Although migration numbers have never been higher than in recent years, there is an unequal distribution in terms of who is allowed to travel where and under what conditions. Globalisation has brought about an increase in so-called “non-places” (Augé 63), anonymous spaces of transit, such as borders or refugee centres. Intermedial theatre, employing different digital, visual and auditory media on stage, is particularly suited to negotiating the different places and non-places connected to the migratory movement, and to address concomitant questions of home and belonging in relation to identity.
This interdisciplinary research combines diaspora studies with theatre and performance analysis as informed by semiotics and phenomenology, in order to examine the artistic strategies used in a selected corpus of contemporary performances that represent different places and non-places. This will help us to rethink current discourses about international migration, which has become ever more fixated on nationalist sentiments and the geographic location of home as all-decisive indicator of identity