Hope amid despair : encounters at the existential borderlands of the Mediterranean / Alessandro Corso.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Corso, Alessandro, 1991- Author.

Series:

Contemporary ethnography

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Emigration and immigration--Social aspects.

Emigration and immigration.

Emigration and immigration--Moral and ethical aspects.

Borderlands--Italy--Lampedusa Island--Social conditions.

Borderlands.

Border security--Social aspects--Italy--Lampedusa Island.

Border security.

Border security--Social aspects.

Lampedusa Island (Italy)--Emigration and immigration--History--20th century.

Lampedusa Island (Italy).

Lampedusa Island (Italy)--Emigration and immigration--History--21st century.

Lampedusa Island (Italy)--Social conditions--20th century.

Lampedusa Island (Italy)--Social conditions--21st century.

Lampedusa Island (Italy)--Politics and government--20th century.

Lampedusa Island (Italy)--Politics and government--21st century.

Italy--Lampedusa Island.

Italy.

Genre:

Ethnographies.

Physical Description:

208 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2026]

Summary:

"Hope amid Despair tells the story of life on Lampedusa, a small island in the central Mediterranean and the southernmost frontier of irregular and undocumented migration to Europe, or what is often referred to as Europe's "refugee crisis." Anthropologist Alessandro Corso examines the extraordinarily ordinary choices faced by migrants, migration workers, and locals on the island--and the decisions they make that foster distance, indifference, and abandonment or allow for mutuality, community, and life-building. Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork as well as oral histories and archival research, Corso follows the island's inhabitants through their quotidian encounters, detailing their impressions, misunderstandings, and reconsiderations of one another. Revealing perspectives and experiences that often run against the grain of prevailing narratives, Corso argues for an understanding of this border zone not as a site of order and control, but as one of existential struggle and moral possibility, characterized by fear and despair but also reconciliation, hope, and love. Challenging mainstream ways of thinking about how borders separate and categorize us as individuals, Hope amid Despair reveals the geographical, historical, social, legal, and ethical boundaries of what it means to be human"--Publisher's description.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9781512829532

1512829536

9781512829549

1512829544

OCLC:

1527862293

Publisher Number:

90104359184

CIPO000379835