Border Heritage opens new insights in migration studies through analysis of the same emblematic eastern-central European borderland in Trieste, crossed by four refugee migrations over 70 years of history (1945-2022). Born from a dual personal and professional perspective, the book's original structure starts from the Ukrainian displacement, going back to the asylum seekers arriving via the Balkans, then to refugees from the former Yugoslavia, and the exodus from Istria after the Second World War; the second part focuses on places, objects, and displaced memories. Each chapter begins with a particularly significant account by a refugee, which anchors the argument in everyday life and gives a human dimension to the following conceptual developments. All but scattered, the narrative plot offers a cohesive thread through the various chapters, analyzing how the various migrations have stratified, overlapped, and contaminated each other. Critically rethinking the heritage of a borderland means rethinking cognitive categories and being able to perceive the different nuances of those on the margins, without necessarily wanting to merge them into a generic "social inclusion" and instead giving them the right to a different voice. This book reverses the monochrome historical perspective to instead adopt the migrants' perspective and make them the subject of study in a set of historical migrations.
Roberta Altin is associate professor of cultural anthropology in the Department of Humanities, University of Trieste.
Table of Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Trieste, a Border Area Chapter 1: Refugees Welcome, Preferably Women: Migrants from Ukraine (2022-) Story of Tatiana Open Borders Gender Issues True and Bogus Refugees Migrant Women between East and West Chapter 2: Game Over? Asylum Seekers via the Balkan Route (2015-) Story of Abdul Arriving in Europe The Balkan Circuit and Network Different Scales of Solidarity Changes in "Borderism" Minors, The Only Way In Chapter 3: Yugoslavian Assemblage: Refugees from the Former Yugoslavia (1990s-early 2000s) Story of Arbnore The Fall of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Grassroots Hospitality Humanitarianism Changing Regime Old and New Europe-Bound Assemblages Chapter 4: The "Exodus". Displaced Italians from Istria and Dalmatia (1945-1965) Story of Rita New Borders and Refugee Relocation From Exiles to Refugees In-between Nostalg(Istr)ia Chapter 5: Borderscape Refugee Spaces The Great Human Hub The Silos and Other Past Refugee Centers Then and Now: An (im)possible Comparison? Public Spaces and Emplacement Chapter 6: Abandoned Things No Stuff, No Name Warehouse 18, The Cemetery of Things Border Archive Chapter 7: Bordering to Remember: A Critical Approach Resurfacing Memories The Past is a Foreign Country From a Displaced Memory to a Memory of Displacement Memories United by Humanitarian Reason Towards some Conclusions Fuzzy Heritage References About the Author
