novels and poetry to show how borders figure in migration and postmigration literature. It argues that developments in interdisciplinary border studies, border poetics, and border aesthetics provide conceptual tools for understanding borders negotiated by migrants on different spatial and symbolic planes. The texts examined can be divided into two strands, one consisting of works focusing on migration from one country to another, the other of works about postmigratory urban youth negotiating the spatial and symbolic borders of cities such as Oslo or Stockholm. The chapter concentrates in turn on each of the five border dimensions proposed in border poetics, not only the topographical and the symbolic, but also their variants the temporal, the epistemological, and the textual. It argues that textual borders are central to an understanding of how migrant and postmigrant experiences cross the epistemological borders of the public sphere. Along the way it discusses aerial borders, family stories, photographs, and multiethnic sociolects as they appear in the material. The chapter also suggests the emergence of a third strand of writing that could be labeled activist poetry. Texts discussed in more detail include novels and poetry by Maria Amelie, Athena Farrokhzad, Amal Aden, Gulraiz Sharif, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Sarah Zahid, Johannes Anyuru, Sarah Azmeh Rasmussen, and Romeo Gill.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Previous important literary traditions deal with the extensive Swedish and Norwegian emigration to the United States in the nineteenth century.

  2. 2.

    We now know that Maria Amelie was born in the Russian republic of North Ossetia.

  3. 3.

    The Norwegian word internat usually refers to boarding schools, which have a sinister history in Norway, as many were set up for the forced education and temporary settlement of indigenous nomadic Saami.

  4. 4.

    For a discussion of air travel in a Francophone literary context, see a forthcoming article by Anna-Leena Toivanen, “Peripheralizing the Metropolis: Aeromobile Portrayals of Paris in Francophone African Literature.”

  5. 5.

    For discussions of the border traumas of historical migration and displacement around the Finnish–Russian border, see Kurki (2021).

Bibliography

  • Aden, Amal. 2009. Min drøm om frihet: En selvbiografisk fortelling. Oslo: Aschehoug.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aden, Amal, and Håvard Syvertsen. 2015. Jacayl er kjærlighet på somali: En fortelling. Oslo: Aschehoug.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahmed, Roda. 2008. Forberedelsen: Roman. [Oslo]: Gyldendal.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ali, Sumaya Jirde. 2018. Melanin er hvitere enn blekemiddel: Dikt. Oslo: Aschehoug.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amelie, Maria. 2010. Ulovlig norsk. Oslo: Pax.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. Takk. Oslo: Pax.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amilhat Szary, Anne-Laure, and Frédéric Giraut. 2015. Borderities: The Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders. In Borderities and the Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders, ed. Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary and Frédéric Giraut, 1–19. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed., 2006. Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anyuru, Johannes. 2012. En storm kom från paradiset. Stockholm: Norstedt.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. A Storm Blew in From Paradise, trans. Rachel Willson-Broyles. London: World Editions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands: La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barkve, Marit Ann. 2018. The Other Mother: Motherhood Tropes in Norwegian Diaspora Literature. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhabha, Homi K. 1990. Nation and Narration. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borren, Marieke. 2008. Towards an Arendtian Politics of In/Visibility: On Stateless Refugees and Undocumented Aliens. Ethical Perspectives: Journal of the European Ethics Network 15 (2): 213–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brambilla, Chiara. 2015. Exploring the Critical Potential of the Borderscapes Concept. Geopolitics 20 (1): 14–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2014.884561.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brambilla, Chiara, and Holger Pötzsch. 2017. In/visibility. In Border Aesthetics: Concepts and Intersections, ed. Johan Schimanski and Stephen F. Wolfe, 68–89. New York: Berghahn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castillo, Debra A. 2007. Borders, Identities, Objects. In Border Poetics De-limited, ed. Johan Schimanski and Stephen Wolfe, 115–148. Hannover: Wehrhahn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clingman, Stephen. 2009. The Grammar of Identity: Transnational Fiction and the Nature of the Boundary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. 1980. The Law of Genre. Critical Inquiry 7 (1): 55–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fagerlid, Cicilie. 2020. When Author Meets Audience: The Potentiality of Literature to Re-narrate Selves, Belonging, and National Community. In A Literary Anthropology of Migration and Belonging: Roots, Routes, and Rhizomes, ed. Cicilie Fagerlid and Michelle A. Tisdel, 71–96. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Farrokhzad, Athena. 2018. Europe. In Öppet brev till Europa / Odprto pismo Evropi / Open Letter to Europe / Offener Brief an Europa, 32–45. Ljubljana: Beletrina.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2019. Brev till Europa. In I rörelse: dikter, 8–18. [Stockholm]: Albert Bonniers förlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fellner, Astrid. 2021. Grenze und Ästhetik: Repräsentationen von Grenzen in den kulturwissenschaftlichen Border Studies. In Grenzforschung: Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Studium, ed. Dominik Gerst, Maria Klessmann, and Hannes Krämer, 436–456. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier, and Abel Albet-Mas. 2013. EU-Limboscapes: Ceuta and the Proliferation of Migrant Detention Spaces across the European Union. European Urban and Regional Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969776413508766.

  • Gill, Romeo. 2008. Harjeet: Roman. Oslo: Oktober.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Ung mann i nytt land: Roman. Oslo: Oktober.

    Google Scholar 

  • Houtum, Henk van. 2010. Waiting Before the Law: Kafka on the Border. Social & Legal Studies 19 (3): 285–297. https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663910372180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Houtum, Henk van, and Ton van Naerssen. 2002. Bordering, Ordering and Othering. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 93 (2): 125–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Houtum, Henk van, and Stephen F. Wolfe. 2017. Waiting. In Border Aesthetics: Concepts and Intersections, ed. Johan Schimanski and Stephen F. Wolfe, 129–146. New York: Berghahn.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hussain, Khalid. 1986. Pakkis. Oslo: Tiden.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. Pakkis. 2. utg ed, Tiden pocket. [Oslo]: Tiden.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutcheon, Linda. 1989. Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History. In Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction, ed. Patrick O’Donnell and Robert Con Davis, 3–32. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ibsen, Henrik. 1879. Et dukkehjem: Skuespil i tre akter. København: Gyldendalske boghandels forlag (F. Hegel & Son) / Græbes Bogtrykkeri.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jagne-Soreau, Maïmouna. 2021. “I don’t write about me, I write about you”: Four Major Motifs in the Nordic Postmigration Literary Trend. In Postmigration: Art, Culture, and Politics in Contemporary Europe, ed. Anna Meera Gaonkar, Astrid Sophie Ost Hansen, Hans Christian Post and Moritz Schramm, 161–180. Bielefeld: transcript.

    Google Scholar 

  • Karim, Nasim. 1996. IZZAT—For ærens skyld. Oslo: J. W. Cappelens Forlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khemiri, Jonas Hassen. 2003. Ett öga rött. Stockholm: Norstedt.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2006. Montecore: En unik tiger. Stockholm: Norstedt.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Montecore: The Silence of the Tiger, trans. Rachel Willson-Broyles. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khosravi, Shahram. 2022. Afterword: Waiting, a State of Consciousness. In Waiting and the Temporalities of Irregular Migration, ed. Christine M. Jacobsen, Marry-Anne Karlsen, and Shahram Khosravi, 202–207. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kongslien, Ingeborg. 2007. New Voices, New Themes, New Perspectives: Contemporary Scandinavian Multicultural Literature. Scandinavian Studies 79 (2): 197–226.

    Google Scholar 

  • Konrad, Victor, and Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary. 2023. Border Culture: Theory, Imagination, Geopolitics. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurki, Tuulikki. 2021. From Heroism to Grotesque: The Invisibility of Border-Related Trauma Narratives in the Finnish–Russian Borderlands. In Border Images, Border Narratives: The Political Aesthetics of Boundaries and Crossings, ed. Johan Schimanski and Jopi Nyman, 105–126. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lotman, Jurij. 1977. The Structure of the Artistic Text, trans. Gail Lenhoff and Ronald Vroon. Ann Arbor: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures University of Michigan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Moslund, Sten Pultz. 2015. Towards a Postmigrant Reading of Literature: An Analysis of Zadie Smith’s NW. In The Culture of Migration: Politics, Aesthetics and Histories, ed. Sten Pultz Moslund, Anne Ring Petersen and Moritz Schramm, 94–112. London: I.B. Tauris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olaru, Ovio. 2017. Norwegian Innvandrerlitteratur and the Spell of Transnationalism. Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory 3 (2): 132–153.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rajaram, Prem Kumar, and Carl Grundy-Warr, eds. 2007. Borderscapes: Hidden Geographies and Politics at Territory’s Edge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques. 2004. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, trans. Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, trans. Steven Corcoran. London: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rasmussen, Sara Azmeh. 2013. Skyggeferden. Oslo: Humanist.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosello, Mireille. 2005. France and the Maghreb: Performative Encounters. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosello, Mireille, and Stephen F. Wolfe. 2017. Introduction. In Border Aesthetics: Concepts and Intersections, ed. Johan Schimanski and Stephen F. Wolfe, 1–24. New York: Berghahn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rumford, Chris. 2011. Seeing Like a Border. Political Geography 30 (2): 61–69.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sbiri, Kamal, Jopi Nyman, and Rachida Yassine, eds. 2020. Mobile Identities: Race, Ethnicity, and Borders in Contemporary Literature. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schimanski, Johan. 2006. Crossing and Reading: Notes towards a Theory and a Method. Nordlit 19: 41–63. https://doi.org/10.7557/13.1835.

  • ———. 2017. Frontières de verre / Glass Borders. antiAtlas Journal 2: 1–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2021. Seasons of Migration to the North: Borders and Images in Migration Narratives Published in Norwegian. In Border Images, Border Narratives: The Political Aesthetics of Boundaries and Crossings, ed. Johan Schimanski and Jopi Nyman, 206–224. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schimanski, Johan, and Jopi Nyman. 2021. Introduction: Images and Narratives on the Border. In Border Images, Border Narratives, 1–20. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schimanski, Johan, and Stephen F. Wolfe. 2013. The Aesthetics of Borders. In Assigning Cultural Values, ed. Kjerstin Aukrust, 235–250. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shakar, Zeshan. 2017. Tante Ulrikkes vei: roman. Oslo: Gyldendal.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2022. De kaller meg ulven: Roman. Oslo: Gyldendal.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharif, Gulraiz. 2020. Hør her’a! Oslo: Cappelen Damm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simmel, Georg. 1997. The Sociology of Space. In Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings, ed. David Frisby and Mike Featherstone, 137–170. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skaranger, Maria Navarro. 2015. Alle utlendinger har lukka gardiner: roman. Oslo: Oktober.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sturm, Anne-Maria. 2020. Grenzen und Grenzüberschreitungen: llija Trojanow—Dimitré Dinev—Sibylle Lewitscharoff—Evelina Jecker Lambreva. Berlin: Frank & Timme.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tisdel, Michelle A. 2020. Narratives of Competence and Confidence: Self, Society, and Belonging in Norway. In A Literary Anthropology of Migration and Belonging: Roots, Routes, and Rhizomes, ed. Cicilie Fagerlid and Michelle A. Tisdel, 125–156. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Trinh T. Minh-ha. 2010. Elsewhere, Within Here: Immigration, Refugeeism and the Boundary Event. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Victor. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: PAJ Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Viljoen, Hein, ed. 2013. Crossing Borders, Dissolving Boundaries. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahid, Sarah. 2018. La oss aldri glemme hvor godt det kan være å leve. Oslo: Flamme forlag.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This essay has partly come about within the research group “Migration, Borders and Identity” and is dedicated to the memory of its founder, Nelson González Ortega. I would like to thank Liridona Qaka for introducing me to Gulraiz Sharif’s novel Hør her’a! and for our discussions about this text and Khalid Hussain’s Pakkis. To Mikkel Nørregaard Jørgensen goes thanks for introducing me to the poetry of Athena Farrokzhad. Research connected to the NOS-HS-funded workshop series “Temporalities and Subjectivities of Crossing: Contemporary Public Migration Narratives in Europe” also fed into this text.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Johan Schimanski

Authors
  1. Johan Schimanski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Johan Schimanski .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Corina Stan

  2. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Charlotte Sussman

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Schimanski, J. (2024). A Border Poetics of Migration: Five Mappings of Migration Literature in Norwegian and Swedish. In: Stan, C., Sussman, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of European Migration in Literature and Culture . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30784-3_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation