Saïd Belguidoum, Constance De Gourcy (ed.), The Mediterranean through and through. Narrative, sensitive figures of mobilityPresses Universitaires de Provence, May 2025, 274p.

With the participation of : Maria Elena Buslacchi, Eleni Demetriou, Andrea Gallinal Arias, Léna Haziza, Sylvie Mazzella, Melissa Moralli, Léa Nivoix, Natalia Ribas-Mateos, Marie-Pierre Ulloa

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This book is a polyphonic account of the passage from one shore of the Mediterranean to the other, rich in the figures and testimonies of people who criss-cross the sea, often rubbing shoulders without crossing paths. It offers a new perspective on contemporary mobility.

Crossing the Mediterranean, crossing its land and sea borders, is an experience of mobility that raises the question of social, cultural, linguistic and political belonging between North and South. The very term crossing belongs to two contrasting worlds: tourism and exile. On the one hand, the crossing feeds an imagination of change of scenery and rest, the promise of new worlds. On the other hand, the Mediterranean calls into question our representations and our tools for grasping the dynamics of migration, at a time when the outcome of the crossing is never certain due to state violence against illegal migrants. The analytical comparison of these experiences, which intersect and ignore each other, invites us not only to go beyond certain stereotyped media accounts, but also to rethink migration studies in the light of crossings apprehended in their sensitive and heuristic dimension. Exploring the term "crossing", which evokes the sensitive experience of mobility and the imaginaries that weave it together, calls on our memory and our projections, and opens us up to experiences that are both contiguous and distant in a world of (non)relationships. Through their different points of view, the authors reveal the multiple meanings of a movement - departure, return or diversions - that takes both those who experience it and those who listen to the story along unexpected paths.

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